The Absence of Folklore, Pt 1

I've come to be fascinated with stories that are derived from folk traditions, fairy tales, and myth. I think it's because so many of my art heroes picked subject matter from those sources. Just as many of the medieval artists selected biblical subjects and stories, painters from the last 300-400 years have also selected topics for their paintings that drew upon different culturally relevant stories and beliefs. 

Many of my art heroes have depicted moments from Celtic myth or were inspired by symbolic elements passed down from their own cultures. The famous Glasgow Four often used plants, characters, and environments from Celtic stories and traditions. 

I've also realized there is now a contemporary "genre" that has emerged in recent years based in American folk horror, the most prominent being that of old Appalachia, in the eastern United States, both in writing and in gaming. "Hillbilly" horror that combines legends of white settlers with Native American  and nature elements seems to be extremely popular.

Unlike Urban Fantasy, which seems to rely heavily upon contemporary populated settings for the most part, Folk Horror often centers rural communities. It combines mystical "witch" concepts and Lovecraft-esque unnamed entities with southern gothic flavor. 

 So in looking to draw upon my own region's "myths", I have quickly discovered a problem: this region's "myths" are relatively young. The Humboldt County area wasn't necessarily populated by white settlers until roughly 200 years ago. And the cultural myths that are inherent to the region are Native American, and thus not mine to tell as a white male. Appalachia has 200 additional years of colonization history to draw upon.

There are, of course, the stories of Paul Bunyan which were invented in the US and Canada by pioneers, but those are Tall Tales--they don't have culturally significant lessons but instead recount epic events done by impossible characters. Babe, the giant Blue Ox, pales in comparison to the historical impact and symbology of Cerberus or Pegasus. Babe's function in those Tall Tales doesn't provide lessons of heroic daring-do that help us be brave or warn us of danger or teach us the perils of revenge and the fickle nature of gods. It feels like (to me, as a naive uneducated and unaware person who needs to do much more research) there's not much point to Tall Tales but the capacity to exaggerate for chuckles and wonder. 

So I feel like I'm a bit stymied in my efforts to find local regional folklore. Other areas of the US, like Appalachia, have almost made a cottage industry of sharing their eldritch roots passed down like a curse from Native tribes upon the white settlers who infiltrated their homes. Deep magic exists there, rooted in a mixed heritage of oral traditions. 

But no such magic exists here along the Redwood Coast, it seems. For a environment steeped in miles of untracked fog-filled forestry, the closest we have is Bigfoot. And that phenomenon has been culturally commercialized and lampooned to the point of comical irrelevance. Mystical, magical, and spiritual it is not. 

So what is there to do? Where can I find stories to provide subject inspiration? Where can I turn to find epics worthy of artistic depiction? Where can if find legendary sagas with larger-than-life characters of universal appeal? Where can I find my Redwood Coast fables and myths? 

Dare I invent them? Hm...