Our Singing Country

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	Our Singing Country
	CALLAHAN a®. No. 1537. Luther Strong, Hazard, Ky., 1937. <(I learned 'Callahan* from one of them Jackson County fellows flaying the fiddle and singing it. I used to hear an old man by the name of Bob Lehr play it and sing it in Jackson County. This many Callahany he killed somebody. This old man seen him hung} this man Bob Lehr did. aTell you what he didy this Callahan. He was a fiddlery and when they was about to hang himy he took his fiddle and he offered anybodyy any fid­dler that would come up there and sit down with him and play that tuney he'd give them that fiddle. And they wouldn't do it and when his last minute was up and they was fixing to trip the gallows with himy whyy he busted that fiddle all to pieces over that coffin. They was afraid to come up there and play with himy afraid some one would shoot themy and so he busted that fiddle all to pieces over the head of his own casket. "It had been a feud. He had killed somebody in one of them feudses and they got him in jail. Bessie Larkin was a girl he married. They was engaged to be marriedy and he got into that troubley and she married him after he got in jail and went on to jail with him. They lived together in jaily yesy siry four or five months or maybe six or eight. She lived right there in the jail-house with himy married him in jail—she liked him. That was about thirty or maybe forty years ago in Manchestery down in Clay County. Ever since that time they've called this here tune 'Callahan.'"