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 as he clashes with a Millerite Apocalyptic cult, recovers Christmas candy stolen from a black family’s children, stops a sleigh-ride assault on three women and ends the crime spree of a disgruntled gang of Civil War veterans. Continue reading
ASTOLPHO IN ETHIOPIA – When we left Charlemagne’s Paladin Astolpho, he had just vanquished the evil sorcerer Atlantes, then freed all of the captives in his invisible castle. Among those captives was the great Roland, the Emperor’s nephew and most accomplished warrior. 
These are the legends about Charlemagne and his Paladins, not the actual history, so there will be dragons, monsters and magic. 
THE EMPEROR SURROUNDED – When we left Emperor Charlemagne, he and his army were surrounded on all sides by the forces of Islam which had invaded the land of the Franks from both Moorish Spain and from North Africa. NOTE: Not all Tales of Charlemagne involve clashes with Muslims, in fact most involve his Paladins fighting giants, dragons, sorcerers, etc. However, this one does happen to feature them in such a clash. 
In the Zoroastrian version of the end times the Big Event will happen 3,000 years after Zoroaster/ Zarathustra introduced the world to the belief system that bears his name. For those who date Zoroaster’s birth to around 1,000 BCE that means the end could come any year now, but for those who date his birth closer to 600 BCE the world still has hundreds of years to go. 
CHUP – The sun god of the Ainu. His wife is Tombe, the moon goddess. Ainu homes orient their sacred window toward the east to greet the rising sun. Until recent decades it was customary to salute the sun upon exposure to its rays, similar to the practice of genuflecting to the center of an altar, but done without kneeling. 
Labor Day weekend is the appropriate time to post this look at neglected working class folk hero Joe Magarac. This figure was the Steel Mill equivalent of Paul Bunyan and John Henry. 
As a lame play on words since this is Labor Day season I’ll present Joe Magarac’s origin and then depict his tales as “Labors” like in The Labors of Hercules. 
The Etruscan people, who were a bit of a bridge between the ancient Greek world and the emerging Roman world long ago, remain a historical enigma in so many ways. 
TINIA – The Chief of the Etruscan deities, like Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. In the Etruscan creation myth Tinia separated the Earth from the sky and delineated borders between nations. Tinia ruled the sky and wielded three sorts of lightning bolts – one sort for warnings, one sort for intervening in affairs of gods or men for good or ill and one sort for inflicting catastrophes. 
3. SILA – The god of the weather and of the animating life-force, frequently manifested as the winds, which were looked on as the “breathing of the world.” For this reason he was also the deity governing the breathing of humanity and animals as well, since breath flows like wind in and out of us all. The life force was said to come from Sila and flow back into Sila after death, and then, through the lesser deities, was eventually sent back into the world via reincarnation. Because singing, humming and tale-spinning are also done with the breath Sila was also seen as the god of songs, tales, music and other creative inspiration. 
For April Fool’s Day here’s a look at one of the original Fool Killer Letters from Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans’ newspaper the Milton Chronicle. This one expresses his disgust with the Civil War tearing the nation apart and his intention to hibernate until it’s over. 
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. 
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