Chapter One
“UP WE JUMP AND
HERE WE GO”
Hilma Yates:
I used to hear 'em say there was a fellow lived in here, they called him -- let's see -- Jim Royal. He was colored. Said he was a little bitty nigger and said he looked just like a man like everybody else. Said he used to have a little white horse just as white as snow and the puniest thing. He used to ride on that horse and he'd sail, said he'd just actually sail in the air on that horse. Anybody'd get after him or the law would get after him for anything he'd do, he'd take a little switch and touch that little white horse on the flanks and he'd holler, "Up we jump and here we go." And said that little horse would get up and just sail through the air. Course that was 'fore my time but I heard the ancestors say he could fly on his horse and he was a great fiddle player and he could do more kinda magic tricks.
Jim Royal's daddy was gonna whip him one time. Said his daddy went to beat on him and he looked and he was beating a stump and Jim Royal was up on the hill laughin' at him. He must have been the devil.
Jim Royal played a fiddle quite a bit and they said he could set up in a brush pile, they'd set the brush pile afire and he'd be playing his fiddle and he would vanish. He'd set on a stump and play with the fire burning all around -- he wouldn't burn playing his fiddle while the fire was burnin' all 'round him and first thing you know Jim Royal'd be vanished.
Course you know that was fairy tales they was tellin' but the old people say it too. All that was handed down and they believed all that stuff about Jim Royal.
Robert Shiflett:
Jim Royal was an old slave that they claimed knew a lot about black magic. His people had learned it in Africa, brought it here with them. Now there's a legend about Jim Royal. I have heard old timers and I can remember back fifty years ago when these tales were current. Jim Royal they said could take his violin and smash it over the back of a chair. It would fall to pieces. He would toss the pieces down and it'd go back together again. Course that's a little hard to swallow and always has been. And they said his master would send him out to hoe corn. He'd go out to the fields to see how he's gettin' along. Jim would be up on the stump playin' the fiddle and the hoe just workin' the corn right alone. Course that make him sort of a valuable slave, I guess. Hoe wouldn't get tired by itself.
So there were tales told about him that were remarkable. And now this incident I'm goin' to relate, it's not unknown today and I guess the other things could be just as true -- just as possible rather. It seems he was always welcome as an entertainer at ev'ry gatherin'. There was some sort of mountain shindig, apple butter boilin' maybe or sump'n goin' on in a place over in Greene County and Jim Royal was there. And they had heard that he could walk through fire and he said he could. It seems that the information he give out was his own undoin'. There was a big still on the fire and ev'rybody drinkin'. Mountain people always drink. So there's room enough under that still for a big log fire -- great big still, you know. They had bonded stills in those days. So some of these people that claimed they knew Jim Royal could do it asked him to get back in this fire and play his fiddle. And they told the crowd, he can play his violin back in that fire and won't singe a hair on his head nor one on the fiddle bow. And they all wanted to see it. Well, it was sorta cramped quarters under that still. According to the legend he made one condition, which if he hadna made he probably wouldn've lost his life, that they throw no spirits on the fire -- no whiskey to be throwed. And course whiskey was runnin' out the other end of the still by the bucketsful, runnin' off in wooden buckets and pour'd in barrels. And they claimed he got back under there and was playin' his violin when some one of these big, rough mountaineers, probably drunk, picked this bucket of whiskey up from under what they called the worm of the still, walked around and threw it under there and burned him up. That's the legend on the death of Jim Royal. Well, as I say, there are primitive peoples -- what we would classify as partially primitive anyhow - that can walk through fire -- it's been demonstrated they can do it. It's just no more possible for him. Explorers say that the African people knew more than some of our scientists about nature. We depend on a machine age where they been livin' close to nature all their life. There was a Jim Royal, he did exist now and I had heard old-timers that said they knew that he was burnt under that still.
How Linkus Shiflett learned to play the fiddle from Jim Royal. That's what I'm comin' to now. Linkus never claimed to have any of the power or the ability to do those kind of things that Jim Royal had but he did tell how he learned to play the violin. Now Linkus Shiflett was classed as a good man by all people that knew him. He had that reputation-a kind man and certainly not a liar as far as I could ever learn. And they asked him how he acquired such a talent. They say he was wonderful, just a mountain boy, you know, grew up a mountain boy. First violin he ever had he had to make out of a gourd. So he told me after Jim Royal was gone that he asked Jim Royal if he could teach him to play the violin like he did. He said, "If you wanta go through the ordeal that it would require," said, "yes, you can be as good a violinist as I am." And he asked him how. He designated an old outhouse somewhere. They built outhouses in those days for smokehouses or to put root crops and vegetables in and things like that. Jim Royal told him to bore nine holes through an ironwood tree, that was the first process -- to bore nine holes through this ironwood tree. And ev'ry mornin' for nine mornin's he was to go and run his fiddle bow through all those nine holes nine times each. And there was various other things that he was required to do that have slipped my memory now but the one that stands out the most is the last one he was told. He said, "Now you have one more test." And he designated this old outhouse that Linkus must go to on a certain day and he must never speak. When he got out he wasn't to speak until he got back home. And he said he must stand his ground no matter what he saw or what happened, he musn't speak or he musn't move. So accordin' to the legend Linkus said that ev'ry horrible thing imagined would come in that outhouse and said he stood shakin'. But he said part of the time he was paralyzed and couldn't move. But said he stood it all until at last a big black snake crawled through the logs and come in and begin to wrap himself around his leg and climb on up until he wrapped himself around his neck and he started to put his head in his mouth -- he was standin' there with his mouth open -- and said he broke down and shook the snake off and broke and run. And so when he saw Jim Royal again, he told him about it. Said, "I stood my ground for ev'rything else, but I couldn't stand the snake puttin' his head in my mouth." "Well," he said, "you got to go through with it all or you'll never learn to play." And he wanted to play the violin so bad he set another day to go. He said that time he stood his ground and said it was worse, ev'ry hideous thing that he could imagine come into that building to torment him. And last thing the snake put his head in his mouth clear back to his throat three times and dropped to the ground, crawled away, was nothin' there. Linkus said he went on back home. From then on he said he could play the violin as good as Jim Royal. And he was a famous violinist for these mountains. So that was his version of how he acquired his ability to play the violin so well. My grandfathers have heard him play. Some of the old-timers that I knew have heard him play.
David Morris:
He was a fiddler. He'd handle the fiddle and do more with it than other people. He'd lay a spell or cause the strings to bust off another man's fiddle so they couldn't fiddle. He'd say, "Hand it over here. I can fix it for you." He could fix it so it'd play all night.
Marybird McAllister:
Well, if they'd ever be a dance anywhere in old times, Linkus would play the fiddle. This here other man would play the fiddle. I fergit his name. And he couldn't play a piece fore ever' string'd break on his fiddle. Fast as he put on one, it'd break off if Linkus didn't want you to play. Old Linkus could play the fiddle too. If he wanted to play over here and this here Bob wanted to play over at this place, he wanted to git both places to play at you see. And ever string would break on that man's fiddle. Well now who done that if he didn't do it? So he wanted to git to play there the next night you see.
Robert Shiflett:
Linkus was no relation to me, that is, no near relation. He could've been remote of course. All the Shifletts undoubtedly came from France and the same place. But he was a great fiddler in those days -- and when the Civil War broke out - now whether he ever spent any time in the army or not I do not know - but at the time they captured Tom Frazier, Linkus was also a conscript. You see in those days, they were some right wealthy people in this section of the country that when they drafted the young men down to a certain age, and you was wealthy enough to pay enough money, you could hire a substitute to go to the army in your place. But in Linkus' case whether he had been drafted or whether he had ever served any time or not in the army I don't know, but anyway he was a wanted man for the war and was classed either as a deserter or a dodger -- war dodger. It was the death penalty either way in the Civil War days. So Major Mason scoured this country continuously, accordin' to the tales I heard, with a squad of men lookin' for various dodgers -- Tom Frazier, Calvin Shiflitt, Tipton Morris, Linkus Shiflitt to mention a few. At various times Tom Frazier had been captured but he always escaped, but when they captured him and Linkus Shiflitt on this occasion they carried 'em to the outskirts of Staunton in a little brick buildin' I have heard Tom Frazier himself, I have set on his knee and heard him tell about it. They were to be shot at sunrise next mornin' and they had the coffins brought in -- pine boxes. So that night when they manacled 'em together, all the guards were asleep. There was only one door to this little brick buildin' leadin' out of it and there's one sentinel at the door. Tom Frazier said that he begged Linkus all night to make a break for it. Tom Frazier's hands were smaller than his wrists so he had slipped the handcuffs off of his hands which freed Linkus as far as bein' burdened with another man. He had nothin' but the handcuffs on his wrist. Tom Frazier told Linkus he'd kill the guard at the door if he would go with him. Said Linkus kept sayin' "No," he was going to trust in the Lord. And Old Man Tom, I know he lacked a lot from bein' a righteous man at the time, but he told Linkus that the Lord helps them that help themselves. "If you trust in the Lord you gonna be shot at sunrise if you don't try to help yourself." And accordin' to his narration, there was a rail fence 'bout a hundred yards maybe from the cabin across open fields. He'd waited till daylight and then the other guards begin to stir and he couldn't go. Linkus still had his fiddle accordin' to Tom. They had heard of his reputation as a violin player -- as a fiddler -- and so, accordin' to Old Man Tom Frazier, they made Linkus set on his own coffin and play the fiddle for 'em. And when they came in to serve breakfast, Tom said all the guards' rifles was stacked in front of the door in the yard. He said naturally he didn't have much appetite so he got up from the table ahead of ev'rybody else and he moved around the table toward the guard standin' in the door. And said he was movin' like he was unconcerned till he got near the door. He knocked the guard down, jumped through the door and made for the woods about a hundred yards away on the other side of a rail fence. And said all of the guards ran out and one by one they grabbed the rifles and started shootin'. He said he jumped to the right, jumped to the left, zig-zagged and bullets was passin' him and he said when he heard six rifles fire he knew that they were out of guns for the time being. One of 'em yelled for the extra rifles and that was his rifle and he said he had loaded with a extra charge and he knew it was a good rifle. So when they called for the other rifle -- they had to run inside to get it -- he'd almost reached the woods and when he got to the rail fence instead of tryin' to jump it or climb over it, he just dived over the top of it. And he said as he did, the rifle ball busted the top rail right under his stomach but he fell to the other side unhurt. He said while they had the empty rifles -- ev'ry rifle was empty -- Linkus still wouldn't run. And they come back and tied him and shot him. But Tom Frazier had so many escapades that there was a book printed of his life. I don't know how many were published or distributed but I saw one in my time and I read part of it when I was a kid. But I knew Old Man Tom Frazier personally and used to hear him tell tales about his escapades. His rifle today is down here at Gibson's -- I've been tryin' to buy it -- the Gibson boy had bought it. It was sold for five dollars.
Hilma Yates:
Well, he used to desert the army, get away from 'em, you know. Now that was real. They'd come to take him to the war and every time they'd get him and start with him, he'd always outdo 'em. And he had a little bit of a horse he used to ride. And they got him and was takin' him on in, Yea, there was so many of'em ridin' and they overtook him. Some got in front of him and they was fixin' to take him off the horse and they was surroundin' him. The way he got away, he had a little black mare, he said all he had to do was just pull up on the reins and lay his hand behind him and she let into kickin' so fast you couldn't count it. And said that was the way he got away from 'em. Said they had him just fixin' to take him and he just pulled up his reins, laid his hand on this little mare and she let into kickin', throwin' her feet ev'ry which-a-way. And those officers scattered and then she just whirled and said she was like a bird -- she was gone. Just sailed away with her. And they said that he got away so many times that they even dug graves and buried logs and said that was the grave Old Man Tom Frazier was buried in. I 'member when old man Tom Frazier died. They caught him I don't know how many times. He got away ev'ry time. He managed to get away and after the war they wrote a book about him.
Robert Shiflett:
But most mountain people were never informers. They wouldn't give out information under threats or anything else because they thought the people were right in not wantin' to go off to fight war that they had no stake -- these people owned no slaves, not many of them, you see, and those that did hired conscripts to fight. These illiterate mountain people they just decided they weren't goin'. They were free men in most ev'rything they wanted to do.
Tom Frazier was about the only man that survived in this section from the war as a hunted man. They captured him innumerable times and he always managed to escape. Once they decided to take him to Richmond when they caught him and handcuffed him beside a guard on the train, and Tom picked a seat beside the window. And he was a slight built man, very wiry and strong but of small stature. And so when the guard dozed off, Tom slipped the handcuffs off -- as I mentioned before, his hand was smaller than his wrist; he could expand the tendon in his wrist when they handcuffed him and the handcuffs would be tight, but after he relaxed he could slip them off. So when the guard began to nod, Tom raised the window -- it was hot weather -- and he waited until the train was crossin' the river and he dived off the train into the river. Left the guard sittin' there with the empty handcuffs. He had a bullet -- a mini-ball -- right against his skull, right under his scalp, and I used sit on his knee when I was a kid and looked like I could push that ball back and forth a little ways. Great big lump, there. A mini-ball is pretty good sized bullet, you know. He was a wild character and he was pretty tough all of his life. He was a fightin' man any time anybody saw fit to challenge him. In those days a lot of people wanted to be best man, you know, and so after the duelin' laws came in that no duels were allowed, they used to fist fight. Ev'ry man picked his second to see that you got a fair fight. Course, the seconds weren't all you had there. One man's friends would gather in one place -- they'd meet somewhere in a meadow or in some public place to battle it out. No holds barred, tooth and nail and no Marquis of Queensbury rules there. And so after they'd fight, most of the time they'd git up and shake hands if they's able. But sometimes durin' these matches, some of the friends on either side would join in, one callin' to one to win and one callin' for the other you know -- rootin' for each other. The friends would fall out and sometimes there'd be a free-for-all battle. I never saw one. I was too young at the time.
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