Viral Mythology by Marie Jones

Author:Marie Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Career Press
Published: 2014-03-24T16:00:00+00:00

Appleseed Stories

A perfect example of truth-based legend is the story of John Chapman, born in Leominster, Massachusetts, on September 26, 1774, and better known to the American public as “Johnny Appleseed.” Chapman was a skilled nurseryman who spent 50 years of his life growing apple trees and supplying apple seeds to pioneers in the midwestern United States. Chapman gave away and sold many trees. He owned a number of nurseries in the region, including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, and, as the legend has it, was very successful but lived very simply. He was a very religious man, and his generosity, along with his conservation efforts and the catchy nickname, made him a living legend. Possible embellishments to his legend suggest that as Johnny traveled, he wore his cooking pot on his head as a hat. Chapman also allegedly sang a traveling song or Swedenborgian hymn, everywhere he went, which is still sung before meals in some American households today: “Oooooh, the Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Lord is good to me. Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen.”

Johnny Appleseed has entered the entertainment lexicon with children’s stories, a movie, a Broadway play, and numerous cartoons, and festivals are held all over the country in his honor. Appleseed was a real living legend, probably far more normal and less eccentric than some elements of his legend suggest, and no doubt as time goes on, his story will be embellished even further. Yet at its core, is historical fact.

American Folk Legends By S.E. Schlosser

My double-great-grandfather, Richard Johnson, was a Pennsylvania Dutch hex doctor. Yes, you read that right. A real-life hex doctor who achieved quite a bit of fame in eastern Pennsylvania. People were carried into his office with badly broken legs and walked out again on their own two feet, completely healed. Legends are still told about the man more than a hundred years later. In fact, I met a Pennsylvania couple while hiking in Yellowstone last summer (2012) who knew all the Richard Johnson legends, which are still being told in their hometown.

When I was researching my book Spooky Pennsylvania, I interviewed a senior citizen who knew Richard Johnson. As a young child, she went with her mother to consult the hex doctor when conventional medicine failed to heal her fever-stricken infant sister. The senior citizen’s body shook as she recalled how Richard Johnson prayed and chanted over the infant, smoke rising from his gloved hands, which clutched red-hot coals designed to draw the fever out of the tiny baby. The terrifying scene was still branded on her memory 70 years later, because she thought the baby would die. But the infant was fever-free by the time the family reached home, and today is a grandmother herself.

By definition, a legend is a traditional tale that is passed down from earlier times and believed to have its basis in historical fact.

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