I know this is a tale tale because the things in the story are unrealistic and the person was a hero. 

One example of a hyperbole is "With two twenty-pound hammers in each hand, John Henry dug 15 feet in 35 minutes."

He is a larger-than-life hero becasue he made a pathway for a railroad that needed to pass through Big Bend Mountain. 

He did that to show how strong Jon Henry was compared to the machine.