Fakelore

Behind all this was the mythy Paul Bunyan, that giant lumberjack from the North Woods who bestrode entire counties in a single step while accompanied by the equally gigantic Babe the Blue Ox. To be sure, as with other heroes of American fakelore — bear-wrestling Davy Crockett, coyote-raised Pecos Bill, river-boating Mike Fink — there lingered about Paul Bunyan an aroma of frontier development and chamber-of-commerce boosterism.