The Shadow
Stories abound about giants, dragons and little red wagons, from Paul Bunyan to Puff the Magic Dragon who lived by the sea where some little boy may have owned a little red wagon.
Biblical accounts of giants are many, Goliath being the best-known villain, one that David, the shepherd boy; slew with a single stone from his slingshot that delivered the stone dead center between the giant’s eyes.
How tall was Goliath? According to “The Bible,” the giant stood four cubits and a span. Since a cubit is roughly 18” and a span is roughly half that distance, Goliath was 6’9” which does not seem to be very tall today in that many players in the NBA are far taller than Goliath.
Currently, there are 23 players in the NBA who stand at 7’ or taller.
As for Paul Bunyan, it is written that he was 7’ tall with a stride of 7’ which would have helped him keep up with Babe the Blue Ox described to stand 10’, extend 8’ between the front hooves and stretch 23’ from nose to tail.
The story of St. George killing the dragon cannot be found in “The Bible” as can the account of Goliath, but the story that stems from the Crusades has it that a dragon was terrorizing the town of Silene, and St. George agreed to kill the dragon to save a princess who was about to be offered as a sacrifice.
According to the legend, St. George agreed to slay the dragon if the king would require his subjects, the townspeople, to convert to Christianity.
After receiving assurance from the King of Silene that he and his 15,000 followers would convert to Christianity, St. George beheaded the dragon with his sword, and the townspeople loaded it onto two oxcarts and wheeled it away.
“Puff the Magic Dragon,” a song recorded by Peter Paul and Mary in 1962 that was released in 1963, rose to the top of the charts where it remained for two weeks.
The song about Little Jackie Paper who encounters a friendly dragon, Puff, but outgrows Puff who lives by the sea was written based on a poem by Leonard Lipton, who wrote it at 19 while he was a student at Cornell University.
The purely fictional work that Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary gave the group its first top hit of 1963, and the group became the only musical act in the nation to chart two No. 1 songs that year after its “Blowin’ in the Wind” was released.
An iconic Radio Flyer little red wagon has permeated America’s culture for more than a century now.
In 1914, Antonio Pasin moved to Chicago from a small town outside of Venice. As a legal immigrant, he worked with his father and grandfather who were cabinet makers.
As he began tinkering with making things, he made a coaster wagon, and before long, he was selling more coaster wagons than cabinets.
In 1917, the Radio Flyer brand was launched. Radio Flyers as a company is well into its second century of producing iconic little red wagons.
Whether the story is about giants, dragons or little red wagons there is an element of truth about a legend whereas a myth is based on imagination. Inside any library, the two categories, fiction and nonfiction, will guide the reader to what is being promoted as fantasy and that which is being presented as factual respectively.
