"I have always looked upon fiddlers as people who in at least one area of their lives were a type of Western wise man.

Their tunes were like incantations, a form of ancient wisdom that induced high feeling."

Appalachian Fiddle - Miles Krassen

Well heck yes they were, Miles....As a matter of fact I can name several fiddlers who have 'induced high feeling' and then shortly thereafter gone on to  experience what we Western wise men like to call 'post-incantation incarceration'.

"..we lived down on the Williams River..and we always went to bed pretty early - about eight, nine o'clock.  And I laid down and I didn't seem like I could go to sleep.  And I laid there a while and just directly I heard the click, open come the door, and in walked this skeleton of a man.  And he was the tallest man...Lord, he was really tall, a-must've been six or seven feet tall or looked like that.

"..And he had - I noticed he had a fiddle in his hand when he walked in; and he walked about the middle of the floor where I was a-sleeping. 

"And he took off on the 'Turkey in the Straw" and boys I never had heared nothing played like that in my life.  And I shut my eyes to keep from looking at the skeleton of a man, but I was still listening at that tune.  And, when I opened my eyes, he'd - I waited till he finished the tune before I opened my eyes, but he - when he finished it he was still a-standing but he just turned and walked to the door, and just 'click' open come the door and out he went.

 "...And the next morning I was a-telling my dad about that. 'Ah', he said, 'thats a bunch of foolishness. Quit--' he said, 'that was only just a dream or something you had,' he said. 'Quit thinking of such stuff as that.'

'No,' I said, 'it was the truth,' I said.  I said I wished I could've played 'Turkey in the Straw', heared somebody else play 'Turkey in the Straw' like that. 'Ah,' he said, 'thats foolishness.'

"...And I never told no more about it, but I can still re-mind that - whatever it was, I don't know whether it was a dream or not, but I tell you I can still mind about it....A fellow only six or seven year old and still can mind that just as well as it was that day, you know it's bound to be pretty plain, now - or he couldn't've minded that."

Burl Hammons - Library of Congress - Archive of Folk Culture 

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