Animaterra and all:

Caroline and I have ben selling Limberjacks for well over thirty years. At first they were made for us by a young model-maker in Vermont, using a design he and I worked up that could be efficiently turned out in quantity. When he took a straight job down in Rhode Island, we had them made by a sheltered workshop, also in Vermont. When that became too much for them to handle, we turned the job over to a commercial woodworking outfit, still in Vermont, and they make them for us still.

George and Gerry Armstrong introduced us to the toy, but Gerry now tells me that they didn't know the name "LimberJack" until I started using it. I really don't know where I got it. A cousin of mine in south-central Pennsylvania told me that her father used to get wooden cigar boxes from the local pharmacist (this was during the depths of the depression) and made the toys for them at Christmas. They called it a "Soople-Jack," although she says they knew the real word was "supple." We have since found very early examples from New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut, and have seen large, hand-painted "blackface" models from Louisiana that dated back to the popular minstrel shows.

When Peter Kennedy sent me a photograph to accompany our recording of the great East Anglian singer, Harry Cox, I was delighted to see the old farmworker dancing a LimberJack in front of his cottage, a lovely, carved one, too, with what appeared to be wooden clogging shoes. Since then, we have found models from Ireland, Scotland, and Germany. The German one was actually made from sheet metal and clanked out a very noisy rhythm. Liam's brother would have found it unbearable!

When I was collecting traditional songs in North Carolina, I met Jack Guy, mountain entrepreneur, who had all of his family fashioning folktoys which he then marketed -- such winners as "Gee-Haw Whimmydiddles," "Flipper-dingers" and "Flykillers." He had never seen a LimberJack, so I drew a sketch of one for him and he ended up deciding that it was a native Appalachian toy. Probably was, even before I gave it to him, but most of our examples have been from northern states.

While we were in Vermont, we saw one rigged up on a sort of a scaffold, with a fulcrum under the board, allowing a fiddler to tap one end of the board and the LimberJack, suspended over the board would then be activated by the other end. We made a few of these, and gave one to Theo Bikel as he was on his way up to Canada to film My Side of the Mountain (I think that was the name of the movie). He used it in the film, playing his harmonica and dancing the LimberJack by tapping his foot. Nice touch!

A lot of people started making them after we introduced them to the "folk revival" audience at Fox Hollow in the early 60s. Many have chosen to elaborate on the idea, making fancy LimberChickens, LimberHorses, etc., probably very like the one TJaques used to have.

In a book of maxims, etc., I once read a quote from a French politician, dated about 1730: "(so-and-so) is as useless as a puppet without the board he dances on!" Sounds like our little man, doesn't it?

Well, that's a damn' sight more than any of you wanted to know. Sorry 'bout that!

Sandy