Not a C&W fan but tonight is a great time for some Charlie Daniels - The Devil Went Down To Georgia!

[Hekate]

17. Thanks, George. I like that folk story & song in all iterations. I was powerfully reminded ...

...of the story (but did not dare tell it) while on a musical tour of Ireland some years ago. That is, we were tourists, and musicians traveling with us on the bus were giving us a tour of Ireland.

One was a fiddler name Sean, older, with white hair and skin to match. He was the whitest man I ever met who wasn’t an albino, but his chief feature was his skill with a fiddle. One night after dinner our party had a room to ourselves, and as he began to play, a woman walking by the door was drawn in as though by a thread, and she began to dance. Her feet flew, and as if he had been dared, his fingers and bow flew faster yet. She kept up, the bow transcended. She almost but not quite faltered, and kept dancing as fast as he played until he put his bow down.

In awe, all I could think was: “He played the Devil down.”

The story of this musician or that who meets the Devil at a crossroads at night to make a bargain that he (it’s always a he) will be the best of the best is (or was at one time) widely told in America. I knew that Sean had worked at his fiddle night and day in his youth to be the best of the best — but dared not mention the American folktale to this deeply Catholic Irishman.

But the awe never left me.