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Copper-Bellied Corpse. The American folk who emerge from this lore are robust, daredevil, imaginative, fond of broad humor, tender love, great deeds, crude, rude, sometimes full of noble sentiment, sometimes intolerant. They glorify outlaws (Jesse James, Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid), poke fun at woodsmen (Mike Fink, Davy Crockett), sanctify Johnny Appleseed. The U.S. gift for tall talk is flaunted in Sven, the Hundred Proof Irish man, and speeches by General Buncombe ("Sir, we want elbow room — the continent, the whole continent — and nothing but the continent"). The U.S. talent for epithet is flaunted in: "The man who would change the name of Arkansas is the original, iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of the Ozarks." The U.S. love of violence runs riot in stories about hard-knuckled, sure-shooting, two-gunned desperadoes, tough pioneers, chain-gang Negroes.
U.S. moppets also contribute hundreds of little rhymes that fit Editor Botkin's definition of folklore: "The stuff that travels and the stuff that sticks." Samples : Eight and eight are sixteen, Stick your nose in kerosene, Wipe it off with ice cream.
Mary's mad, And I am glad, And I know what will please her; A bottle of ink To make her stink, And a little nigger to squeeze her.