Great Lakes folklore

A horned serpent visible beneath dark lake water during an approaching storm.

The Horned Water Serpent

by Elizabeth Fabowale

February 4, 2026

American Cryptids & Monsters·Native American Beings

Still water often hides the greatest movement beneath its surface. Lakes and rivers of the Great Lakes region appear calm at dawn, their wide surfaces reflecting sky and forest as if nothing stirs below. Yet elders have long taught that deep water is never empty. Beneath these waters lives a being older than memory, known as the Horned Water Serpent.

An elderly woman kneels at the Great Lakes shore calling a giant sturgeon from the water with a wooden flute.

American Folktales·American Tall Tales

Granny Squannit of the Great Lakes

Along the misted shores of the Great Lakes, where fog drifts over reeds and the water laps like whispered secrets, there was a woman known to all who lived by the water as Granny Squannit. She was small in stature, hunched with age, but her eyes gleamed with a knowledge

Parchment-style artwork of the Sun and Moon facing each other in the sky, Cherokee folktale scene.

The Sun and the Moon Are Man and Wife: Cherokee Folktale (United States)

In the ancient days, before the world found its rhythm of day and night, the Sun and the Moon lived together on

Parchment-style illustration of Rip Van Winkle waking on a Catskill Mountains slope, American folktale.

Rip Van Winkle, The Man Who Slept for Twenty Years: American Folktale of Time and Change

At the foot of the misty Catskill Mountains in colonial New York, there once lived a good-natured man named Rip Van Winkle.

Parchment-style illustration of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in snowy woods, American folktale.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox: An American Folktale that Teaches Lessons on Strength, Teamwork, and the Power of Legend

Long ago, in the rugged northern forests of America, where towering pines whispered to the wind and the snow stretched farther than

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