Invented tradition

Though these "invented traditions" appear to be genuine, rooted in historical images and symbols (whether real or imagined), they are actually of relatively recent origin and deliberately constructed.

Hobsbawm argues that invented traditions serve three main purposes: they foster social cohesion, legitimize institutions and authority structures, and solidify value systems and beliefs.

Dorson's examples included the fictional cowboy Pecos Bill, who was presented as a folk hero of the American West but was actually invented by the writer Edward S. O'Reilly in 1923.

Although Bunyan originated as a character in traditional tales told by loggers in the Great Lakes region of North America, William B. Laughead (1882–1958), an ad writer working for the Red River Lumber Company, invented many of the stories about him that are known today.

[18] Dorson complained that popularizers had sentimentalized folklore, stereotyping the people who created it as quaint and whimsical[14] – whereas the real thing was often "repetitive, clumsy, meaningless and obscene".

[19] He contrasted the genuine Paul Bunyan tales, which had been so full of technical logging terms that outsiders would find parts of them difficult to understand, with the commercialized versions, which sounded more like children's books.

[15] Daniel G. Hoffman said that Bunyan, a folk hero, had been turned into a mouthpiece for capitalists: "This is an example of the way in which a traditional symbol has been used to manipulate the minds of people who had nothing to do with its creation.

[15] For Olson, however, "the point is that I personally was exposed to Paul Bunyan in the genre of a living oral tradition, not of lumberjacks (of which there are precious few remaining), but of the present people of the area.

Francis said he heard this story from Croatian immigrant steelworkers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; he reported that they told him the word magarac was a compliment, then laughed and talked to each other in their own language, which he did not speak.

[23] Other American folk heroes that have been called fakelore include Old Stormalong, Febold Feboldson,[15] Big Mose, Tony Beaver, Bowleg Bill, Whiskey Jack, Annie Christmas, Cordwood Pete, Antonine Barada, and Kemp Morgan.

[25] Additionally, scholar Michael I. Niman describes the Legend of the Rainbow Warriors – a belief that a "new tribe" will inherit the ways of the Native Americans and save the planet – as an example of fakelore.