The Devil and the Fiddle

Author(s): Herbert Halpert

Source: Hoosier Folklore Bulletin , Dec., 1943, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Dec., 1943), pp. 39-43
Published by: Hoosier Folklore Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27655458

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 39

THE DEVIL AND THE FIDDLE

The Devil is ? sociable fellow with a weakness for music and

musicians. It is almost, universally agreed that he is an expert at
playing musical instruments. The violin and flute are his two favor
ites, but the banjo and guitar are more recently coming into liking with
him. These are, of course, in addition to his general penchant for
"Wine, Woman, and Song". The only contradictory testimony on his ex
pertness that I can recall is from an Aberdeen witch trial. A girl Y/as
accused of being present "at a Sabbath on All-hallow Eve..,and because
the Devil played not so melodiously and well as thou creit (i) thou took
his instrument out of his mouth...and played thyself thereon..." (H. B.
Gaul, "Music and Devil-Worship," Musical Quarterly, H (1925), p. 193.)
The sinfulness of secular music, and of fiddling in particular,
impressed itself deeply on frontier America. The religious of many
sects long opposed dancing to fiddle music, and thus forwarded the de
velopment of that very American institution: the play-party. According
to one authority this attitude still persists v/ith the colored people,
"Playing the fiddle or banjo is thought to be a special accomplishment
of the devil and such instruments are tabooed to good church folk..."
(N. N. Puckett, Folk Beliefs of thg Southern Negro (Chapel Hill, 1926),
p. 553.)
In an attempt to learn."whether trained musicians knew any of
the folklore associated with the violin, I interviewed Dean B. Yiinifred
Merrill, formerly Dean of the Music School at Indiana University, on
June 19, 1942. Dean Merrill gave an interesting account of the popular
attitude toward the violin as he knew it from his own early experience.
He also gave me versions of three of the legends that have clung to
two well-known Italian violinists and composers: ?iccolo Paganini (1782
1840), and Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770). Although Dean Lerrill thinks
he may have gotten two of them from books, it seems likely to me that
these books merely incorporated popular story* Since most of the sober
encyclopedias and books about musicians pass over such legendary material
with scant comment, it weems v/orth "while to give them here as an indica
tion of how folklore creeps in even in circles that tend to scorn popular
taste, and also to shoY/ the relation of these tales to the folk tradition.

# * * * *

"I grew up in
things I can rem
Devil Y/as in th
take lessons.
"When I Y/as eighteen, I had two students: one v/as a Presbyterian
minister and one was a Congregationalist. The Congregationalist minister
told me that in his ministerial life it so shocked some of his parishoners
that he played the violin that he v/as obliged to play It to himself, and
he urged me not to let it be known that he Y/as taking lessons; and the
Presbyterian minister said the same thing. One of them said, "Not that

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40

there's anything.wrong in playing the fiddle, but you know how people
will talk." And for a girl to play the fiddle! She was on the way to
perdition.
"Of course they said a boy was a sissy if he played the piano,
but that didn't have the superstition the violin did. Some Sunday
schools wouldn't think of having fiddles and trombones.

"Paganini wrote an air for variations (Air for G String) based

on an air, "0 Thou Whose Power 'Tremendous", from Handel's oratorio Hoses
in Egypt. Violinists in my day would play that often, and they'd leave
off all the strings but the 'G!, and put that over the middle of the
bridge and the nut so it would be just in the middle of the fingerboard.
I've heard it often in Chicago in the latter '70's and '80's."

! Playing On One String

"The story about that goes ? but it Isn' t true ? was that
he, Paganini, was in prison for murder. He was allowed his violin.
While in prison his strings broke one by one till nothing was left but the
'G'? so he played on that and composed his 'Air for G String.' ? Couldn't
be true since the 'G' string has been a wound string, and all the strings
break before the ' D'. I got that from some book when I was a small boy ?
about the time my uncle told me the Devil was in my fiddle."

This is the best known of the Paganini stories. It is given in

much the same form in Paul Stoeving, The Story of the Violin (The Music
Story Series, London and New York, n.d.) p. 207, note 1. Baltzell's Dic
tionary of Musicians (Boston, 1917) says that from 1801-04 Paganini "did
not appear in public, and to this period refer the false stories of his
imprisonment, of his charming of jailer by playing on one string, and of
his league with the devil."
According to J. Olcutt Sanders, the feat of playing on one string
is also ascribed to Ole Bull who broke in succession the "E", "G", and "D"
strings, continuing to play beautifully on the remainder of the strings as
he broke each, and finally played on the "A" alono. Ole Bull (1810-80) was
a Norwegian violin virtuoso who five times toured the United States playing
chiefly Scandinavian melodies. Grove' s Dictionary says "His success and
popularity in the States were unbounded." From Dean Herrill's description
it will be seen that what probably started as a Paganini legend, became an
accepted concert violinists' tour de force.
Mr. Sanders also refers to an even more remarkable story about
Paganini who "is said to have broken all four strings and made new ones
out of straw." This takes us into the realm of the fiddler and magic, but
that large subject would swell this article beyond reasonable proportions,
so I have decided, rigorously, to exclude it. Mr. Sanders1 entire article
is a fascinating discussion of the place of the fiddler in frontier social
life, and reading of it is very heartily recommended. (J. 0. Sanders,
"Honor the Fiddler!?!, Texas Folk-Lore Society Publications, XVII (1941),
P* 80.)

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 ? The Devil Guides Paganini
"Gramer, quite a great pianist ? The Cramer Studies ? he
heard Paganini play one of his own compositions in vfhich the fG' string
was tuned to 'F', and having absolute pitch, he heard v/hat he knew v/as
an impossibility ? the violin, that only went as low as 'G', playing
'F' . And as he looked, he saw the Devil guiding his bov/ arm.
" ? I don't know where I read that. I read that long ago.
Of course Paganini, to a violinist, he v/as almost a superhuman being
because his music is so difficult technically; and considering how the
bow was made in those days, one can hardly see hov/ he did the things
he did*"

Grove's Dictionary mentions the rumor that Paganini was in

league with the devil. In Waldo Seiden Pratt's The New Encyclopaedia
of Music and Musicians (New York, 1935) is much the same explanation
of the cause of this belief as Dean Merrill's. "His marvellous feats
of dexterity, his use of unusual tunings of the strings, his novel ex
periments with harmonics and pizzicato effects, his daring v/himsicali
ties and his rather bizarre appearance ? all these tended to create
an uncanny impression, so that he was often alleged to be in league
vdth the Evil One." It might be well to note here that even today
folk violinists in the South are very fond of using unusual fiddle tun
ings.
Paganini "was thought by even sane-minded people to have been
taught to play be the Devil," (H. D. HcKinney and W. R. Anderson,
Music In History (New York, 3.940) pp. 530-81). Since fiddlers notori
ously are of the devil's brood, it is not surprising that he associates
vdth them. In Nevr Hampshire "'Old Baker' Moore, the village fiddler,
to his dying day believed that he had twice been honored with a personal
interview vdth the Devil." (M. P. Gore and G. E. Speare, New Hampshire
Folk Tales (1932), p. 169.)
It is one of the vddespread European and American folk be
liefs not only that the Devil plays the violin, flute and other in
struments, but that he is quite willing to teach them, and that his
pupils all become very highly skilled. Among American Negroes the
Devil is believed to give mastery in banjo, violin, and guitar, usually
vdth the idea implied or clearly expressed that the pupil loses his
soul* (See H, M. Hyatt, Folk-Lore from Adams County, Illinois (New
York, 1935), p. 457, No. 9073; Puckett, op.cit., pp. 553-54. See also
Maryland versions in JAFL V (1892), 110, and LAFL XVIII, 78, Among the
Galidan Ukrainians it is believed that "mastery is any of the arts is
attainable only vdth the help of the Devil...One who wishes to excel at
playing the flute.,." must go through a complicated process in which
devils and angels contest for his soul. When the devils obtain it, the
man becomes a master at the flute. (S. Koenig, - "?Jagical Beliefs and Prac
tices among the Galician Ukrainians," Folk-Lore XLVIII, 68-9.)
It has been pointed out by scholars that in many cultures the
Christian Devil has replaced other mythical figures. C. Engel, Musical
Myths and Facts, (London and New York, 1076), I, p. 202, repeats from

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 42

Grimm the story that the Norwegians believed a "Neck" called Fossegrim would
teach "his enchanting harp-playing" to anyone who on a Thrusday evening made
the proper sacrifice. In Scotland it is believed that the fairies can be
stow the gift of great skill in music. (J. G. Campbell, Superstitions of
the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (Glasgow, 1900), p. 22.) And a Ban
shee is said to have given a piper a hair which, placed on the reed of his
chanter, made him excel his own family (all pipers) and become the greatest
piper of all time. (J. MacDougall and G. Calder, Folk Tales and Fairy
Lore in Gaelic and English (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 174-7S. See also J. G.
Campbell, op.cit., pp. 140-41). In Ireland a "P?ca" makes a piper the
best in Ireland. (W. B. Yeats, Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (New York, n.d.)
pp. 101-3).
It can be seen, therefore, that the idea of a musician who learns
from or is given extraordinary musical skill by a supernatural being is
well knovm in folklore. To have such stories retailed about Paganini is
just another example of the tendency for such stories to cluster around a
central hero.

3. Tartini And The Devil's Sonata

"Tartini went to sleep one night and thought he woke up. Anyway,
the Devil was sitting on the footboard of his bed and had gotten his violin
out of his case and played this piece upon it, It was so beautiful, he
Yfas so filled with it when he woleup, that he wrote down all he could re
member and finished the rest himself. And it's now known as 'The Devil's
Sonata1 .

" ? I got the story when I was studying the piece from my teacher
in Berlin."

There is another version of this story in the Encyclopaedia Brit

t?nica.
Despite the number of references to the Devil as a teacher of
music, actual works learned from him are rarely given. In New Jersey, I
have collected a legend that the well-known fiddle piece, "The Devil's
Dream", was learned by a fiddler from the Devil himself. Actual pieces of
music, supposedly secured from some supernatural being, are rather common
in Western European folklore, and since, as I have mentioned, the accepted
theory is that the Devil usually replaces an .earlier supernatural figure,
it seems justified to mention some of these pieces and stories. The
fairies in particular have frequently granted the gift of certain songs.
Dreams are occasionally mentioned as a source for these songs, but the person
dreaming must have ventured on magic ground. "Garolan, the bard, slept
out on a fairy rath. Fairy music came to him in his dreams, and on awaken
ing he played the air from memory. Thus it-was that he had power to madden
men to mirth, or to set them weeping..." (Lady T/ilde, Ancient Legends,
Mystic Charms. and Superstitions of Ireland (Boston, 1888), p. 133.) And
Lady Wilde tells us further that if a person sleeps on a fairy rath, fairy
music "will enter into his soul, and when he awakes he may sing the air he

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has heard in his dreams. In this way the bards learned their songs...."
(o?.cit., p. 152.)
As I have mentioned, songs are often learned from the super
naturals. In Scotland many tunes are "said to have been originally
learned from fairies." But also: "Some of the most celebrated pipers...
are said to have learned their music from elves." (J. G. Campbell,
op.cit., p. 18.) J. F. Campbell also gives the natation of some music
which he says is the "music still sung of melody learned from a 'Bauchkan
(J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands '(Paisley, 1890-92),
II, 102-3.)
Engel tells us: "The Swedes relate wonderful stories respect
ing the marvellous harp-playing of a Neck called Str?mkarl, who generally
prefers the vicinity of water-mills and cascades for his abode. In olden
times, before the introduction of Christianity into Sweden, the people
used to sacrifice a black lamb to the Stromkarl, who, in return, taught
them his charming music." (Engel, op.cit., p. 202). He also comments
that in Sweden "it is said there are still to be found...minstrels who
have learnt their music from the Necks" (op.cit., p.202) and he actually
gives the music of two tunes played by a family who supposedly learned
the music "from a Neck" (op.cit.. p. 203).
Also known is the tradition that pieces of music are sometimes
learned accidentally by overhearing the fairies or elves. J. G. Campbell
says "Peasants have heard and learned songs sung by fairies." (op.cit.,
p. 36). He also speaks of a "song learned by overhearing fairies."
(op.cit*, p. 138) There' was a man who overheard and learned the fairy
queen's song. (MacDougall and Calder, op.cit., p. 139) In V?ales too,
magic music has been heard and learned by people, and we are told "the
tunes they play are known." (li. Trevelyan, Folk-Lore and Folk-Stories
of Wales (London, 1909), p. 140. The pieces are given by name.) And
coming back to fiddling:* In Armagh, Ireland, a fiddler coming home
from a wake fiddled a fairy jig with the fairies till he learned the
tune. The tune is still a bi& favorite at dances. (T. G. F. Paterson,
Country Cracks (Dundalk, 1939), p. 23.)
There is, however, considerable danger in intermeddling with
fairy music. There is the well-known story, or rather cante-fable, of
the hunchback who loses his hump when he overhears and adds to the
fairies' song; his fellow hunchback tries to improve on the song, and
for his pains is given an additional hunch. b!e are fortunate that T.
C. Groker is able to give us the actual music in his Fairy Legends and
?Traditions of the South of Ireland, from which Engel has copied it.
A story from Lady Wilde shows us that the consequence can be even more
serious. A piper learned a tune one evening from hearing fairy pipes.
He was warned that he could only play it publicly three times. He won
several piping contests by playing it, and in order to win a fourth one,
played the tune a fourth time ? and dropoed dead (op. cit., p. 105.)
Station No. 18, ATC, APO 462 Herbert Halpert
c/o PM, Minneapolis, Minnesota

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