The Jack Tales

by Richard Chase

  That night the old man sat by his bed with his gun, watching the window.

  Jack knew of a man that was burried the day Be fore. He goes and digs him out and kills a sheep and gets him a Bladder of Blood and goes to the old man’s window and raises the Dead man’s face up to the window and pulls it back, raises it up again and pulls it back. The next time “Key Bang” goes the gun. Jack drops the dead man and bustes the Bladder of Blood on his face and hides. The old man comes out and sees the dead man laying there with the Blood on his face. He goes back and tells his wife, “Well, I’ve killed the rascal. I’ll get two of my trusted Best friends to help me bury him and will be shet of the rascal, and no one will know nothing about it.” When the old man is gone, in a little while Jack goes in and gets in the Bed with the old woman. Jack could talk like the old man. “Well, we won’t have to be bothered with him no more.” “I’m glad of it,” says the old woman.

  “I’ll swear,” says Jack, “if I didn’t for get to wash after handling that old rascal, and I got blood all over your clean shimmy.” “That’s all right. While you are washing there in the pan I’ll put me on a clean one.” Jack lets on like he’s washing. “Here, lay the shimmy over there,” says the old woman. Jack picks it up and puts it under his arm and away he goes.

  After while the old man come in. “That’s a good job done,” he says. “Well, wasn’t you here a little while ago?” she says. “No.” “Well, some one come in and I thought it was you and said he got Blood all over his hands and he got it all over my clean shimmy. I pulled it off and he went away with it.” “I gray Jack got it.”

  Next morning the old man went over to Jack’s house; “Well, you got my wife’s shimmy last night did you?” “Not hers but mine.”

  “Well there’s one more thing you’ve got to do. If you do it I’ll give you a deed to half of my farm. If not I’ll have you hung or shot certain. You’ve got to come to my house in the morning nether riding walking Hopping scipping nor jumping. Neather come in nor stay out. Or I’ll have you hung or shot certain.”

  Next morning Jack caught him a old sowe and went from one side to the other with one foot touching. When he got to the old rich man’s house he comes out and opened the gate and said “Come in.” Jack he just straddled the gate, didn’t go in or stay out.

  The old man give him a deed to his farm so Jack was now richer than the old rich man.

  Writin by Anna Presnell

  BEECH CREEK, N.C.

  14. CAT ’N MOUSE!

  Sources: R. M. W., Miles A. W., Marshall P. Ward.

  Parallels. This seems to be a version of Type 401, The Princess Transformed into Deer. This tale seems to be quite rare; Carter, p. 349, has the only variant in English that I have been able to locate. See Bolte-Polívka, II, 335–48. Spending three frightful nights in a castle is also part of Type 400. It should be observed that there are many stories in English in which spending a night in a haunted house brings a reward to the courageous guest.

  It is a necessary precaution, as is well known, that when you have a witch in your power, you never give her anything unless you want to let her have her freedom. (H. H.)

  Remarks: The function of the talking fox in this tale is not quite clear. Possibly some parts of the story have been lost in oral transmission.

  15. JACK AND KING MAROCK

  Sources: Mrs. Nancy Shores and Gaines Kilgore, of Wise County, Virginia.

  Parallels. This is Type 313 C, The Girl as Helper in the Hero’s Flight. See Grimm, Nos. 113, 193; Bolte-Polívka, II, 516–27; Dasent, Norse, No. XI; A. Aarne, Die magische Flucht (FFC 92, Helsinki, 1930); R. Th. Christiansen, “A Gaelic Fairytale in Norway,” Beal. 1, 107–14. This is a very widely known tale but I have found no report of it from England.

  For Irish texts see: Beal. I, 273; II, 19–23 (and references on p. 25), 189; III, 31–35; V, 138; VII, 243; VIII, 224; IX, 132; XI, Supplement, pp. 25–34 (reprinted from J. Curtin’s articles in the New York Sun); Jacobs, More Celtic, No. XXXIX; Curtin, Hero Tales, pp. 163–81; Curtin, Myths, pp. 32–49; Kennedy, Fireside Stories, pp. 56–63; J. Britten, “Irish Folk-Tales,” Folk-Lore Journal, 1, 316–24; L. McManus, “Folk Tales from Co. Mayo, Ireland,” Folk-Lore, XXVI, 191–95; P. G. Brewster, “Folk-Tales from Indiana and Missouri,” Folk-Lore, L, 294–96 (and pp. 296–97 for references. Tale secured in Missouri but originally learned in Co. Limerick, Ireland).

  There are Scotch texts in Jacobs, English, No. VII; Campbell, West Highlands, I, 25–63 (one of these is the chief source for Jacobs, Celtic, No. XXIV); MacInnes, Waifs and Strays, II, 1–31.

  The only White text from America is given by W. W. Newell, “Lady Featherflight,” JAFL VI (1893), 54–62 (see for references). There are a number of Negro texts. See: M. Beckwith, Jamaica, MAFLS XVII, 135–39; Edwards, Bahamas, MAFLS III, 99–100; M. Emmons, “Confidences from Old Nacogdoches,” PTFLS VII, 128–30; Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 7–9; Hurston, pp. 70–77; Parsons, JAFL XXXV, 280–81; XXXVIII, 275; XLI, 490–92, 504,506–07; Parsons, Bahamas, MAFLS XIII, 54–60; Folk-Lore Journal, I, 284–87 (quoted from “Monk” Lewis’s Journal).

  For the incident of the devil’s daughter as a helper, but no magic flight, see Parsons, Sea Islands, MAFLS XVI, 52–53. For the incident of the kiss causing forgetfulness, see A. W. Trowbridge, “Negro Customs and Folk-Stories of Jamaica,” JAFL IX (1896), 284–85. For the incident of the chaste wife who puts her lovers in an embarrassing position, see Jacobs, More English, No. L; Beal. VII, 61; Kennedy, Legendary Fictions, pp. 63–64. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Gaines Kilgore’s tale is called “Willie and the Devil.” Mrs. Nancy Shores told all of Gaines’s tale, but carried it far beyond the pursuit, where Gaines’s tradition ended. An instance of the persistence of these tales in the traditions of a family occurred in Pittsburgh recently. I told a Jack Tale at a meeting of students and teachers of the Department of English of the University of Pittsburgh; and after the lecture a student came up and asked me if I had ever heard “Jack and King Marock”! It turned out that she had heard it from her grandmother, who was a sister to Mrs. Shores, and that these sisters had been separated since early childhood. (R. C.)

  16. JACK’S HUNTING TRIPS

  Sources: Part I: R. M. W., Miles A. Ward, Roby Hicks. Part II: Clate Baldwin of White Top, Virginia; Tom Peters of Norton, Virginia; Johnny Martin Kilgore of Wise, Virginia; and Boyd Boiling of Flat Gap, Virginia.

  Parallels. Part I. Forms of The Wonderful Hunt, Type 1890, often combined with forms of Type 189S, A Man Wading in Water Catches Many Fish In His Boots, are among the most popular of American tales. I have collected full references in my notes to versions of the tale in the Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, I (1942), 20–21, 41–42, 53–54, 91–92. We also have here Type 1900, How the Man Came Out of a Tree Stump, for which there is a North Carolina parallel in Boggs, JAFL XLVII, 315.

  Part II. This combines several popular American yarns. Variants of the story of the snake that appears to be a log are in South Carolina Folk Tales, p. 108; G. Anderson, “Tennessee Tall Tales,” Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, V (1939), 60 and 61; Halpert, Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, 1, 49–50.1 have also collected versions of this tale in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

  There are many versions of a story of bending a gun so it will shoot around a hill, but Mr. Chase’s form of the story seems to be unique.

  The peach tree deer is a version of the Munchausen tale of the tree growing from the head of a deer shot with cherry seeds. I have given an Indiana text and American references in H. Halpert and E. Robinson, “‘Oregon’ Smith, an Indiana Folk Hero,” Southern Folklore Quarterly, VI (1942), 165. Add: Hoosier Folklore Bulletin, I (1942), 101. In the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, I (1935), 11, mention is made of a tree growing from the side of a bear shot with peach seeds.

  The last section of the story belongs to Type 1930, Scharaffenland, the land in which impossible things happen. See: Grimm, Nos. 158, 159; Bolte-Polívka, III, 244–58. There is a fine version of th
is tale in G. B. Johnson, John Henry (Chapel Hill, 1929), pp. 144–45. The pigs, with knife and fork in their backs, crying, “Who’ll eat me?” is an opening formula for a tale in Beal. Ill, 31. For its use as a closing formula in a folk play, see M. Campbell, “Survivals of Old Folk Drama in the Kentucky Mountains,” JAFL LI (1938), 24. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Part H has been adapted and added to Mr. Ward’s Jack Tale by the editor. The honey creek, fritter-trees, and roast pig squealing to be eat, are from Boyd Boiling’s long tale “The Forks of Honey River at the Foot of Pancake Mountain.”

  17. THE HEIFER HIDE

  Sources: R. M. W., M A. W., Ben H., Stanley Hicks, Mrs. Grover Long.

  Parallels. This is Type 1535, The Rich and the Poor Peasant. See: Grimm, No. 61; Bolte-Polívka, II, 1–18; Dasent, Norse, No. XLVII. Seamus O’- Duilearga, who lists Irish references in Beal. X, 202, says this tale is one of the most widely-known and most popular of all Irish folk-tales. He thinks there is a clearly marked influence on the oral versions from the chap-book text (The Royal Hibernian Tales) which he reprints in Beal. X, 184–86. See: Beal. IV, 253; VIII, 87; Kennedy, Fireside Stones, p. 98 ff.; K. W. Michaelis, “An Irish Folk-Tale,” JAFL XXIII (1910), 425–28 (collected in Massachusetts from an Irish maid who had recently immigrated); Jacobs, Celtic, No. VI; Campbell, West Highlands, II, 232–52.

  In America the story is reported by Carter, pp. 343–46; Boggs, JAFL XLVII, 308–09; E. E. Gardner, Folklore from the Schoharie Hills, New York (Ann Arbor, 1937), pp. 177–80 (with references and discussion on pp. 180–82); Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 1–5 (see p. 1, note 1 for additional references). There are Negro texts in Hurston, pp. 64–68; Fauset, JAFL XL, 253–55; G. Parsons, Folk-Lore of the Sea Islands, South Carolina (MAFLS XVI, Cambridge, Mass., and New York, 1923), pp. 69–71; Beckwith, Jamaica, MAFLS XVII, 141–44, 164. Incomplete forms of the story are in J. B. Andrews, “Ananci Stories,” Folk-Lore Record, III, 54–55; C. L. Edwards, Bahama Songs and Stories (MAFLS III, New York, 1895), pp. 95–96 (reprinted from JAFL IV, 248–49); E. G. Parsons, “Folk-Lore from Aiken, S.C.,” JAFL XXXIV (1921), 14; Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 35–36.

  Raising the devil by lighting tow in a barrel is a feat ascribed to the noted preacher, Lorenzo Dow. See Gardner, Schoharie, pp. 37–38, 314–17. (H. H.)

  Remarks: Jack’s age varies considerably in the Wards’ tellings. Mostly he is a boy about sixteen. R. M. W. had him say “twenty-three” once in answer to the old man with the sheep. In Wise County, Virginia, this tale is called “Fool Jack and The Talking Crow”: Jack swaps his cow hide for a crow. Instead of the chest episode, the old man hides in a barrel of wool; and Jack makes his crow “raise the devil” when he lights the wool through the bung-hole. (R.C.)

  18. SOLDIER JACK

  Source: Gaines Kilgore.

  Parallels. This is a mixture of Type 330, The Smith Outwits the Devil, and Type 332, Godfather Death. For Type 330 see: Grimm, Nos. 81, 82; Bolte-Polívka, II, 149–63, 163–89; Dasent, Norse, No. XVI; Beal. VII, 243; X, 160–65 (additional Irish references on p. 20); XI, Supplement, pp. 45–49 (reprinted from J. Curtin’s articles in the New York Sun); P. Ussher, “Waterford Folk-Tales,” Folk-Lore, XXV, 230–31; Fauset, Nova Scotia, MAFLS XXIV, 80. For American Negro texts, see Emmons, PTFLS VII, 130–32; J. G. Harris, Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings (New York, 1885), No. XXXII; A. W. Whitney and G. C. Bullock, Folk-Lore from Maryland (MAFLS XVIII, New York, 1925), pp. 181–83. For the incident of pounding the devil in a knapsack see Campbell, West Highlands, II, 290–95; J Macdougall and G. Calder, Folk Tales and Fairy Lore in Gaelic and English (Edinburgh, 1910), pp. 31–32; Dasent, Norse, No. LIII.

  For Type 332 see: Grimm, Nos. 42, 44; Bolte-Polívka, I, 377–88; Dasent, Fjeld, pp. 108–15; Beal. II, no (and additional Irish references on p. in); Macdougall and Calder, pp. 69–73. (H. H.)

  Remarks: The version given here was edited from an unusually good recording of the tale from Gaines Kilgore by James Taylor Adams, and from the editor’s own field notes of several recordings from the same informant. (R. C.)

  Early editions of the following Jack Tales were printed in The Southern Folklore Quarterly as follows:

  Jack in the Giants’ Newground, Vol. 1, No. 1.

  Jack and the Varmints, Vol. 1, No. 4.

  Jack’s Hunting Trip, Vol. 2, No. 3.

  Fill, Bowl! Fill! Vol. 3, No. 1.

  Old Fire Dragaman, Vol. 5, No. 3.

  Glossary

  BLUBBERS: bubbles.

  BOBBLE: “make a bobble”: pull a boner.

  BOOMER: small red mountain squirrel.

  BOOT: “something given in addition to equalize an exchange.” Webster.

  BRESH: brush, undergrowth.

  BRICKLY: brittle.

  CALL FIGURES: call out directions for country dance figures.

  FIREBOARD: mantelpiece.

  GUINEA: an English coin once used in America.

  HAND-SPIKE: a small wooden crowbar.

  HIT: it. Generally used to strengthen the pronoun’s definiteness.

  JENNY: a female donkey.

  LIGHTS: “window lights”—window panes.

  MELT: milt, the spleen.

  NEWGROUND: fields cleared of trees and undergrowth and cultivated for the first time.

  PAINTER: panther, mountain lion.

  PIGGIN: an old-fashioned wooden bucket.

  PIZEN: poison.

  POKE: sack.

  PUNCHEON: a heavy hand-hewn board.

  QUERLED: coiled.

  QUILED: coiled.

  RIVIN’: riving. To rive—to split a block of wood into flat pieces with a tool called a froe.

  SHADDER: shadow, i.e. (in Jack and King Marock), reflection.

  SHET, “GET SHET OF”: get rid of.

  SWAG: a little glen or hollow depression on the side of a mountain.

  TURN, “TURN OF MEAL”: this means simply the amount of corn carried to the mill where one waits his turn to have his corn ground.

  USIN’, “WHERE THE HOG WAS A-USIN’”: “hanging around” is the slang equivalent. This sense of the word generally refers only to animals.

  WHIPLIN’: whistling.

  About the Author

  Noted American folklorist RICHARD CHASE (1904–1988) has been called the man “most responsible for the renaissance of Appalachian storytelling.” A collector of tales that had been handed down from generation to generation in the Appalachian regions of the United States, Chase was born in Alabama and lived in the mountains of North Carolina. Chase was also the editor and compiler of The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris. “His forte was the ability to combine scholarly research on the origins of the stories and patient editing of the many versions he collected with his passion for encouraging their oral tradition of being told spontaneously” (Childrens Books and Their Creators, edited by Anita Silvey).

  Footnotes

  1. Founder of The English Folk Dance and Song Society in England and the affiliated Country Dance Society in the United States. See also note on page viii and on page 185 in the Appendix.

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  2. For an account of the ancestry of the Southern mountain people see: “Our Southern Highlanders,” by Horace Kephart (New York: Macmillan, 1922), and “The Southern Highlander and His Homeland,” by John C. Campbell (New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, 1921). See also the Introduction to Cecil J. Sharp’s “English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians” (two volumes, edited by Maud Karpeles, London, Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, 1932) for an excellent account of the cultural traditions of this region.

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  3. “love songs”: usually mean traditional ballads.

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  4. “the old music”: generally means our folk music.

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  5. “couldn’t stand”: that is, couldn’t resist.

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; 6. “hit the floor”: jump out of his chair and start dancing a jig.

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  7. “reels”: traditional figure-dances.

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  8. “set”: the formation of a given country dance; for example, square for four couples, longways for six couples (as in the Virginia Reel), round for twelve couples and so on.

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  9. Plus “Gulliver’s Travels”! Not from oral tradition, however; for Monroe told us, “Miles got that part out of a book I lent him.”

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  10. However, Martha Warren Beckwith says in a recent letter: “It it the cycle form [of The Jack Tales] that is interesting and their appearing among the whites of this country where so little European story has been collected except among the blacks.

  “The ‘Jack’ hero is thoroughly European. If you think of the English tales with which we are most familiar you will recall ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ both of which appear in your collection. Jacobs’s collection of English tales has other less familiar ‘Jack’ stories. ‘Jack’ is in fact an equivalent figure in European story to Brer Rabbit of American Negro or Spider of Jamaican story. That is, he is the trickster hero who overcomes through quick wit or cunning rather than by physical force. He is often aided in European stories by a supernatural helper, ‘Hans’ is the German form and you will find the name common to French and Spanish stories in the form of the name in those languages. I think you will find a Jack cycle in Spanish-American stories collected in the Texas Folklore Society publications. European folktales told in Jamaica make ‘Jack’ the hero unless, like the Irish, they invent a fancy name.”