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Most American Tall Tale characters started as either Real Life people or mildly exaggerated fictional characters. Then people got to exaggerating them, then those exaggerations got exaggerated, and so on and so on. And, since they're Public Domain Characters, those exaggerations eventually become Canon.
Paul Bunyan? That fella could blow out a candle then hop into bed before it got dark, chop down an acre of trees with one swing of his axe, and drink Lake Superior and most of Lake Michigan in a gulp.
Davy Crockett used to kill a hundred bears each morning for breakfast, then go and kill a few dozen panthers for a snack. He could wrestle comets, wade the Mississippi, whip his weight in wildcats, stare most any critter to death, and shoot a baby gnat from two hundred miles on a foggy day with his eyes closed and holding his rifle with his feet.
Oh, and make a coon-skin cap look good.
The Real Life Davy Crockett was no slouch either. He was indeed a noted frontiersman, but perhaps his truest display of badassery was during his career in the House of Representatives, when he defended the rights of Native Americans at a time when President Jackson was illegally seizing their lands. Crockett condemned the President for his actions and refused to back down from his defense of the Native Americans. That's right folks, Davy Crockett was tough enough to stand up to Andrew Jackson and fought against a racist practice as early as the 1820's. When asked about why he didn't back down and go along with the President, Crockett replied "I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the White House no matter who he is."
John Henry gave his life to prove his--and by extension everyone's--awesomeness.
Cu Chulainn will FUCK YOUR SHIT UP. In the battle he died in he tied himself to a rock with his own intestines so he could remain upright and continue fighting.
King Arthur. Depending on the Writer. While he tended to get eclipsed by his Knights of the Round Table (especially Lancelot) as the Arthurian legends developed, in the early stages he was fighting monsters like the Giant of St. Michael's Mount and once single-handedly killed 960 men in a battle. When people like Sir Thomas Malory were compiling single narratives out of the many legends, these incidents were relegated to his younger days.
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