Jack tales
A collection of English folk tales centering around a character usually named "Jack," Jack tales are also popular in Appalachian folklore.[1]
The Jack in these tales is usually a weak character, sometimes a foolish one, but generally a kindly one. Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant Killer are only two of the most popular Jack tales.
Richard Chase, an American Folklorist, collected and retold many popular Jack tales in the book "The Jack Tales".
As pointed out by folklorist Herbert Halpert, the Appalachian Jack tales are an oral tradition as opposed to written, and like many Appalachian folksongs, trace back to sources in England.[2] For instance, where the English original would feature a king or other noble, the Jack tale version would have a sheriff. Some stories feature Jack's brothers, Will and Tom.
Cutliff Harmon is known to very possibly be the one who originally brought the Jack tales to America as stated in Jane Hicks Gentry: a singer among singers as well as in Orville Hicks: mountain stories, mountain roots
External links
Suggested Reading
- William Bernard McCarthy, Cheryl Oxford and Joseph Daniel Sobol, Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and Their Tellers, University of North Carolina Press (1994), ISBN-13: 978-0807821350
- Julia Taylor Ebel, Orville Hicks: Mountain Stories, Mountain Roots, Parkway Publishers (2005), ISBN-13: 978-1933251028
References
- ^ Journey Through Fantasy Literature: A Resource Guide for Teachers. Vol. I. Ed. Roberta T. Herrin. 1988–89, as posted on http://www.ferrum.edu/applit/articles/wondertales.htm.
- ^ Richard Chase, ed., The Jack Tales, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1943, ISBN: 0-395-06694-8. "Told by R. M. Ward and his kindred in the Beech Mountain section of Western North Carolina and by other descendants of Council Harmon (1803-1896) elsewhere in The Southern Mountains; with three tales from Wise County, Virginia. Set down from these sources and edited by Richard Chase; with an appendix compiled by Herbert Halpert; and illustrated by Berkeley Williams, Jr."