Jack Purdy and the Wild Bull: A Tall Tale

The tall tale is a type of story that may be based on a real character but is greatly exaggerated. Such a tale was told in the 1870s by the Frenchman Charles de Varigny, an Island resident for fourteen years. Jack Purdy, a cattlehand on the Parker Ranch and a hunter of wild bulls, was of English or Irish origins and was married to the daughter of a chiefess. The other actual person involved was Julius Brenchly, an English gentleman and scientist.

In the story, Jack battles and outwits a wild bull. Jack is the best rider in the Islands, a tireless hiker over enormous distances, and a fearless hunter of wild bulls. He carries only a hatchet, rifle, and knife. For sheer daring, no one can surpass him. Purdy is Brenchly’s guide up Mauna Kea, and they shoot and eat wild fowl but run out of gunpowder. They are hungry, and Purdy chases a fierce bull out of a thicket of trees. The magnificent beast with eyes blazing lunges toward the men but falls into a muddy bog where he is stuck. “So there is our dinner,” Purdy coolly says. He gathers bundles of marsh rushes, which he throws one after the other in front of himself, hitching himself along until he reaches the bull. He kills him with a single thrust of his hunting knife, slices off a piece, works his way back across the mudhole, washes his hands, lights a fire, and throws the bloody trophy onto it. The two men dine on steak. Brenchly departs as soon as possible for Honolulu. Purdy returns to hunting bulls and roping cattle.