Northern Maine lumberjack and trickster reputed to have sold his soul to the devil for
magical powers. According to some older informants, Knox had joined a circus as a
youth and returned with a bag of tricks to play on his more gullible fellow woodsworkers.
Often mentioned is his book of tricks, transmuted by the superstitious into a “black book”
of devilish contents.
The greater part of the Knox traditions revolves about a Faustian theme. Thirty years
of power for thirty dollars was the deal, and then the devil collected his due (no informant
was aware that, according to the records, Knox died at age thirty of tuberculosis). This
portion of the tradition is the strongest and is replete with black dogs, sacrifices of black
cats at crossroads at midnight, and the swearing of oaths of fealty to the “evil one.”
Another sizable body of tradition is work oriented, celebrating great feats of strength
and tremendous amounts of work accomplished, this often with enchanted lumbering
tools. A common tale has Knox sitting on a stump while his ax is industriously chopping
down trees. All of this was very secretive; and should someone touch the famous ax,
Knox would know and immediately change its handle.
Throughout both segments of the Knox tradition, Knox emerges as a man to be feared
and avoided. It was said that Knox always slept alone in the lumber camps, although the
general space- and money-saving practice was to have two to a bunk. The reason given
was simple: No one wanted to sleep in the same bed with a man of Knox’s evil
reputation.
The localization of the Knox traditions and their present-day vitality appear related to
two circumstances: first, that this region is a stable, long-settled rural area with no inmigration; and second, the great majority of the population belongs to conservative
Protestant religions in which the devil has not as yet become an abstraction.
Roger E.Mitchell
References
American Folklore and Legend. In Reader’s Digest. 1978. Pleasantville, NY, pp. 356–358.
Dorson, Richard M. 1973. America in Legend: Folklore from the Colonial Period to the Present.
New York: Pantheon, pp. 176–180.
Mitchell, Roger E. 1969. George Knox: From Man to Legend. Northeast Folklore 2.