Pollard Bales is a luthier who was traveling through Coal Creek. He made a deal with a sentient tree (a creature of the Green), reneged on that deal, and as a result inflicted a curse though one of his repairs (Opaline "Leenie" Reaves' fiddle).
The party finds him in Gilman's Boarding House, shivering in fear in a fetal position. He tells them his story.