This is the second part of Balladeer’s Blog’s look at the swashbuckling legends that surround Francois Villon (1431-1463?), remembered as one of France’s greatest poets.
FRANCOIS VILLON – This part picks up with one of the most infamous incidents from Villon’s career as an outlaw and iconoclast. He graduated from the Sorbonne as a Master of Arts and had acquired such a reputation for youthful rebellion and hard-drinking bad craziness that “Villonerie” had become a catch-all term for disorder and disobedience.
Along the way Francoise had turned out a body of verse attacking and satirizing callous royalty and hypocritical religious leaders. In 1451 Villon and some of his rowdier cohorts targeted an elaborate theft as a prank against one Mademoiselle de Bruyeres, a huffy woman who led a personal crusade against every woman she believed to be a prostitute.
Recently she had harassed the honest young women who worked as linen weavers in the Marche au Fille, her paranoid mind labeling them all as sex workers based on no evidence. Villon and company sought to strike for the honor of those slandered ladies. Continue reading
FRANCOIS VILLON (1431-1463?) – The swashbuckling legends that surround this real-life French poet have sometimes been compared to tales of Robin Hood or Dick Turpin. Like Dick Turpin, Villon really did exist, but in his case he left behind an impressive body of literary work and he is still considered one of France’s greatest poets. 
Balladeer’s Blog covers a lot of mythology and folklore, so here’s a look at five monster legends of the U.S. (Non-Bigfoot categories). 
THE VAN METER VISITOR 
THE BUTTERFLY PEOPLE
KID RUSSELL (Cable Series) – “Before he made the art, he LIVED it!” would be the kind of eye-rolling advertising tagline that one could picture being used for a show like this. I’m not implying any disrespect to Kid Russell or his artistic legacy. Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my regard for the man. (FOR MY LOOK AT THE KID RUSSELL LEGEND CLICK 
PART TWENTY: I need to interrupt my look at the 1910-1917 and 1919-1922 Fool Killer items for this time around. In a surprising development Balladeer’s Blog was contacted by THE actual Fool Killer. Using Jimmy Neutron-level science I determined that this correspondent was indeed the actual supernatural figure who had been at large in America since the 1830s. 
Coming to you as I wander in search of fools to kill, as usual a murder of crows following in my wake to feast upon the ample corpses I leave behind me in my travels.
PART EIGHTEEN: In this issue the Fool Killer stated his mission in his newest incarnation (Or “regeneration” we could say with tongue in cheek.) was “the general overturning of all established institutions of every kind.” … “The Hour of Doom has struck for many of this old world’s pet institutions.” Quite a long way from his 1830s mission of driving the Devil out of the Tennessee Hills and killing fools who tried stealing the “hidden” gold of the Melungeons!
PART SIXTEEN: James Larkin Pearson, poet and newspaper man, carried on the Fool Killer tradition from 1910 to 1917, then again from 1919 to 1929. Pearson’s fellow North Carolinian Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans had written the Fool Killer Letters of the 19th Century so it’s appropriate that another Tar Heel continue the lore for so many years of the 20th Century. 
In August of 1917 Pearson’s nationwide publication called The Fool-Killer changed its title and format because of America’s entry into World War One four months earlier. That change from the hard-hitting satire of Fool Killing was made to show solidarity while the war raged. 
PART TWELVE 
Now we’re in the 1880s and 1890s. The Fool Killer lore of the Melungeon people was absorbing traces of Mormon influence from the wider culture. The Melungeons were NOT Mormons but their Fool Killer tales took on pseudo-religious elements from Mormon lore, like the notion that the Melungeons may be even older than the previously held legends about pre-Columbian Portuguese explorers or ancient Phoenicians. 
PART NINE: This installment draws to a close the opening era of Fool Killer lore but we have much, much more to go after this. (At left is the figure riding a train’s cowcatcher like he often did to get around.)
Balladeer's Blog 