Chase, Richard. Wicked John and the Devil. Illus. Joshua Tolford. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,1951. Black-and-white and color illustrations depict the red devils outwitted by a blacksmith so mean that he is denied access to heaven and hell when he dies. "Based on an oral version I first heard told by Mrs. Jenning L. Yowell of Albemarle County, Virginia." The endpapers contain a great double-page scene of John walking between heaven and hell, with fires, a pitchfork fence in the foreground, and a big group of devils. See AppLit's Chase bibliography for reviews and articles in Walser archive about 1963 controversy over this book in a East Greensboro, NY school. Chase, Richard. "Wicked John and the Devil." American Folk Tales and Songs. 1956. Rpt. New York: Dover, 1971, pp. 21-31. Chase heard the tale in Charlottesville, VA. He notes parallels with an Irish tale, "The Three Wishes," and other tales all over Europe, as well as "Jacky-My-Lantern" and "Impty Umpty" in Uncle Remus, and the one in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men. He had heard of the story about a man too mean for hell being applied to Hitler. He also mentions the success of dramatizations by himself and school groups. Chase, Richard. "Wicked John and the Devil." Reprinted with other tales about "fooling the devil" in Yolen, Jane, ed. Favorite Folktales from Around the World. New York: Pantheon, 1986, pp. 359-66. Yolen notes that American versions of tale type 330, The Smith and the Devil, and The Smith and Death, can be found all over the South. She also observes that "The motif 'Devil sticking to tree or stool or chair' can be traced as far back as ancient Greek and Hebrew sources" (Notes, p. 490). Chase tells "Wicked John and the Devil" on an audio cassette recorded during a class lecture/discussion on types of folklore at Appalachian State University in 1975. Chase noted that this tale was known to blacks and there are two versions in Uncle Remus. He said that Indian children in Michigan, who grow up in an oral tradition, laughed much harder at this tale than his present audience. In this version of the tale, St. Peter gives John back 15 cents before making him leave heaven. His one good deed had been giving 15 cents extra change to a boy selling a country newspaper, Grit. Chase explained that he got this part of the tale (which was not in print) from Presbyterian preachers who did skits and made fun of each other, telling jokes about getting to heaven first. In Richard Chase Papers 1928-1988, W. L. Eury Appalachian Collection, Appalachian State University. Chase tells "Wicked John and the Devil" on the radio in Davis, James A. The Bard of Beech Mountain. Radio broadcast from Station WBT (Charlotte, NC) May 30, 1963 as a program in the series Project Sixty. 2 cassettes. 60 min. Archived in North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, UNC-Chapel Hill. Davis, writer and producer of the program, gives background on Chase and folktales. Excerpts are played from Chase's visits to schools during a tour while he lived on Beech Mt. He sings several songs with the audience, plays the harmonica, discusses the nature and importance of folklore, and tells "Wicked John." He does not include the part about change for Grit or any explanation for John's ball of fire being seen on earth at the end.
Stephenson, R. Rex. "Wicked John and the Devil." The Jack Tales. Schulenburg, TX: I. E. Clark, 1991. Story theatre dramatization, as performed by The Ferrum Jack Tale Players (performance photos from 2006 above). Wicked John will help only a crippled old beggar man who turns out to be St. Peter. When granted three wishes, John asks for his rocking chair, hammer, and fire bush to torment those who use them. He uses them to trick and chase away the devil's two impish sons and then the devil himself. After John drops dead, St. Peter shows him the long, long, long page full of bad deeds in his book of life. Humorous touches include St. Peter's reading of the names Johnny Appleseed and John the Baptist while looking for John, Wicked in the book. After John is turned away at the gates of heaven and hell, he takes the fire ball the devil gives him and points out that he can be seen walking the Dismal Swamp between Virginia and North Carolina, although school teachers often say that it is just swamp gas out there in the moonlight. (See an older photo in Jack Tale Players web site.) Woolridge, Connie Nordhielm (adapter). Wicked Jack. Illus. Will Hillenbrand. New York: Holiday House,1995. Cartoonlike comedy and haunting mystery combine in this story of mean Jack the blacksmith, who is excluded from heaven and hell after he outwits the devil. Woolridge includes a brief note citing Chase’s and Zora Neale Hurston’s versions of the tale as her sources. The illustrations add many details of action and character to the narration. See details on AppLit Trivia Page. Crawford, Lauren. Dye Fry and Wicked John and the Devil. Script published by New Plays for Children, 2002. "Two short Appalachian folk tales in one volume, 25 to 35 minutes each." “Wicked John and the Devil.” Told by Rick Carson. Giggles and Ghosts. Audio cassette. Elizabethtown, KY: Alpha Recording, 1991. Carson includes humorous modern touches such as depicting the second devil's child as Elvis, with allusions to famous Elvis Presley lyrics. “Wicked John.” Told by Orville Hicks. Carryin’ On: Jack Tales for Children of All Ages. Audio cassette. Whitesburg, KY: June Appal Recordings, 1990. "Wicked John and the Devil." Told by Jackie Torrence. Country Characters. LP and audio cassette. Chicago, Il: Earwig Music Co., 1983 and 1986. From an evening of storytelling live in Lexington, MA to benefit Arts Created Together. Recorded at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA. Also includes Old Dry Frye, Sop Doll, "The Maco Station Light," and "The Fiddler's Dram." Torrence is from east of Appalachia in NC but retells many mountain tales as well as African American tales. "Wicked John and the Devil" by Jackie Torrence. Best-Loved Stories Told at the National Storytelling Festival. Jonesborough, TN: National Storytelling Press and Little Rock: August House, 1991 (20th anniversary edition). The book has 37 tales, including "The Day the Cow Ate my Britches" by Ray Hicks, "Cap o' Rushes" by Ellin Greene, "C-R-A-Z-Y" by Donald Davis, and other Appalachian storytellers. Some of these tales were also produced on two audio cassettes. This book received an Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award. "Wicked John and the Devil." In Smith, Jimmy Neil, ed. Why the Possum's Tail is Bare and Other Classic Southern Stories. New York: Avon, 1993. "Told from her family tradition by storyteller Jackie Torrence of Salisbury, NC" (not in the Appalachian mountains but Torrence learned mountain folktales from Richard Chase's collections and from mountain storytellers). "Wicked John." In sound recording (8 tape reels) performed by Bill Thorn, Lucien Rouse, Edna Ritchie, D. K. Wilgus, Guthrie T. Meade, Homer Ledford, Pleaz Mobely. Recorded by Richard L. Castner at a folk music festival in Lexington, KY, 1955. Deposited by Castner in 1955 in Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University, Bloomington. A large collection of folk music and "recitations of folk tales including The Yankee who went South, Old dry fry, Corpse killed five times, Jack tales, Wicked John" (WorldCat). Related Appalachian Tales: "Old Scratch and the Mean Woman." In Smith, Jimmy Neil, ed. Why the Possum's Tail is Bare and Other Classic Southern Stories. New York: Avon, 1993. Reprinted from Emma Deane Smith Trent's East Tennessee's Lore of Yesteryear (Whitesburg, TN: self-published, 1987). A woman who is mean to her family is scared (but afraid to admit it to anyone) when she hears a voice that tells of Old Scratch's approach. There is a vivid description of the devil as he carries her away, and her family never knows where she went. "When Old Scratch gets ye, you're gone for good!" (p. 85). "Bobtail and the Devil." In Peck, Catherine, ed. QPB Treasury of North American Folktales. Introduction by Charles Johnson. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1998, pp. 251-52. The devil is too "dumb and lazy" to win two contests with Bobtail, which involve growing potatoes and raising hogs. (Reprinted from Leonard Roberts. South From Hell-fer-Sartin: Kentucky Mountain Folk Tales. Lexington: U Press of KY, 1964.) "How Bobtail Beat the Devil." In Chase, Richard. Grandfather Tales. Illus. Berkeley Williams, Jr. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948, pp. 88-98. After the tale is told, Old Robin in Chase's frame story sings "The Devil and the Farmer's Wife," in which a man in Ohio is glad the devil takes his wife, but she is so mean and violent the devil's children convince him to send her back. Compare with: Hooks, William H. Mean Jake and the Devils. Illus. Dirk Zimmer. New York: Dial Press, 1981. Three stories Hooks heard while growing up in tidewater North Carolina are told to a boy by GranAnna (based on his storytelling grandmother and aunt). With finely detailed black and white illustrations, both humorous and eerie, by a German artist. Hooks comments that Southern devils had human characteristics and could be appealing and amusing, but they are still devilish.
Carey, Valerie Scho. The Devil and Mother Crump. Illus. Arnold Lobel. New York: HarperTrophy, 1987. Mother Crump is a stingy baker very much like Wicked Jack. Lucifer appears in red velvet and then in disguise as a gentleman in green, and grants her three wishes to avoid her wrath. The wishes allow her to play tricks on Death, two little devils, and then Lucifer. When she dies, she is rejected in Heaven and Hell but gets into Heaven with a coal from the devil. Her baking fire and rattling of pots in the sky are called heat lightning and thunder. There are many African-American variants of this tale in oral traditions and collections such as the two Uncle Remus tales mentioned by Chase (see above), and Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and Men (1935). "How Jack O'Lanterns Came to Be" is Hurston's tale in which Sixteen (a big man named after his shoe size) is sent away from heaven and hell because he's too powerful. He's not a wicked man like Wicked Jack or John but he can lift mules and capture the devil when his master asks him to. Chase notes in American Folk Tales and Songs that he first knew the Devil's line "and start you a Hell of your own!" from Mules and Men. "Stagolee." In Julius Lester. Black Folktales. Illus. Tom Feelings. New York: Grove Press, 1969. Reprinted with a new introduction by Lester, 1991. pp. 75-90. Based on a folk song that Lester had recorded, also made famous by other singers. Stagolee is like a tall tale hero when he beats all kinds of tough opponents, escapes death, and challenges God, Death and the Devil. He chooses to stay in Hell where the energetic black people are having more fun than he sees in Heaven. He is a lawless, hard-drinking womanizer from a Georgia plantation. Like some versions of John Henry's character (unlike Wicked Jack), Stagolee is both criminal and well-loved. Lester includes ironic and humorous allusions to modern popular culture. This
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