Minnesota Folklore, although its study and documentation has never been a priority among academics, is exceptionally rich. As the State has been the residence of such a wide variety of ethnic groups, Minnesota's folktales and songs are reflective of its history.

Folk heroes

• Paul Bunyan
  Paul Bunyan
  Paul Bunyan is a lumberjack figure in North American folklore and tradition. One of the most famous and popular North American folklore heroes, he is usually described as a giant as well as a lumberjack of unusual skill, and is often accompanied in stories by his animal companion, Babe the Blue...
  
  , the legendary giant lumberjack
  Lumberjack
  A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest...
  
  , is Minnesota's most famous export.
• Otto Walta, a Finnish-American homesteader and strongman from the northern "Pine Country," is the hero of many folktales told around St. Louis County, Minnesota
  St. Louis County, Minnesota
  St. Louis County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of 2010, the population was 200,226. Its county seat is Duluth. It is the largest county by total area in Minnesota, and the second largest in the United States east of the Mississippi River; in land area alone, after Aroostook...
  
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• Ola Värmlänning
  Ola Värmlänning
  Ola Värmlänning is a drunken prankster whose legendary exploits were once very popular among the Swedish-American communities of Minnesota. A Swedish language book about him is in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society.-Folk hero:...
  
  , a booze swilling, Swedish-American prankster from Minneapolis, can easily be compared to the German
  Germans
  The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
  
   Till Eulenspiegel
  Till Eulenspiegel
  Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...
  
  .
• Father Francis Xavier Pierz
  Francis Xavier Pierz
  Francis Xavier Pierz was a Roman Catholic priest and missionary to the Ottawa and Ojibwa Indians. Because he was also responsible for attracting large numbers of Catholic German Americans to settle in Central Minnesota, he is referred to as "The Father of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saint...
  
  , a pioneer missionary priest
  Priest
  A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
  
  , is the subject of many tales told among the Catholics of Stearns County, Minnesota
  Stearns County, Minnesota
  As of the census of 2000, there were 133,166 people, 47,604 households, and 32,132 families residing in the county. The population density was 99 people per square mile . There were 50,291 housing units at an average density of 37 per square mile...
  
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Folk songs

Much work of collecting Minnesota folk songs was conducted during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 by Bessie M. Stanchfield, whose papers and research are now housed by the Minnesota Historical Society

Minnesota Historical Society

The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota...

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• "The Beauty of the West," a Minnesota pioneer ballad from the 1850s, was collected by Stanchfield in the Spring of 1936. She arranged for it to be published for the first time in the Minnesota History in September 1946.