The Song of Hiawatha between the original stories, as "reshaped by Schoolcraft," and the episodes in the poem are but superficial, and Longfellow omits important details essential to Ojibwe narrative construction, characterization, and theme. This is the case even with "Hiawatha’s Fishing," the episode closest to its source. Some important parts of the poem were more or less Longfellow's invention from fragments or his imagination. "The courtship of Hiawatha and Minnehaha, the least 'Indian' of any of the events in "Hiawatha", has come for many readers to stand as the typical American Indian tale." Also, "in exercising the function of selecting incidents to make
Paul Revere over 40 years after Revere's death, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the midnight ride the subject of his poem "Paul Revere's Ride" which opens: Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate, but the inaccuracies were deliberate. Longfellow had researched the historical event, using such works as George Bancroft's "History of the United States", but he changed the facts for poetic effect. The poem was one of a series in which he sought to create American legends; earlier examples include "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855) and "The Courtship of Miles Standish" (1858). Longfellow was successful in creating a legend: Revere's stature rose significantly