Tag Archives: Myths and Folktales

September 22, 2026 · 8:46 pm

FOOL KILLER PART SEVENTY-SEVEN: SEPTEMBER 1915

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.

PART 77 – As always, it’s fascinating to read the over 100-year-old opinions of James Larkin Pearson (and by extension his Fool Killer), including the opinions that one doesn’t agree with. Here are the Fool Killer’s targets in September 1915. There was no August issue that year.

*** Former President Theodore Roosevelt for his repeated calls to current President Woodrow Wilson that America should enter the ongoing World War.

*** Uber-wealthy J.P. Morgan for pompously proclaiming that the war would be over within a year. (As we all know, it actually lasted until November 11th, 1918.)

*** The Chicago Evening Post for supporting U.S. entry to the war.

*** Thomas Edison, but only with a good-natured joke about his recent remark “I owe everything to my wife.” He said she should take Thomas for everything he was worth. Continue reading →

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September 15, 2026 · 8:45 pm

FOOL KILLER PART SEVENTY-SIX: JULY 1915

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.

PART 76 – As always, it’s fascinating to read the over 100-year-old opinions of James Larkin Pearson (and by extension his Fool Killer), including the opinions that one doesn’t agree with. Here are the Fool Killer’s targets in July, 1915:

*** Frank Holt – real name Erich Muenter – an Imperial German spy who was active in the U.S. despite America not having entered the World War yet. (We would not enter the war until April 1917.) In addition to teaching anti-American sentiments at Ivy League universities Harvard and Cornell, he set off a bomb in the U.S. Capitol building, sabotaged U.S. war aid being sent to the Allied Powers against the Central Powers in Europe and elsewhere and tried assassinating J.P. Morgan’s son Jack in his own home.   

           “Holt” also murdered his own pregnant wife with arsenic before taking his own life on July 6th, 1915.

*** An unidentified ripoff artist in Iowa who was selling a device which he claimed cured blindness. 

*** Cigarette smokers. For newbies to Pearson’s Fool Killer, he was a very early critic of the health dangers of smoking.

*** The rotating series of “official” Mexican governments, which made it hard for other countries to know which one to recognize. Continue reading →

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September 7, 2026 · 10:19 pm

JOE MAGARAC: NEGLECTED AMERICAN FOLKTALE

Joe MagaracLabor Day 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.

Though mostly associated with Polish-American steel workers in Pittsburgh, PA the general figure of a literal “man of steel” helping and protecting his coworkers can be found from the East Coast through the American Midwest. Sometimes the figure is Croation or some other ethnicity instead of Polish. 

Written versions of Joe Magarac and/or similar steel worker tall tales seem to have started around 1930 or 1931. Oral legends about such figures – but not specifically Joe Magarac – have been dated as early as the 1890s.

Vintage advertisements from tattered old newspapers indicate that such Man of Steel imagery may have been used for the steel industry prior to World War One. This “Which came first, the chicken or the egg” dilemma for Joe Magarac and other Steel Men puts one in mind of the quandary surrounding Billiken lore.        

Joe Magarac statueAs 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.

BIRTH – Joe Magarac supposedly sprang into existence from a mound of iron ore and – depending on the version – that mound was either in Pittsburgh or the Old Country. Magarac emerged from the melting mound fully grown and spoke broken English like so many of the other Polish steel workers. He was called into being by the urgent need to catch up on production since the current shift had fallen dangerously behind.

Joe was 7 or 8 feet tall, his flesh was like solid steel, his torso was as wide as a smoke-stack and his arms were as thick as railroad ties. His surname Magarac meant “mule” in the workhorse sense, referring to his stamina. Joe’s appetite was such that he carried his lunch in a washtub instead of a standard lunch box.

Magarac’s favorite leisure time activity was polka-dancing and halushkis were his favorite food.

THE LABORS OF JOE MAGARAC:   Continue reading →

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September 3, 2026 · 10:32 am

FOOL KILLER PART SEVENTY-FIVE: JUNE 1915

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.

PART 75 – Regular readers may notice that picking up in June of 1915 is quite a jump from last week’s Fool Killer installment, which left off in Fall 1914. That’s because I can honestly say that James Pearson’s version of The Fool-Killer hit a decided creative dry patch for several months.

I am genuinely surprised because Pearson’s Fool Killer had been so interesting. I’ve covered several 1920s installments and then slipped back to begin with his 1910 beginnings of this publication and nearly every installment kept me fascinated with every page. Not so with autumn of 1914 through May 1915.

Pearson seemed at odds with how to react to a world at war and was feeling his way toward how best to approach a satirical take. For months his output was so repetitious, unfocused and lacking in bite that I had to force myself to keep reading. I’m reviewing the June 1915 edition because it features his reaction to American deaths in the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine, a major development which nearly resulted in the United States entering the World War right then and there. Continue reading →

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August 11, 2026 · 4:41 am

FOOL KILLER PART SEVENTY-TWO: JUNE 1914

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.

PART 72 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the June of 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure.

*** Tycoon John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for his role in the Ludlow Miner Massacre back in April. A few lines from that condemnation – “Who trains the guns on helpless ones, til precious blood in rivers runs? John D. Jr.” (also as Johndee Junior).

*** The Dick Act, which was named after Charles Dick when it passed back in 1903. It granted presidents certain powers when it came to activating militias. Some feared that President Woodrow Wilson would use the Dick Act to start drafting American men to serve in the military.

*** Tycoons (he often called them Plutocrats) who spent more money on paintings of the Madonna and Child than they ever spent feeding and clothing real, live mothers and their children. Continue reading →

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July 23, 2026 · 10:57 am

FOOL KILLER PART SEVENTY-ONE: MAY 1914

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.

PART 71 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the May 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure:

*** President Woodrow Wilson, for his economic policies which Pearson and his Fool Killer blamed for bringing back the anti-working class (Grover) Cleveland Times.

*** The Government Printing Office which the Fool Killer deemed not worth the money spent on it because all they print is the Congressional Record and what amounts to tiresome government pronouncements.

      (How slow a news month must it be to bother going after the Government Printing Office? Too bad the National Egg Council wasn’t around yet.)

*** Bootleggers who were hurriedly transporting as much whiskey as they could from Virginia into North Carolina, where booze was now illegal. They did this because they could charge much more for liquor in a state where it was officially banned. 

*** Pompous High Society members who looked down their noses at farmers.

*** Readers who demanded Pearson work only with printers who belonged to a union, even though he lived in a part of North Carolina where none were available.  Continue reading →

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June 22, 2026 · 4:20 pm

FOOL KILLER PART SIXTY-NINE: MARCH 1914

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. 

PART 69 – Some of the Fool Killer’s targets on both sides of the aisle in the March 1914 edition of James Larkin Pearson’s version of the folk figure:

*** Mining companies that paid their employees in the infamous Company Scrip which wasn’t real money but could only be spent at the Company Store just to let the mine owners get back much of what they paid their miners as those employees had to buy groceries, clothing, etc. at Company Stores since no one else would accept the scrip as payment.

*** Democrat President Woodrow Wilson’s administration for supposedly making the economy so bad that more and more working-class people would be killing themselves with the new coffin-shaped mercury bichloride pills.

        NOTE: As I’ve mentioned in earlier Fool Killer installments, I find it fascinating how in the 19-teens and twenties socialists (and Pearson openly called himself one) hated Woodrow Wilson and denounced him as an ally of capitalist tycoons. Today, of course, socialists tend to like Wilson and it’s Republicans who hate him, blaming his policies for supposedly setting the U.S. on what they see as the disastrous route that we are still on today in their eyes. 

        As another reminder of how one cannot do one-to-one comparisons with political affiliations then and now, bear in mind that Wilson opposed voting rights for women, but Pearson and his Fool Killer supported them.   

*** Get-rich-quick authors who were selling books and courses about how to write photoplays (called screenplays today) so that the buyer could make money writing for the ever-growing movie industry. So basically, the Syd Fields of 1914.

*** The Charlotte Observer newspaper, where Pearson used to work, for supposedly having many employees who smoked tobacco and used drugs despite their editorial pages always condemning the “evils” of smoking and drug use. NOTE: Pearson counted alcohol and Coca-Cola as “drugs.”    Continue reading →

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April 1, 2026 · 11:21 am

FOR APRIL FOOL’S DAY: SIX MEMORABLE FOOL KILLER TALES FROM AMERICAN FOLKLORE

Balladeer’s Blog marks April Fool’s Day with this look at some classic Fool Killer folklore from the 1800s onward.

AN ORIGIN FOR THE FOOL KILLER – In the 1830s a Devil mated with assorted women of East Tennessee’s “Hill Portughee (Portuguese)” and one of them bore him a son. The son grew up to drive that Devil out of the Tennessee hills after tricking his infernal father into forging an iron staff that he used as a weapon against him.

               That son then became the Fool Killer, using his iron staff/ walking stick/ club to prey on outsiders “foolish” enough to come looking for the hidden gold of the Melungeons in the eldritch Tennessee woodlands. He also battled federal agents trying to stop the Melungeons from printing their own gold coins.

OPPOSING THE KU KLUX KLAN – In the Spring and Summer of 1870 the Fool Killer battled the KKK, whose violence in a few North Carolina counties had grown so extreme that the governor declared Martial Law. The folk figure opposed Klan influence in North Carolina politics as well as their brutal acts of maiming and killing people who opposed them.  Continue reading →

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December 28, 2025 · 1:15 pm

FOOL KILLER LETTER SET MOSTLY BETWEEN CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S DAY 1878-1879

Fool Killer RedBalladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the many facets of Fool Killer lore.

FOR PART ONE, INCLUDING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT, CLICK HERE

Fool Killer picPART 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 →

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September 1, 2025 · 12:01 am

JOE MAGARAC: THE STEEL MILL VERSION OF PAUL BUNYAN

Joe MagaracLabor 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.

Though mostly associated with Polish-American steel workers in Pittsburgh, PA the general figure of a literal “man of steel” helping and protecting his coworkers can be found from the East Coast through the American Midwest. Sometimes the figure is Croatian or some other ethnicity instead of Polish. 

Written versions of Joe Magarac and/or similar steel worker tall tales seem to have started around 1930 or 1931. Oral legends about such figures – but not specifically Joe Magarac – have been dated as early as the 1890s.

Vintage advertisements from tattered old newspapers indicate that such Man of Steel imagery may have been used for the steel industry prior to World War One. This “Which came first, the chicken or the egg” dilemma for Joe Magarac and other Steel Men puts one in mind of the quandary surrounding Billiken lore.        

Joe Magarac statueAs 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.

BIRTH – Joe Magarac supposedly sprang into existence from a mound of iron ore and – depending on the version – that mound was either in Pittsburgh or the Old Country. Magarac emerged from the melting mound fully grown and spoke broken English like so many of the other Polish steel workers. He was called into being by the urgent need to catch up on production since the current shift had fallen dangerously behind.

Joe was 7 or 8 feet tall, his flesh was like solid steel, his torso was as wide as a smoke-stack and his arms were as thick as railroad ties. His surname Magarac meant “mule” in the workhorse sense, referring to his stamina. Joe’s appetite was such that he carried his lunch in a washtub instead of a standard lunch box.

Magarac’s favorite leisure time activity was polka-dancing and halushkis were his favorite food.

THE LABORS OF JOE MAGARAC:   Continue reading →

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