Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore.
FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE
PART SEVEN: The seventh surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.)
February 13th of 1879 was the publication date but January 30th was the date of the letter itself. For the location the Fool Killer simply wrote “Mountain Cave” as in his secret cavern lair which was never glimpsed by human eyes.
Many of Jesse Holmes’ activities that he recounts to Editor Charles Evans (the real author of the letters) in this missive happened around Christmas 1878 through New Year’s. That being the case A Very Fool Killer Christmas might be a good title.
Between Woodsdale and Clarksville the roaming murderer came across a weeping young man driving a wagon full of chickens. It turned out that the figure was crying because he took his girlfriend to a Yuletide party and agreed to let an old bachelor walk her home. The old bachelor convinced her to marry him and they immediately went to a magistrate’s house and were wed.
The Fool Killer administered a non-fatal beating to the young man for his foolishness in letting the bachelor walk his girl home AND for wasting time crying over such an inconstant belle when there were plenty more fish in the sea.
Holmes then set out to snuff the devious old bachelor and also came across another young man who had been played false by the same woman who victimized the wagon driver. This suitor had swum the Hyco River in North Carolina, risking pneumonia at that time of year, just to see the girl. The Fool Killer advised him about the belle’s true nature and gave him a token swat for being suckered in by that designing woman and risking his life for her.
His recent late January antics dispensed with, Jesse moved on to recap his murderous activities from shortly before Christmas Eve to New Year’s Eve. The Fool Killer saved a pious and religious man named Charles Butts from three not-right men pushing a kind of Millerite end of the world belief enroute to a Christmas Party.
The trio tried to persuade Butts into joining them in a suicide pact to show their faith before the imminent end. When Charles refused, the three drunken apocalypticists grew hostile and implied they might take him with them against his will. The Fool Killer intervened with his club/ walking stick/cudgel and his set of Bowie knives and slew the three loons.
Next our homicidal vigilante set out to deliver punishment and recover the stolen coffin and cadaver of the wealthy Alexander Turney Stewart. Alexander had died in 1876 but in 1878 grave-robbers made off with his casket and corpse from St Mark’s. Continue reading
PART SIX: The sixth surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.) 
The Fool Killer complained that for every fool he slew with his club/ walking stick/ cudgel or his set of Bowie knives (each blade inscribed with the words “Fool Killer”) three more fools sprang up to take their place. He said that fools were as plentiful as grains of sand on the beach. 
Holmes’ body count in this letter started off with assorted nouveau riche snobs of the Gilded Age, whom he condemned as would-be aristocrats. The Fool Killer struck down these formerly poor people who became wealthy and then put on airs, snubbing friends and relations who were not as well off and forbidding their daughters to even be seen dancing with “mechanics” (the term used in the actual 1877 letter). 
PART FIVE: The fifth surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.) 
This letter has Jesse Holmes claim he is waking up from a nap begun AFTER the Civil War ended. Previous letters had the Fool Killer begin his hibernation in 1861 or 1862, motivated by disgust at the fools who brought on the Civil War. Under that initial timeline Holmes emerged from his hibernation around 1870, dressed in up to date men’s fashion, to resume his killing spree by preying on Ku Klux Klansmen and northern Carpetbaggers alike. 
We’ll probably never know and may be giving it more thought than Charles Evans himself did. So, on to the murders that the Fool Killer confesses to in this letter. 
PART FOUR: The fourth surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation.) 
PART THREE: The third surviving Fool Killer Letter. (See Part One for an explanation) 
JUNE 28th, 1861 – From “Down about Norfolk, VA.” (The Fool Killer wandered North Carolina and Virginia – which back then still included what is now West Virginia – and the dark-humored Fool Killer Letters were syndicated in several newspapers in addition to his North Carolina “birth place” the Milton Chronicle.) 
In this letter the Fool Killer adds a collection of Bowie knives to his arsenal alongside his ever-present club/ walking stick/ cudgel. Future incarnations of the Fool Killer in folk tales, short stories, novels and plays will assign him various axes, guns and even a scythe. Comic book depictions will add weapons like a sword and a high-tech “Purification Gun” which shoots white energy blasts of undetermined nature. 
(My fellow geeks for 19th Century American history will recall that these routes – sometimes referred to as Star Routes because they were indicated by three stars on the route indexes – were often at the center of bidding scandals.) 
In this case the distraction came in the form of “a venerable and mighty clever man” who asked Holmes to find out who had stolen his prize turkey. Armed as always with his club/ walking stick/ cudgel the Fool Killer began his investigation. 
However, since Evans was all about the written word, he used the Fool Killer as a much more active figure. Evans’ Fool Killer – claiming Jesse Holmes as his real name – roamed North Carolina and Virginia (which at the time still consisted of what would become West Virginia) looking for fools to kill with a club/ walking stick he always carried with him. The character would then send letters to Editor Evans explaining why he had chosen victims, defending his actions with puckish commentary. 
ADI-MAILAGU – This goddess was one of the evil deities driven from the Skyworld by the Fijian demigod Tuilakemba. When Adi-Mailagu first fell from the sky humans witnessed her landing in Uruone, Fiji. She fell into the small Kele Kele River and caused the water to overflow the banks. Embarrassed, the goddess emerged from the water in the form of a large grey rat and fled into the jungle since Fijian deities are vulnerable when in animal form. 
HODADEION PART 11: THE WRATH OF HODADEION – As the demigod Hodadeion stalked angrily toward the large longhouse lodge in which the cannibal wizards and their women were tormenting his younger brother Otgoe, he had but one regret. That was that the Chief of the cannibal wizards, Dagwahgweoses, was away at his private lodge and would need to be dealt with separately. 
Yes, it’s round two of this Christmas-time tradition of examining the folklore surrounding Charlemagne and his Paladins (Knights). For the first installment click 
ARCHBISHOP TURPIN OF RHEIMS – This Paladin was the legendary “Battling Bishop” who fought alongside Charlemagne and his other men in the field. 
OGIER THE DANE – Though he would go on to serve as one of Charlemagne’s most storied Paladins, Ogier was born to Geoffrey, the first Christian King of Denmark. Shortly before the child was to be baptized, six beautiful fairy maidens appeared and took turns holding the infant in their arms before kissing him and passing him on to the next maiden in line. 
The sixth and youngest maiden was Morgana le Fey, who has a much different history in the legends of Charlemagne than in Arthurian lore. Morgana told the baby Ogier that she claimed him for her own (“imprinted” on him, you Twilight fans might say). She decreed that he would never die until he had come to visit her on the Isle of Avalon. 
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