Summary
Summary of Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete at a glance
Summary: 8 min to read
- Reading time
- About 10 h7 h 55 min fast, 11 h 50 min slow
- Length
- 142,200 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1896by Charles M. Skinner
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
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Key ideas
Key idea 1
A young country has legends
Charles M. Skinner gathers tales to answer a familiar claim: a young country cannot have a legendary age. His answer begins with Rip Van Winkle, a man whose sleep on a mountain carries him into a changed world. From there, the journey spreads across places already rich in stories.
Skinner draws on histories, newspapers and spoken accounts, retelling each tale in his own way. The thread connecting them is place: mountains, rivers and shores become keepers of human memory.
Key idea 2
Rip enters the mountains' hidden world
Rip Van Winkle wanders the Catskills with his dog and gun, escaping his sharp-tongued wife.
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Key idea 3
Love and loss shape the landscape
Skinner gathers Native traditions connected with particular places, while acknowledging that these traditions are too vast for one book.
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Key idea 4
Fear and humor share New England
New England's tales move between deadly suspicion and comic bargains with the devil.
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Key idea 5
The coast remembers through ghost stories
Along the coast, ships return as apparitions, and strange sounds carry warnings.
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Key idea 6
Each region carries its own hopes
In the Southern swamps, grief can take the shape of a wandering light.
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Key idea 7
Western myths meet frontier ghosts
Western tales open on a broad scale, with floods, gods and mountains in conflict.
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Key idea 8
Wonder follows those who keep searching
The closing chapters gather buried treasure, sea serpents, healing springs and lovers' leaps.
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Key idea 9
Stories make places more than scenery
Skinner's claim emerges through the range of tales: America already has a legendary age.
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Go deeper: the whole of Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
About 10 h 20 min to read.Start freeWho it’s for
You will enjoy this if you love ghost stories, local legends, Revolutionary War lore and pirate treasure, and like to hear a place explained by its story.
What this book is
What happens when a man falls asleep on a mountain and wakes twenty years later, with a gun rusted to scraps and a white beard down to his chest? Rip Van Winkle finds out, and his story opens Myths and Legends of Our Own Land by Charles M. Skinner. Skinner gathered these tales in the 1890s to answer a common remark, that a young country cannot have a legendary age.
He says it does. He drew on histories, newspapers and spoken accounts, and he retold each tale in his own way. You travel from the Hudson Valley to the Southern swamps, the Great Lakes and the Pacific shore. Start in the Catskills, where Rip is still waiting on his hollowed stone.
In this summary
- 1A young country has legendsFree
- 2Rip enters the mountains' hidden world
- 3Love and loss shape the landscape
- 4Fear and humor share New England
- 5The coast remembers through ghost stories
- 6Each region carries its own hopes
- 7Western myths meet frontier ghosts
- 8Wonder follows those who keep searching
- 9Stories make places more than scenery
Catskill hills hold Rip and his ghostly crew
The book opens in the Catskills with the story most Americans already know. Rip Van Winkle is an idle, good-natured man who escapes a sharp-tongued wife by wandering the mountains with his dog and gun. Skinner says Rip was a real person, and he dates the sleep to 1769.
One September evening Rip meets a short, silent man with a green face and a keg on his back. He follows him to a plateau where strange men in old clothes play bowls without a word, and the rolling balls boom like thunder. Rip drinks their schnapps, lies down on a stone, and falls asleep.
He wakes with a rusted gun that crumbles in his hand. A tavern sign now shows General Washington instead of the king, and his wife is dead. Skinner says the silent bowlers are Henry Hudson and the crew of the Half Moon, who return every twenty years. A place becomes a legend when people give it a story to keep.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
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Check yourself
What central claim does Skinner make about America?
Right. “Skinner claims that America already has a legendary age, and he proves it with hundreds of short tales tied to real places.”Not quite. “Skinner claims that America already has a legendary age, and he proves it with hundreds of short tales tied to real places.”
How does Skinner describe the witchcraft outbreak?
Right. “Skinner calls it a delusion that spread like smallpox.”Not quite. “Skinner calls it a delusion that spread like smallpox.”
Where does Skinner believe legends are most interesting?
Right. “He argues that legends are most interesting where myth and history meet, as in the story of Captain Smith and Pocahontas.”Not quite. “He argues that legends are most interesting where myth and history meet, as in the story of Captain Smith and Pocahontas.”
Go deeper: the whole of Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
About 10 h 20 min to read.Start freePaperback, hardcover and large print, printed for you at cost, are on their way.Email me when it is printed
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 142,200 words
- Reading timeAbout 10 h
Questions about Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete
What is Myths and Legends of Our Own Land about?
It is a collection of American legends gathered by Charles M. Skinner. The tales run from the Catskills and the Hudson to New England, the South, the Great Lakes and the West, and include ghosts, witches, spirits and buried treasure.
Was Rip Van Winkle a real person?
Skinner writes that Rip was a real man of Catskill who began his long sleep in 1769, and that the Van Winkle family still exists. The mountain tale of Hudson's crew playing bowls comes from older local tradition.
When was the book written and is it a true history?
Skinner compiled it in the 1890s from histories, newspapers and spoken accounts. He calls the contents legends rather than history, though some tales rest on real events, such as Salem in 1692 and Rogers's escape at Lake George.
Who is Captain Kidd in these stories?
Kidd is a pirate whose supposed buried gold is said to lie all along the coast, from Key West to Halifax. Skinner gathers many tales of ghosts that guard it and of diggers who lose the chest by speaking.
Is the book easy to follow?
Yes, in its own way. Each legend is short and self-contained, with a clear place, a few named people and a single turn, so you can read one tale at a time or move straight through.
Cite this edition
Skinner, Charles M. Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/myths-and-legends-of-our-own-land-complete.
Skinner, C. M. (2026). Myths and legends of our own land — Complete. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/myths-and-legends-of-our-own-land-complete (Original work published 1896)
Skinner, Charles M. Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/myths-and-legends-of-our-own-land-complete.
@book{skinner2026myths,
author = {Skinner, Charles M.},
title = {Myths and Legends of Our Own Land — Complete},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/myths-and-legends-of-our-own-land-complete},
note = {First published 1896}
}
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