Current Events > It's a shame America doesn't have its own mythology to pull from.

(+) Yeah! (+)

American mythology are its founding fathers.

Link_of_time posted...

All kinds of folklore in America. It usually has a basis in Native, Miner, or Old West history.

California Dark Watchers.
Jersey Devil
The Mothman
The Goat Man
Beast of Bray road
Wendigo

This kind of thing for one. There's also more if you go looking for it. Cowboys that claim to have taken down a pterodactyl, Mount Shasta, etc. It partially depends on how far back you go, but you look at the Wild West stuff and you'll see a good bit that doesn't get as popularized. There's also the various "Gothic" iterations that you get about less populated areas (Midwest Gothic, for example). Tons of tales that come from the more purportedly haunted cities, like Savannah and New Orleans. That's also discounting Native American folklore, like you said. I don't necessarily agree with your assessment there and there's a lot of of more common stuff you can find like thunderbirds, but if you don't want to include that for some reason, that does cut it down.

It's also the question of how far back do you want it to go before it becomes "mythology". You could make the argument that talk of the Philadelphia Experiment or Mount Montauk is mythology, for example.

I would say that there is certainly less of it, since the US is a younger country. But there is stuff there if you go looking.

just as a sidenote, i've been playing fallout 76 a lot lately, and the one thing they do really well is use all of this mythology and folklore. as enemies, in the lore, as quests. they did a pretty great job of incorporating all of these into the game. i feel like most of the things named in this topic are in the game. just sayin'.

the white invaders probably killed them off

FortuneCookie posted...

You can't very well write a story in which a pilgrim battles a dragon which incidentally resembles a dinosaur discovered on American soil.

Challenge Extended

There's plenty of American mythology. It just isn't as distinctive, memorable, or popular as a lot of European myth that is commonly excepted as high fantasy. America has definitely contributed to that part too, just not as overtly imo

We kinda genocided the people who could tell us about it

cjsdowg posted...

Those are not myths , those are lies.

The corporatocracy is reality.

like 90% of any modern media about witches references a very fictional take on salem
the lost colony of roanoke

FortuneCookie posted...

The unicorn and the dragon went extinct before America was founded.

errrr unicorns and dragons never existed

also native americans had tons of culture but christians decided to destroy as much of it as possible

hell this is still happening to this day see trump gleefully signing off on destroying sacred native american land

_____Cait posted...

The American Dream mirite men?

But seriously, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Bigfoot, Boogieman, etc. Slaves had a bunch of other stories that Im sure you could dig up.

Boogeyman is American?

https://youtu.be/7IfkeKIugiY

How dare you, we are the nation that proudly demonstrated a gold retriever can be a professional basketball, football, soccer, baseball, and volleyball player.

Where would we be as a nation if we had not gifted the world such a majestically good boy mythology?