"David Drake - John The Balladeer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

We stumbled up the Mountainside in the darkтАФthere was a moon, but the pines and the valley's steep
walls blocked most of its light as they did the sun in daytime. Manly went part way, but when Obray
guided Karl and me off the road-cut, he decided he'd wait. Wisely: he was 68 even then, though that was
hard to remember when you saw him.

He had fresh drinks waiting for those as used it when we got backтАФand fresh laughter as he always did,
this time because Karl had slipped off the catwalk into one of Obray's trout ponds as we neared the
cabin.

Manly was in his element that evening, watching the incredible fingerings of Obray and a neighbor while
lamplight gleamed from the gilded metalwork of the banjo and guitar; pouring drinks; singing "Will the
Circle be Unbroken" and "Birmingham Jail" and "Vandy, Vandy." . . .

Which brings up a last point about Manly and the mountains. I said he called the mountain Yandro, but I
don't know you'd find that name on a map. Manly blended past reality with new creations in his life as
well as his writing. Many of the songs he sang and quoted in this volume are very old; he once claimed to
have written "Vandy, Vandy" himself.

And that may be part of the magic of these stories. They were written by a man who knew and loved the
folkways he described so well that he became a part of them, weaving in his own strands and keeping the
fabric alive instead of leaving it to be displayed behind the sterile glass of a museum.

May you read them with a delight as great as that of the man who wrote them.



Dave Drake
Chapel Hill, North Carolina




Introduction
Just Call Me John


There are moments in literatureтАФvery rare and very marvelousтАФwhen a writer creates a unique
character. One such moment occurred in 1951 when Manly Wade Wellman began to write stories about
John the Balladeer.

He had no last name, no other name: he was known only as John. Some reviewers suggested that
Wellman intended John to be a Christ figure. Manly firmly denied this, but be often hinted that there might
exist some mystic link to John the Baptist (cf. Mark 1. 2-3).

We never knew a lot about John's past. He was born in Moore County, North Carolina, and Manly said
he sort of pictured John as a young Johnny Cash. He also told us that John was a veteran of the Korean
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