Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore. FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN THE 1850s, CLICK HERE
THE FOOL KILLER (1918) – The 1918 one-shot publication called The Fool Killer collected written works by Dr Klarenc Wade Mak, poet, author and socialist political candidate for mayoral office in Kansas City, MO around 1918. Mak had also written Ekkoes (sic) from the Hart (sic) and Mental Dinamite (sic).
Mak’s Fool Killer was yet another of the many incarnations of this fictional, quasi-supernatural vigilante featured in folk tales and political satires from the 19th Century through today. The Fool Killer possibly originated among the “Hill Portugee” (Hill Portuguese) of the American south.
Those oral traditions of this deadly character may date back to the 1830s as Melungeons melded the Portuguese folk hero Longstaff with Tennessee traditions about a supernatural figure who killed any non-Melungeon “fools” who tried stealing their legendary gold.
During the 1850s Fool Killer tales were fused with political satire and commentary as Charles Napoleon Bonaparte Evans launched his series of Fool Killer Letters. Those fictional epistles, penned by Evans himself, were presented as tongue-in-cheek confessions from the Fool Killer about the political and social menaces he murdered to make the world a better place.
Evans added another element to Fool Killer lore at the start of the U.S. Civil War, as the vigilante grew disgusted with both the North and the South and hibernated in a cave for years. By 1870 Evans revived the character and his “letters” by saying the Fool Killer had emerged from hibernation dressed in the latest men’s fashions and ready to start killing fools once more. Continue reading
ARIZONA’S RED GHOST – From 1883 to 1893 Arizona was the home to multiple sightings of a monstrous four-legged creature with red fur ridden by a skeletal man or ghost. Unlike most legends that center around ghosts or cryptids, this one ends with physical remains and a rational explanation grounded in history. 
When the two husbands returned, they saw the woman’s remains and followed the tracks until they petered out, finding red fur in bushes and tree branches along the path of whatever had killed the unfortunate wife. The Mohave County Miner newspaper stated that the coroner’s report found that the death had happened by “some manner unknown”. 
BRADAMANTE IN THE WIZARD’S TOMB – We left off last time around with Mandricardo searching for the Paladin Roland so he could try to kill him and steal from him the sword Durindana, thus completing the armor of Hector. The female Paladin in white armor, Bradamante, was searching for Ruggiero the Moor, from whom she had gotten separated a few installments back. Ruggiero was likewise searching for her. 
MANDRICARDO AND THE ARMOR OF HECTOR – Last time around in the Tales of Charlemagne and His Paladins we left off with Ruggiero searching the Forest of Arden for Bradamante, the female Paladin in white armor, with whom he had fallen in love. They had become separated while fighting some of the Saracen soldiers invading Charlemagne’s realm at the time. 
PART 66 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the July of 1913 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure:
64. The May of 1913 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s Fool-Killer was lacking in urgency and satirical bite, but I found it to have a certain slice of life feel to it that captured its era yet also underlined certain tableaus that are seemingly eternal. 
Some of the Fool Killer’s targets from the January of 1913 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s Fool-Killer – 
THE VAN METER VISITOR 
THE BUTTERFLY PEOPLE
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