The Jack Tales

by Richard Chase

  For the trick of getting a dangerous beast locked into a house or church see: Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 98; W. Larminie, West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances (London, 1898), p. 78. There is a humorous Negro tale of the coward who runs from a bear and pretends he is bringing it in alive to save trouble; see: Brewer, PTFLS X, 35–36; Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 66–67; Fauset, JAFL XL, 271. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Wards’ title “The Lion and The Unicorn.” The rhyme on Jack’s belt, as given by all our informants, had to be altered for printing.

  7. BIG JACK AND LITTLE JACK

  Sources: R. M. W., Roby Hicks.

  Parallels. This is Type 1000, Bargain Not to Become Angry, combined with Type 1007, Killing Live Stock, Type ion, Tearing up the Orchard, and a form of Type 1563, “Both?”. I recorded a version of this from Sam Harmon. For references on Type 1000, see Bolte-Polívka, II, 293–94. For the combination of Types 1000 and 1007, see: Beal. IV, 253; VI, 44–47; X, 178–80; Campbell, West Highlands, II, 318–43; Kennedy, Fireside Stories, pp. 74–80, reprinted in Jacobs, Celtic, No. XX. For Type 1000 also see Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 38–40. For Type 1007, see Beal. X, 175. (H. H.)

  Remarks: The title is from Roby Hicks.

  8. SOP DOLL;

  Sources: R. M. W., Jane Gentry (per Carter).

  Parallels. This witch tale is also in Carter, pp. 354–55, and is extremely common in British-American tradition. For very full lists of parallels, see: A. Taylor, Modern Philology, XVII, 59, note 8; Gardner, Schoharie, p. 74 and note 139; H. Halpert, “Indiana Storyteller,” Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, I (1942), 60–61. (H. H.)

  Remarks: The phrase “Sop doll!” is puzzling. R. M. W. says he thinks “doll” means “paw.” When Marshall Ward tells this tale his “Sop doll-ll!” sounds more like “sop darr-rr!” with a high inflection on the “sop.” Wards’ own title, “The Silver Knife” is from a Virginia version of this tale.

  9. JACK AND THE KING’S GIRL

  Source: R. M. W.

  Parallels. This is a form of Type 571, Making the Princess Laugh, combined with Type 1696, “What Should I Have Said (Done)?” For the combination of the two stories, see Jacobs, English, No. XXVII, and Chambers, pp. 101–03. For Type 571, see: Grimm, No. 64; Bolte-Polívka, II, 39–44; Jacobs, Celtic, No. XXVI, cited from Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, pp. 23–31; Kennedy, Fireside Stories, pp. 103–13. Two Negro texts are in Fauset, JAFL XL, 248–49; Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 128.

  For Type 1696 see: Grimm, No. 143; Bolte-Polívka, III, 145 ff.; Dasent, Fjeld, pp. 358–75; Beal. Ill, 44–46 (see for further references); Kennedy, Fireside Stories, pp. 30–33; Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, pp. 39–42; Jacobs, More English, No. LXXXIV. In the United States see: JAFL III (1890), 292–93; Dobie, PTFLS VI, 54; and a Negro text from Virginia in A. M. Bacon and E. C. Parsons, “Folk-Lore from Elizabeth City County, Virginia,” JAFL XXXV (1922), 307–08. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Wards’ title “Lazy Jack.”

  10. FILL, BOWL! FILL:

  Source: R. M. W.

  Parallels. This is Type 570, The Rabbit-herd. See: Grimm, No. 165, incident C; Bolte-Polívka, III, 267–74; Dasent, Fjeld, pp. 1–14. This tale has been recorded by Carter, pp. 350–51; E. G. Parsons, Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina (MAFLS XVI, Cambridge, Mass., and New York, 1923), pp. 102–03; Zunser, JAFL XLVIII, 161–64. Without the sack of lies incident the story is in R. Chambers, Popular Rhymes of Scotland (London and Edinburgh, 1870), pp. 103–05. The tricking of the king and his family is in a story in Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 150.

  This interesting type of tale, which has prose interspersed with song is called a cante fable. The form has rarely been reported from English-speaking Whites in America, as I point out in my brief study “The Cante Fable in Decay” Southern Folklore Quarterly, V (1941), 191 ff., although the form is quite old in both the European and African storytelling traditions—and even further east. Mr. Chase deserves congratulations for his recovery of such a rare item. In a note to “Childe Rowland,” in Jacobs, English, pp. 242–43, Mr. Jacobs suggests that “all folktales of a serious character” originally took this cante fable form. This example, and those I have presented in “The Cante Fable in New Jersey,” JAFL LV (1942), 3:33—43, are far from being of a “serious” character—though I may be misinterpreting Mr. Jacobs’s use of the word. (H. H.)

  Remarks: The most unusual feature of this tale and of Hardy Hardhead is the Woden-like character of the old man. The appearance of the god Woden (Odin, the Norse god for whom Wednesday, Wodens-day, was named) as Old Graybeard, The Stranger, The Wanderer (as in Wagner’s Ring) occurs six times in the Volsunga Saga: 1, as a stranger at Sigmund’s wedding, with a long cloak, broad hat, and magic sword; 2, as an unknown ferryman, to Sigmund bearing Sinfjotli’s body; 3, as a stranger who breaks Sigmund’s sword in battle; 4, as an old man with a long beard to Sigurd who does not know him; he helps Sigurd choose his horse from the herd by driving them toward the river where only Grani swims across; this appearance with its dialogue is closest to our story here; 5, as a stranger standing on a headland, to Sigurd whose ships are storm-driven; when he is taken on board the storm subsides; 6, as an old man with a long gray beard, to Sigurd when he is digging the trench to carry off Fafnir’s blood. There is also an appearance in The Prose Edda: as a poor old man who invites Hrolf Kraki and his men to stay at his hut.—I had known this phase of Woden’s character from my childhood as well as from a later reading of both the Prose Edda and The Poetic Edda. I must say that it was rather a surprise finding the Old Man on the slopes of Beech Mountain, North Carolina—R. M. W. in telling this tale always makes quite a point of the stranger’s foreknowledge of Jack’s adventures, and of Jack’s surprise that the old man should know his name.—The point of singing the bowl full of lies seems to have been lost in the Ward-Harmon tradition. Doctor Stith Thompson cleared up this point for the present editor who restored it here. R. M. W. had said simply, “sing the bowl full.” (R. C.)

  11. HARDY HARDHEAD

  Sources: R. M. W., Mrs. Grover Long.

  Parallels. This is Type 513 B, The Land and Water Ship. There is a text of this in Carter, pp. 346–49, and I also recorded it from Sam Harmon. See: Grimm, No. 71, and part of No. 165; Bolte-Polívka, II, 79–96; III, 267–74; Dasent, Fjeld, pp. 341–52; Dasent, Norse, No. XX; Campbell, West Highlands, I, 244–47; J. G. McKay, More West Highland Tales (London, 1940), pp. 49–61; D. MacInnes, Folk and Hero Tales (Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, Argyllshire Series, II, London, 1890), 53–67, and see note on p. 445 ff.; J. MacDougall, Folk and Hero Tales (Waifs and Strays, III, London, 1891), pp. 2–9; Curtin, Hero Tales, pp. 182–97, 438–62; J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Boston, 1890), pp. 270–80; Hyde, pp. 19–47. For Negro texts see: A. H. Fauset, “Tales and Riddles Collected in Philadelphia,” JAFL XLI (1928), 537–40; Parsons, Sea Islands, MAILS XVI, 130–31; Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 32–35. There are three helpers in Beal. II, 194; VII, 63–64; Jacobs, More Celtic, No. XLIII. (H. H.)

  12. OLD FIRE DRAGAMAN

  Source: R. M. W.

  Parallels. This is Type 301 A, The Three Stolen Princesses. For references and analysis see: Beal. VIII, 97–99; Bolte-Polívka, II, 300–18; Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 142, note 1. See: Grimm, No. 91; Beal. IV, 423–24; V, 209–10; XI, Supplement, pp. 14–24 (reprinted from J. Curtin’s articles in the New York Sun); Curtin, Hero Tales, pp. 262–82; Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, pp. 43–53; Campbell, West Highlands, I, 244–51; III, 9–32; S. O. Addy, Household Tales with other Traditional Remains (London and Sheffield, 1895), pp. 50–53. There is a text in Carter, pp. 341–43. The eating scene is given in Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 143. (H. H.)

  Remarks: This rather unusual tale seems to be quite extant among our people; in Kentucky, Sally Middleton’s “Little Black Hunchety Hunch”; in Carmen, North Carolina, The Shelton Family’s “Little Nippy”; in Damascus, Virginia, Mrs. Lethcoe’s untitled tale where Jack goes down to three successive “other worlds” to fin
d each of the pretty girls; in Wise County, Virginia, Cecil Riser’s “Jack and Old Tush.” In Zora Neale Hurston’s book of folklore from Florida Negroes “Mules and Men,” and in the North Carolina “Little Nippy,” the boy gets back to the upper world by riding on a buzzard’s back.

  At first glance this tale’s connection with “Beowulf” would seem rather far-fetched. However, the hero does descend to “another world” to battle a monster; and in one Virginia version I heard him described as a “slimy, slobbery old hairy man” who lived down under the water. In the second part of the Anglo-Saxon epic the monster’s name is “Fire Drake,” although the similarity of this with “Fire Dragaman” may be merely coincidental. In this regard Martha Warren Beckwith has written me as follows:

  “Panzer believes that the Beowulf epic is based on the folktale of the ‘Bear’s son,’ whose story is familiar to us in Grimm 91, where ‘Hans’ is ‘youngest-best.’ In Kennedy’s Fiction of the Irish Celts, 39–48, ‘Seven Inches’ is ‘youngest-best’ in a version of the same story, etc. Panzer has eight or nine pages of references to the Bear’s son folktale. Beowulf—Bee-wulf—i.e., Bear, because of the bear’s fondness for honey, but the Beowulf figure does not correspond exactly to the ‘youngest-best’ since he retails the prodigies of valor which he has already achieved. I do not know if Panzer’s study has been accepted as conclusive, but his folktale parallels seem all well taken. Your Old Fire Dragaman is certainly a variant of the same story.” (R. C.)

  13. JACK AND THE DOCTOR’S GIRL

  Sources: R. M. W., Ben H.

  Parallels. This is Type 1525 A, The Master Thief. See: Grimm, No. 192; Bolte-Polívka, III, 379–406; Dasent, Norse, No. XXXV; Jacobs, More Celtic, No. XXVIII, taken from Kennedy, Fireside Stories, pp. 38–46. See also: Campbell, West Highlands, I, 330–64; II, 253–78; McKay, pp. 119–29; Beal. II, xi, 348–51, 359 (has Irish references); V, 78; VII, 64, 72–75; VIII, 224; X, 165–72 (reprinted from The Royal Hibernian Tales) and additional references on p. 201. Two Negro texts are in Brewer, PTFLS X, 15–16; Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 11–12. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Wards’ own title. Ben Hicks has “opium” instead of “chloryform” and doesn’t mention the drugstore. It is a lynched nigger in all the Ward tellings, not a scarecrow. A version of this same tale is told by Porter Boone who lives near White Top Mountain at Kennarock, Virginia. His title for it is “Jack The Thief.”

  Frank Proffit, who lives near Beech Creek, has a different version of this same tale which he has written out as told by his father, Wiley Proffit. As an example of one of these tales being written down by a native tale-teller we print Frank Proffit’s tale herewith:

  Copied by Anna Hicks Presnell from Frank Proffit’s copy written by him from the telling of his father Wiley Proffit. Punctuated, in part, by R. C.

  JACK TALE

  Jack and his mother worked for a old rich man for their Living. Jack he found out where the old rich man Kept his money and he concluded he would steal it. So he got two more fellers to go with him. Jack says, “I’ll go in and get the money and if they wake up and find me out, I’ll whistle and you’uns can get away.”

  So they went to the old rich man’s house and Jack he went in and opened the burroh drawer and he found so much gold and silver that he went to patting his foot and whistling. The two fellers on the out side thought he was warning them and a way they ran as fast as they could go. So Jack he got all the money and went home with it.

  So Jack didn’t go down to work for the old rich man for two or three weeks. So the old rich man went to see what had became of him. Jack was gone when he got there, and he asked Jack’s mother why Jack hadn’t been down to work. She says, “We are just as independent as you are.” He says, “Why?” She says, “My son Jack has be come a high way robber.” “He is?” And while he was there Jack comes in. He says to Jack, “Jack, they say you have be come a high way robber.” He says, “Yes.” The old rich man says, “There’s one thing you must do between now and tomorrow morning or I’ll have you hung or shot certain.” Jack says, “What’s that?” He says, “You got to steal my sadle horse to night or I’ll have you hung or shot certain tomorrow morning.” Jack says, “If I do is it mine?” And the rich man said “Yes.” So that night the old rich man Locked the door and Placed two gards at the stable door. So the gards built them up a big fire and laid at the stable door.

  Along about mid night along came a old ragged man a Limping along. He said to the gards that he had traveled so far that he wanted to Lay down by the fire and rest til morning. So the gards told him he could. The gards laid awake and watched him. The old man Laid down by the fire and lay there. After while he turned over and pulled out a bottle of rum and let on like he was taking a Dram, and set it down by his head. When he went to snoring again one of the gards said, “That ’uns mine.” So he got it and drunk it. After while they seen the old man turn over and reach for his bottle of rum and couldn’t find it, so he run his hand in his pocket and pulled out another bottle and turned it up like he was taking a dram and placed it by his head. The other gard says, “That one is mine” and he drunk that and in a short time they didn’t know nothing they was so drunk. So Jack he got up when he seen they was drunk and hunted in their pockets and got the key and un locked the door and taken the horse out and put the bridle and saddle on and locked the door back up and put the key back in the gard’s pocket and got on the horse and away he went.

  The old rich man come out the next morning to the stable. “My horse is here, is he?” he said. “Yes, here’s the key.” The old rich man unlocked the door. “My horse is gone,” he said. “I gray Jack’s got him.” He went up to see Jack. “Jack, you got my horse, did you?” “No sir, not yours but mine.”

  The old man says, “There’s another thing you’ve got to do again tomorrow morning or I’ll have you hung or shot certain.” Jack: “What’s that?” “You’ve got to steal all my Brother Dickie’s money or I’ll have you hung or shot tomorrow morning.” Jack says, “’Fi do, is it mine?” “Yes.”

  They was a meeting house purty close to Brother Dickie’s, and away in the night Brother Dickie heard preaching going on in the church and there wasn’t no appointment of any meeting so he went up and knocked on the door and says, “Who’s this?” And Jack says, “It’s the angel gable.” [Gabriel.] And he says “What can I give you to be in thy place?” And Jack says, “All thy money and you can be in my place.” And Brother Dickie says, “I’ll go and get it then.” So he started on after it and Jack he got down and slipped a long be hind Brother Dickie and when he got home his wife asked him who that was up there a preaching. He told her it was the angle gable. “And he said I could Be in his place for all my money.” She says, “Just take half the money. He won’t know the difference.” Jack he run back and got in the stand and was preaching when Brother Dickie got back. He knocked on the door and says, “Here’s all my money. Let me be in thy place.” He says, “Not all thy money, it’s only Just half. Go get the other and you can be in my place.” So Brother Dickie goes back after the rest of the mony and Jack slippes along to lissen. When he got there he says to his wife, “It is the angle gable sure enough. How did he know I Just got half the mony?” She says, “Just take it all and go on to heaven. I’ll soon be there too.” Jack hurried on Back and was up in the stand a preaching when here come Brother Dickie. Knocked on the door and said “here’s all my money. Let me be in thy place.” Jack says, “all right, get me a big sack to take you to heaven in.” So he got it. He tied it up hard and fast and he got him on his shoulder and carried him to the pen where the old rich man kept his fattening hogs and put him in among the fattening hogs. The old rich man went down the next morning Bright and early to his Brother Dickie’s and asked his wife where his Brother Dickie was. His wife says “The angle gable come Last night and took him to heaven for all his money.” He says, “I gray Jack got it.” He went on Back home and By that time the sarvants had went out to feed the hogs. They seen the sack in there
wiggling around and got scared and run Back. They told the old man. He went out and untied it. Out crawled his Brother Dickie!

  He went up to see Jack. “Jack you got my Brother Dickie’s mony did you?” “No. not his’n but mine.”

  “Well, there’s another thing you’ve got to do or I’ll have you hung or shot certain.” “What’s that?” “You’ve got to steal my 5 hundred head of cattle and put them in your pasture or I’ll have you hung or shot to morrow morning.” “If I do are they mine?” “Yes.”

  That night the old rich man had his hands to start with the cattle to another pasture. Jack killed him a sheep and got him a bladder of blood and run on a head and stripped his self nacked and hung his self over the road by the hill and Put the Blood on his face. The drivers come up and the cattle got scared and run into the woods. The drivers is scared too but they git the cattle together again and goes on. Jack cuts hisself down and run ahead and hangs hisself over the road again, by the heels. The drivers comes up again. They get scared bad that time and the cattle run off in the woods. But they finally gets the cattle together again and goes on. Jack cuts his self down again and runs ahead again. The drivers come up again. That time it scares them so bad that they run off and leaves the cattle. Jack gathers the cattle up, and takes them and puts them in his pasture.

  Next morning the old man comes over and sees the cattle in Jack’s pasture. “Well you got my cattle Last night did you?” “Not yours but mine.”

  “Well they’s another thing you’ve got to do or I’ll have you hung or shot certain.” “What’s that?” “You’ve got to steal my wife’s shimmy off her back or I’ll have you hung or shot to morrow morning.” “If I do, is it mine?” “Yes.”