Browse:Dead and Devil at Fork of Road (Volume 1, entries 349–352)
Dead and Devil at Fork of Road
Volume 1, entries 349–352. Source context: SPIRITS → SELL SELF TO THE DEVIL. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 349
If you want to know how to play a banjo or a guitar or do magic tricks, you have to sell yourself to the devil. You have to go to the cemetery nine mornings and get some of the dirt and bring it back with you and put it in a little bottle, then go to some fork of the road and each morning sit there and try to play that guitar. Don't care what you see come there, don't get 'fraid and run away. Just stay there for nine mornings and on the ninth morning there will come some rider riding at lightning speed in the form of the devil. You stay there then still playing your guitar and when he has passed you can play any tune you want to play or do any magic trick you want to do because you have sold your- self to the devil.
Entry 350
If dey go out dere, dey call dat prayin' to de devil or do somebody a dirty trick, yo' know. Well, ah heard dat yo' go out dere nine mawnin's an' bo' a hole an' git some graveyard dust an' put in it, an' dey say yo' git down on yore knees ovah dat graveyard dust fo' nine mawnin's an' pray whatevah yo' want to be done, say dey'll do it. Bo' a hole right at de fo'k of de road.
Entry 351
A man once, he sold hisself to de devil. So he got ready, he went in de cemetery, he stepped across sev'ral graves, you know, an' he cursed an' he sold hisself to de devil. So ev'ry day at dinnertime when he go for his lunch he'd go off to hisself an' eat. So at last one time he wus settin' off to hisself, he wus talkin', he wus feedin' somepin. They say it wus a little black thing there an' he wus feedin' it. It looked like a little dog, like. It had long ears an' de ears hung down on de groun'. So after that, well, he got ready an' he said he thought this thing got more than he did to eat of it. So he chopped this concern acrost de haid wid this spoon w'ut he had eaten out of. So when this thing came again it told him, it said, "Next time I come, I'm gon'a care [carry] you with me." So after that, well, when this thing came again it smacked de man. An' when it smacked de man, it jis' burnt de whole side of his face [see No. 103]. An' de man went when he [this thing] went.
The burning is narrated within the story; the adjacent cross-reference is editorial.
Entry 352
Yo' kin go to de fo'k of de road an' ever'body's mad wit chew. Yo' go dere a rainy bitter night an' set down, an' jes' lak ah lak a dead man - if yo' know any murderer, yo' call his name. Well, heah will come a cat sweepin' aroun' an' aroun', talkin' cat, and - yo' take peppah an' salt with yuh, an' [while] dat cat turn aroun', throw dat salt on him. An' says, "Yo' son of a bitch, yo' come out heah." But yo' go out dere agin de nex' night, an' dis man will be settin' right dere. Yo' goin' kill him or do whut chew please with him. He be right dere to de crossroads.
(You throw this salt on the cat?)
On de cat.