Fun stories, and I’m sure there’s a hint of truth to them, but it’s interesting how stories used to grow so easily back in the day. People didn’t have much better to do than tell tall tales, and each time they grew. I’m sure Lincoln becoming president, especially after starting and winning the civil war, didn’t keep them from growing either. You have to one-up the other stories, and how do you get better than the real story? Suddenly he becomes superman.
The axe one at least is pretty well-sourced. A ton of people saw it and they all remember it the same way, because he did it quite a few times. Some of the others have definitely grown in the telling. The one about the wrestling match has about 30 different mutually inconsistent versions, I just included it because there’s probably some kind of grain of truth in there, and it’s fun.
Fun stories, and I’m sure there’s a hint of truth to them, but it’s interesting how stories used to grow so easily back in the day. People didn’t have much better to do than tell tall tales, and each time they grew. I’m sure Lincoln becoming president, especially after starting and winning the civil war, didn’t keep them from growing either. You have to one-up the other stories, and how do you get better than the real story? Suddenly he becomes superman.
The axe one at least is pretty well-sourced. A ton of people saw it and they all remember it the same way, because he did it quite a few times. Some of the others have definitely grown in the telling. The one about the wrestling match has about 30 different mutually inconsistent versions, I just included it because there’s probably some kind of grain of truth in there, and it’s fun.