The Legends of San Francisco

A collection of lyrical legends and poems that retell indigenous creation myths, coastal folklore, and romanticized origin stories tied to San Francisco Bay and its landmarks. Through narrative poems and framed campfire tales—an elderwoman's recounting around a redwood fire, myths of mountain formation, the making of man, sea spirits, gulls, islands, and lakes—the volume intertwines natural description, seasonal atmosphere, and local tradition. Verses evoke the fog, tides, shell mounds, hunting and fishing communities, and the tensions of change as landscape and peoples face encroaching industrial growth.