Storyteller's Cabin
The next Sunday, Martin climbed to the rocky overhang and began to play his fiddle. Again, the rattlesnakes slithered out from beneath the rocks and listened to him, hypnotized. Martin chuckled to himself, put down his fiddle and picked up a shotgun. He began blasting away at the rattlesnakes, picking them off one by one. The other snakes slithered back to their nests in terror.
Martin stopped shooting and laughed heartily as he collected the dead snakes in a burlap sack. This is too easy, he thought to himself -- I can make even more money selling rattlesnake hides!
Every Sunday for the next few weeks, Martin returned to the bluff, played his fiddle until the snakes came out, then began shooting. It became a sport to him, and soon he became known around the county as the "Fiddlin' Snake Man." Whenever someone wanted a snake skin to wrap around their hat or to make into a belt, or a rattle for their babies to play with, Martin was the man to see.
One Sunday toward the end of summer, Martin returned to the bluff like he had done many times before. As the sun rose, he began to play a soft waltz on his fiddle. Once again, the rattlesnakes wiggled out from underneath the rocks and listened, swaying back and forth to the music.
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Martin stopped playing, reached for his shotgun -- then stopped. Something in the snakes' eyes caught his attention. On his previous trips, the snakes' black eyes seemed to glaze over from the soft, gentle notes of his fiddle. But today, the snakes glared at Martin with fiery red eyes, burning with intense hatred. Martin was hypnotized in their glare -- as hard as he tried, he couldn't reach for his gun.
The snakes surrounded Martin and, one by one, began crawling up inside his pant legs. Martin was frozen with terror as he felt their scaly bodies wriggle around his legs, his chest and his arms. All at once, the snakes started biting, their sharp fangs ripping into Martin's flesh. As their icy venom flowed through his veins, all Martin could do was scream -- a horrifying scream that resounded throughout the valley.
A few days later, a search party found Martin's lifeless body sprawled across the overhang, his fiddle by his side. They looked with horror at the bite marks that covered his skin. Even more of a mystery was the loaded shotgun leaning against the rock, well within Martin's reach. Why didn't he try to defend himself?
To this day, some Johnson County residents refuse to climb to the rocky overhang at the top of Stone Mountain, which they now call "Fiddler's Rock." For in the lazy summer months, when the sun rises over the hills, they say you can hear the faint notes of a fiddle, followed by a high-pitched screeching sound -- the scream of Martin Stone, as the snakes take their revenge.
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Fiddler's Rock, also known as "Screaming Rock," is located in Johnson County in the far northeastern corner of Tennessee. The rock hangs overa ravine near the top of Stone Mountain between Mountain City and Laurel Bloomery.
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