Line #34 Literature/SilverJohn


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/jtb_7.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Silver John on the cover of the ''John the Balladeer'' short story collection.]]
3	A series of DarkFantasy / FantasyAmericana stories by Creator/ManlyWadeWellman about a traveling musician named John who frequently finds himself battling supernatural menaces in the deep backwoods of UsefulNotes/{{Appalachia}}. Wellman had already written other OccultDetective stories, demonstrating a talent for weirdness and a quirky sense of humour, but these stories are additionally enlivened by Wellman's enduring interest in the folklore and folk music of backwoods America.
4
5	The series has no official overall title, but is usually called the "Silver John" (referring to John's silver-stringed guitar) or "John the Balladeer" series. Neither of these names is ever used in the series to refer to the protagonist, who is always just plain John.
6
7	The series includes both short stories and novels:
8
9	* ''Who Fears the Devil?'' (Arkham House, 1963) (short stories)
10	** ''John the Balladeer'' (1988) (Ed. Karl E. Wagner, revised collection containing all Silver John short stories)
11	** ''Owls Hoot in the Daytime and Other Omens'' (2003) (Ed. Night Shade Press, also contains all Silver John short stories)
12	** ''Who Fears the Devil?'' (Paizo Publishing, 2010) (reprint of AH edition with two additional stories)
13	* ''The Old Gods Waken'' (1979)
14	* ''After Dark'' (1980)
15	* ''The Lost and the Lurking'' (1981)
16	* ''The Hanging Stones'' (1982)
17	* ''The Voice of the Mountain'' (1984)
18
19	It inspired a movie, ''The Legend of Hillbilly John'', in the 1970s.
20	----
21	!!This series provides examples of:
22
23	* AfterlifeExpress: "The Little Black Train" has the local RichBitch trying to escape a curse that the train will come for her (by removing all the local tracks). "A black train runs some nights at midnight, they say, and when it runs a sinner dies." [[spoiler:It comes anyway, but she repents and the train retreats.]]
24	* AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents: In ''Voice of the Mountain'', the [[BigBad main villain]] [[EvilSorcerer Ruel Harpe]] is described after embarrassing a young witch in his service as being rather like "one of those parents who enjoys embarrassing their children on purpose."
25	* AngelsDevilsAndSquid: Heaven and Hell co-exist with Lovecraftian entities in John's world.
26	* TheAntichrist: John's last recorded enemy, [[EvilSorcerer Ruel Harpe]], descendant of the infamous [[SerialKiller Micajah 'Big' Harpe]], has shades of this. He intends to use the ''Gospel of Judas'' to [[ApocalypseHow kill roughly 99% of the human race]] and then turn his home atop Cry Mountain into [[AGodAmI a temple to himself]]. He wants John to help. It doesn't work.
27	* AsTheGoodBookSays: Many people quote "The Book", appropriate given they're from the backwoods. Most notably, early in "Shiver in the Pines", one character (asked what he's up to) gives Satan's greeting from the book of Job -- which garners a disturbed reaction from those present.
28	* BrainBleach: John wishes for some after seeing the Behinder in "The Desrick on Yandro" and decades later when he sees it again in the novel ''The Voice of the Mountain''.
29	* CelibateHero: John, until he weds Evadare.
30	* CharacterCatchphrase: John often addresses the reader(s) as "Gentlemen."
31	* CheatersNeverProsper: John gets into a shooting contest with two old rivals out in the backwoods. Both have wrought powerful magic to beat the other, but John wins handily. When asked how, John simply states that he was the best rifle marksman in his regiment when he was in Korea.
32	* CoversAlwaysLie: As shown above, John never plays a song on his guitar for a winged demoness, though admittedly it's the sort of thing he ''might'' do.
33	* DidYouJustScamCthulhu: John's good at this, though sometimes he takes {{Eldritch Abomination}}s down more [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu physically.]]
34	* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Discussed in "Old Devlins Was A-Waiting". John mentions that one time during his war years he had a dream that came true, but he calls it "[[NoodleIncident no tale to tell]]" and declines to give details. One of the other characters has a theory that it's a consequence of IntangibleTimeTravel into the future.
35	* {{Druid}}: In ''The Old Gods Waken'' the two main human enemies are a pair of [[EvilBrit English druids]] working with both [[WhenTreesAttack The Man in the Oak]], a malevolent tree spirit formed out of the [[OurGhostsAreDifferent long-dead ghost of another druid]], along with [[OurVampiresAreDifferent the Raven Mockers, Cherokee vampire-witches]].
36	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: It takes John a little while to remember that silver drives away evil in "O Ugly Bird", when he takes it for granted in all others.
37	* EldritchAbomination: Wellman was a fan of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos and it shows in his work. A ''lot'' of the monsters John meets are described as something utterly ''alien'' to normal human life. [[NothingIsScarier That is, when they're described at all.]]
38	** The titular entity in the story "One Other" is a creature that emerges from another universe into our own through the Bottomless Pool. John muses at the end that there are probably many universes, and One Other's monstrous appearance ([[spoiler:a tall human-shaped... ''thing''... with only a left arm and a left leg]]) is One Other's attempt to [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith appear like one of us]].
39	* EvilCounterpart: "Nine Yards of Other Cloth" pits John against another musician with an ebony fiddle, who seems to have gotten his skills from a [[RockMeAsmodeus less holy source]].
40	* EvilSorcerer: Multiple examples, usually shown terrorizing the local countryside before John comes along.
41	* FantasyAmericana
42	* FearsomeCrittersOfAmericanFolklore: A whole flock of them appear at the climax of "The Desrick on Yandro". Another pack of them shows up in ''The Voice of the Mountain'', and they are mentioned in quite a few of the other stories.
43	* FeatheredFiend: The eponymous buzzard-monster in "O Ugly Bird", which is a sort of familiar to a sinister hoodoo man.
44	* FeudingFamilies: The Hatfield-[=McCoy=] Feud, a historical event that became part of American folklore, forms part of the backstory of "Old Devlins Was A-Waiting".
45	* FolkHorror: Sometimes. The stories are all steeped in folklore, but only some of them have the horror.
46	* FunetikAksent: Most of the series characters' are from the Appalachians and speak the dialect, which is done properly. [[ShownTheirWork Wellman lived in the mountains of North Carolina for decades, and did his research.]]
47	* FutureSelfReveal: In "Who Else Could I Count On?", [[spoiler:John is asked for help by an old man who has traveled from forty years in the future to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. The reveal comes after it occurs to John that the man is old enough to have a younger self in the present, and he asks the old man what will happen if he meets his younger self.]]
48	* GodWasMyCopilot: In "Over the Hills and Everywhere", John tells a story about an itinerant carpenter mending a feud between two brothers, and implies that it was Jesus taking an active hand.
49	* HandyMan: The carpenter in "Over the Hills and Everywhere".
50	* HellGate: In "Owls Hoot In The Daytime" John finds one of these, complete with [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils its own demon, Molech]]. Molech tries to get John to take some of the precious jewels it has laying all over the place so it can [[KillItWithFire hurl him into a fiery pit]]. [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu It works about as well as you'd think.]]
51	* HillbillyHorrors: Scary and supernatural happenings in rural Appalachia. Unlike most versions of this trope, however, the hillbillies themselves are generally depicted as pretty decent, ordinary people, and if they're not, they're probably the villain of the piece.
52	* IfICanOnlyMove: At the climax of "Vandy, Vandy".
53	* ImprobableWeaponUser: John's silver-strung guitar is sometimes the only thing standing between him and death or worse.
54	* MugglesDoItBetter: "Nary Spell" has a sharpshooting competition. Two of the shooters use different magic to land near-bullseyes. John steps up and gets a perfect bullseye for the win. How'd he do it? [[TitleDrop Nary spell]], just a lot of training in the army.
55	* MyFutureSelfAndMe: The whole point of the aptly-titled "Who Else Could I Count On?".
56	* NoImmortalInertia: In "Vandy, Vandy", a man who's unnaturally prolonged his life for nearly three hundred years dies, and his body crumbles into a mouldy little heap.
57	* NoNameGiven: We never learn John's last name.
58	* OurGiantsAreBigger: Rafe Enoch from "Walk Like A Mountain". He differs also in that he's rather cunning for a giant, and oh yes, he can control the weather.
59	* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Cherokee vampires, the Raven Mockers, in the novel ''The Old Gods Waken''.
60	* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: Hoph from "You Know the Tale of Hoph" is implied to be one, though it's not stated. He has hair, fangs, and claws, and feeds on the blood of beautiful women. He's also only vulnerable to a SilverBullet, which John promptly puts into him once he tries to attack someone.
61	* PiousMonster: In "Nine Yards of Other Cloth", John explores Hosea's Hollow, a valley that's reputed to be haunted by a terrifying man-eating monster. A local legend tells of a man named Hosea Palmer who went into the hollow to deal with the monster; after that, the monster never raided beyond the hollow, but Hosea Palmer was never seen again. In the hollow, John finds an old grave, with a wooden marker inscribed by an unknown hand with Hosea Palmer's name, and eventually learns that Hosea befriended the monster and gave it religion, and the monster buried him when he died. It lets John and Evadare pass through unmolested because they pray at the grave and sing hymns and behave like decent people; the villain of the story, who does none of those things, never leaves the hollow alive.
62	* PutOnABus: Evadare is not heard from again in any of the short stories after "Trill Coster's Burden". In the novels ''The Old Gods Waken'' and ''After Dark'', John mentions that Evadare is staying with friends while he gathers up money so they can start a homestead and get married. She appears in the novel ''The Hanging Stones''.
63	* RealAfterAll: In "Shiver in the Pines" a pair of occultist [[ConMan con artists]] try to scam a pair of farmers out of their property by tricking them into entering an [[AbandonedMine haunted mine]] that belonged to the Ancients. John figures the scam out and the two thieves are snatched away by [[EldritchAbomination something the Ancients left behind]].
64	* RealPersonCameo: Several mountain musicians like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bascom_Lamar_Lunsford Bascom Lamar Lunsford]] and Obray Ramsey make appearances.
65	* RecklessGunUsage: Rixon gets taken to task for it by none less than the ghost of "Devil" Anse Hatfield. He tries to explain it away as a joke, but Anse remains unimpressed.
66	--> "A mighty sorry joke," said Devil Anse. "I never yet laughed at a gun going off."
67	* RockMeAsmodeus: Usually inverted as it's implied John received his skills and silver-stringed guitar from a holy source. Played straight, however, in "Nine Yards of Other Cloth", where he is pitted against a man with an ebony fiddle from a very different source...
68	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: In "Who Else Could I Count On?", John meets a man who has travelled from four decades in the future to prevent "the war that everybody's going to lose".
69	* ShellShockedVeteran: Anderson Newlands in "Old Devlins Was A-Waiting" is a veteran of UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar. John himself occasionally mentions that he's been to war in the past, and WordOfGod is that he was in Korea too.
70	* ShownTheirWork: As noted, Wellman was an acknowledged expert when it came to Appalachian myths, folktales and music.
71	* SilverBullet: In "You Know the Tale of Hoph", one is used to slay the monster.
72	* SilverHasMysticPowers: In many of the stories. John explains that silver is proof against evil creatures because it's the one substance Satan fears.
73	* SinEater: Evadare agrees to act as a Sin-Eater and take on the eponymous "Trill Coster's Burden", purely out of the goodness of her heart.
74	* SinsOfOurFathers: "The Desrick on Yandro" features an arrogant man paying for his grandfather's sins.
75	* SouthernFriedGenius: John has a Ph.D.-level knowledge of American myths and folklore, as well as deep insight into the belief systems if several Native American tribes. He was also number two on the short list of people considered for the job of recording folk songs for the Library of Congress, though he privately admits that Bascom Lamar Lunsford was the (ever so slightly) better choice.
76	* SummonBiggerFish: In "Vandy, Vandy" a warlock starts a spell to turn a picture of John into an object of SympatheticMagic, so he can use it to harm John. John attempts to distract the warlock by throwing a [[SilverHasMysticPowers silver quarter]] at him, and the warlock's spell latches onto the image of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington on the quarter instead of onto the picture of John. Result: Washington himself -- or rather, an embodiment of the heroic myth of George Washington -- appears out of the smoke and kicks the warlock's ass.
77	* SwordCane: The villain in "Vandy, Vandy" has one.
78	* SympatheticMagic: Magic worked on people through images of them features in "Vandy, Vandy".
79	* TakeOurWordForIt: The Behinder in "The Desrick on Yandro."
80	-->To this day I can see it, as plain as a fence at noon, and forever I will be able to see it. But talking about it's another matter. Thank you, I won't try.
81	* ThoughtAversionFailure: "Blue Monkey" has John attending a midnight spell-casting where the caster informs everyone that if they don't think of a blue monkey, he can turn pebbles into gold. The spell fails because they all are. John tries the spell a year later, but tells the audience not to think of a red fish (so that they ''don't'' think of a blue monkey). Turns out the spell is real.
82	* TimeTravel:
83	** In "Old Devlins was A-Waiting", a character has a theory that rituals for summoning up the dead are actually a form of time travel, bringing the subject forward from the past, not up from the grave. Their ritual succeeds in summoning Captain Anderson Hatfield, but the question of whence is left ambiguous.
84	** In the story fragment "Who Else Could I Count On?", John meets a traveller from the future. It doesn't go into detail about how the travel was accomplished.
85	* TitledAfterTheSong: Several of the stories are named after/inspired by Appalachian folk-tunes, including "Shiver in the Pines", "The Little Black Train" and "The Desrick on Yandro". John always sings at least a verse or two of the song in question, accompanying himself on his silver-strung guitar.
86	* VaporWear: Craye Sawtelle in "The Spring".
87	-->She winnowed close then. I made out that she didn't have on air stitch under her silky dress. She was proudly made, and well she knew it.
88	* VictoriasSecretCompartment: In "Trill Coster's Burden", TheVamp hides a giant ruby in her cleavage, and tells John that if he wants it he'll have to reach in and get it; he declines, and she gets away. (This ends badly for her, since the reason he wanted it in the first place is that it has a curse on it he's trying to break.)
89	* WalkingTheEarth: John.
90	* WhenTreesAttack: One novel, ''The Old Gods Waken'', had the Man In The Oak, a kind of undead tree-spirit, as its main villain, along with a grove of literally bloodthirsty thorn vines.

Context Literature / SilverJohn