Overview: There are many different tales in which Jack and other folk heroes encounter giants or ogres (or trolls in Scandanavian tales), derived largely from ancient British tales of Jack the Giant-Killer, who was popular in chapbook stories for centuries, and was often associated with Arthurian legends. (Only "Jack and the Beanstalk" has been more popular for the past several centuries than "Jack and the Giants," the two best-known Jack tales). There may be a castle, sword, and magic cloak in the tale, or a simple rural setting where Jack is armed only with his wits. The giants often want to eat Jack but they may also have captives that Jack rescues. There may be a giant wife or a whole family of giants. They often have two or more heads. Jack escapes from them by fooling them into thinking he has superhuman strength, or tricking them into fighting each other or running from an enemy in pursuit. Female giant-killers such as Mutsmag also appear in old folktales. Compton, Joanne and Kenn. Jack the Giant Chaser: An Appalachian Tale. New York: Holiday House, 1993. Based on Richard Chase. The mayor in Jack's hometown gets him to go after a giant because he brags about his adventure killing seven at a blow (really a lucky rock throw at catfish). He tries to act like a hero because everybody thinks he is one. After individuals tell what the giant has done to them, Jack uses his wits to get rid of the giant up on Balsam Mountain, acting casual at the giant's house. He tricks the giant into thinking he’s strong by wanting to move the creek instead of carrying buckets, wanting to throw a giant knife to his uncle over the mountain instead of across the yard, and getting the scared giant into a barrel because he says his bigger family is coming. When Jack rolls the barrel out, the giant gets bumped crashing into tree, and leaves for ever. The cartoonlike illustrations contain some interesting design features, with the giant and Jack in different relative sizes and different positions on facing pages. The giant is huge, spreading across the page in their first confrontation, but the images of Jack are larger in other scenes as he gets the upper hand. “Joanne Compton’s Jack the Giant Chaser is one of the finest of the trickster Jack tales. Jack’s ingenuity and the Giant’s stupidity have undying appeal” (Roberta Herrin, "Southern Pot of Soup." Southern Exposure Summer 1996, p. 61.) Chase, Richard. “Jack in the Giants’ Newground.” In The Jack Tales. Boston: Houghton, 1943, pp. 3-20. Full-page drawings by Berkeley Williams, Jr. show Jack tricking the two-headed giant, and the four-headed giant reaching to stop Jack from moving his creek. Another drawing shows Jack pretending he can holler to his uncle in Virginia and pitch a giant crowbar to him. Chase and Halpert (in the appendix) give detailed notes on this story combining various well-known tale types. Chase, Richard. “Jack in the Giants’ New Ground.” In Cole, Joanna, ed. Best-Loved Folktales of the World. New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1982. "Jack the Giant Killer." In Nippy and the Yankee Doodle, and Other Authentic Folk Tales from the Southern Mountains. Collected by Leonard Roberts. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1958. Roberts calls this version from Kentucky and Virginia, similar to the old story in Jacobs and Chase, "the finest version of the old tale that I have, or have seen in American collections." Jack grows up hearing about a giant that kills farm animals, so he decides to go after the giant when he is 16. He calls the giant out of his cave and kills him with a pick, earning the name Jack the Giant Killer. Then he hunts more giants to kill. After several days of captivity in another giant's castle, he strangles two giants and frees two starving women. After meeting a prince, Jack beheads a three-headed giant in his castle, with a sword. He takes a suit of invisibility which he uses to ambush another giant that has captured men, women, and children. At the end, "Jack went on searching for other giants and I never did see him any more." It is interesting that Jack uses less trickery and more direct force with weapons to kill the giants in this tale. "Jack and the Giants’ New Ground." In Peck, Catherine, ed. QPB Treasury of North American Folktales. Introduction by Charles Johnson. New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1998, pp. 219-34. (Also published as A Treasury of North American Folktales. Norton, 1999). This version from Maud Long, with several small illustrations, is reprinted from Folklore on the American Land by Duncan Emrich (Little, Brown, 1972). “Jack and the Giants’ New Ground.” Folklore of the United State. Jack Tales II. Told by Mrs. Maud Long of Hot Springs, NC. Ed. Duncan Emrich. LP. Washington: Library of Congress, Division of Music, 1947. Jack is lazy, leaving home because he won’t help his very poor family clear ground. The King gets him to go after a family of giants who won’t let anyone clear their ground, for $1000 per head. He tricks the two-headed giant by giving the impression he is squeezing a rock and slitting his stomach, so the giant slits his own stomach. With the three-headed twins, Jack throws rocks at them from inside a hollow log they are carrying and gets them to fight with each other, then cuts off their heads. The giants' mother has three heads and Jack chases away the four-headed father giant with threats. "Jack in the Giants' New Ground." Retold by Jerry Harmon. Audio file online in Jerry Harmon: "Smoky Mountain Rambler." Web site of a son of Benjamin Harmon and great-great grandson of Council Harmon, who brought the Jack Tales from England in the early nineteenth century. Web site also includes background information, songs, and "Jack and the Kings' Daughters." "Jack and the Giant." In Perdue, Charles L., Jr. Outwitting the Devil: JACK TALES from Wise County Virginia. Santa Fe, NM: Ancient City, 1987, pp. 53-56. Two versions collected by James Taylor Adams are reprinted here. Both begin with Jack trying to stay in a house that others consider haunted by a giant. In the first, Jack finds a pretty girl when she wakes up from a sleeping dram given to her by a giant that imprisoned her. They scare off the giant and rescue Jack's brothers, who were being fattened up in the giant's cave in the woods. The girl tricks the giant by standing in the road and then bargaining for the lives of the brothers when the giant thinks she's a "haint" and begs for mercy. On his wedding day, Jack stops being a marked boy who is "half boy and half dog." In the second "Jack and the Giant," Jack earns $1000 by trapping a giant as no one else could, smashing it when it turns into a mouse and tries to escape through a small hole in a fence. Stephenson, R. Rex. "Jack Fear-No-Man." The Jack Tales. Schulenburg, TX: I. E. Clark, 1991. Story theatre dramatization, as performed by The Ferrum Jack Tale Players. Jack defeats three dumb and gullible giants, winning money from the King of Virginia (or Queen, in some performances). The ruler loves trees and wants to be rid of giants who destroy trees. First Jack gets two of the giants to kill each other by dropping a rock on them from a tree, making them fight among themselves when one thinks the others hit him. Jack wins three contests with the third giant by boasting that he can do incredible feats, such as tearing up half the woods instead of just one tree—but the giant doesn't want to lose his woods. Jack says he plans to throw the giant's 1000-pound iron walking stick over to his brother-in-law in France, but the giant doesn't want to lose it. Jack wins an egg-eating contest (with eggs prepared by the giant's ugly wife) by stuffing the eggs in his false stomach. Then he uses the classic trick of appearing to cut open his own belly with a butcher knife, so that the giant cuts his own real stomach and dies. See comments and study questions on Jack Tale Players Study Guides page. Stephenson, R. Rex. "The Jack Tales." In Eight Plays for Youth: Varied Theatrical Experiences for Stage and Study, edited by Christian H. Moe and R. Eugene Jackson. American University Studies Series XXVI: Theatre Arts. Vol. 8. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Includes three tales by Stephenson with background on Jack Tales and story theatre: "Jack and the Robbers," "Jack and the Three Giants," and "Greasy-Beard." Haley, Gail E. "Jack and Uncle Thimblewit." In Mountain Jack Tales. New York: Dutton, 1992, pp. 47-52. With one full-page engraving of Jack standing on a table talking to the giant in a nightshirt. Poppyseed, Haley's elderly narrator, says her strange Irish uncle told this tale in which Jack's uncle is the giant Thimblewit. Jack tells the giant 1000 soldiers are coming, helps the giant hide in the cellar from the king's men, and tells his employer, the prince Greatheart, that the giant has gone on a trip. Jack and Greatheart take gold, since they are out of money, and go off to seek adventures. The story emphasizes kindness to family and strangers before and during the incident with the giant. Muncimeg is the other hero who defeats a giant in Haley's book. "Jack Outwits the Giants." In Roberts, Leonard. I Bought Me a Dog: A Dozen Authentic Folktales from the Southern Mountains. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1954. Recorded in Leslie Co., KY. While Jack and his brother Bill are moving with their parents, Jack sees three giants, shoots at their food while they are eating, and causes them to quarrel. The giants think Jack will get them inside the king's castle, but after they throw him over the wall, he uses a magic sword inside to cut off their heads as they try to crawl through a small gate. The king rewards Jack with his daughter and half the kingdom, so Jack goes to bring back his family and live happily ever after. Johnson, Paul Brett. Jack Outwits the Giant. Margaret McElderry, 2002. The second of Johnson's series of picture books with Jack as a small boy and his dog following along on his adventure, conveying appropriate emotions in each scene. Jack outwits a dumb two-headed cannibal and his giant wife by fooling them into thinking he survives a midnight beating, he squeezes milk out of rocks, he could move their creek, and he's seen a huge posse coming after them. When they hide in the well, he cuts the rope and they are probably still falling into the bottomless giant well. Birdseye, Tom. Look Out Jack! The Giant is Back! Illus. Will Hillenbrand. New York: Holiday House, 2001. N. pag. Written as a comic sequel to "Jack and the Beanstalk," with Jack and his mother moving from abroad to a farm in the mountains of NC. But the dead beanstalk giant's bigger, nastier brother, "ugly as slug pie," finds Jack, demanding the harp, hen and money Jack had taken. He repeats, "Wham blam hickity hack!/ I'm gonna get that boy named Jack!/ He now be living, but soon he'll roast!/ I'll spread him with mustard and eat him on toast!" Jack doesn't respond to his ferocious threats, but fills him full of massive amounts of Southern food. The giant gets such a bad stomach ache that Jack escapes, but only after the giant almost stops him by waving his smelly feet. Flora, fauna and Jack are nearly done in, until Jack smells his own roses for relief and takes off down the mountain. The giant's angry stomping starts earthquakes in California and buries him under the mountaintop. Then Jack and his mother really can live happily ever after. Hillenbrand's amusing cartoon-like illustrations highlight the contrast between the huge, gluttonous giant and Jack, his animal friends, and his piles of human-sized food. One double-page spread must be turned sideways for a dramatic vertical view of the fat giant. "Jack and the Giants." From Isobel Gordon Carter, "Mountain White Folklore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge" (Journal of Folklore 38 [1925]), reprinted in Richard M. Dorson, Buying the Wind: Regional Folklore in the United States (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1964), reprinted in Raymond E. Jones and John C. Stott, eds. A World of Stories: Traditional Tales for Children. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 417-19. Collected by Carter in 1923 from western NC. Shelby, Anne. The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales. Illus. Paula McArdle. Chapel Hill: Univ. of NC Press, 2007. A storyteller and writer from southeastern KY, Shelby adapts Joseph Jacobs' British "Molly Whuppie" in "The Adventures of Molly Whuppie" and observes that her title tale is also based on the Appalachian "Merrywise" collected by Leonard Roberts (along with some links to "Mutsmag"). She adapts other tales from Appalachia, with elements from European and Japanese tales, in this collection of 14 tales, most of which feature Molly as a "clever, brave, and strong" hero (book jacket). She triumphs over giants in 5 of the tales. In "Molly and Jack" (similar to "Raglif Taglif Tetarlif Pole"), she helps Jack escape from a giant (see Noteworthy Girls in Jack Tales). "Molly and the Giant" is based on "Jack Outwits the Giants" collected by Roberts. The title tale has only one female giant from whom Molly helps her sisters escape. In just one tale Molly ends up in a kingdom with a Queen, who puts Molly in charge of Giant Control and Other Giant-Related Matters, but Molly's family returns to Hoot Owl Holler after they get tired of living in luxury with "everything done real proper and just so" (pp. 13-14). For more on Shelby's book, see Appalachian Folktale Collections K-Z. "Jack and the Newground." In Cheek, Pauline. Appalachian Scrapbook: An A-B-C of Growing Up in the Mountains. Johnson City, Tenn.: Overmountain Press, 1988. pp 55-65. The text, in the voice of a child from Madison County, NC, is longer than a traditional alphabet book, but it includes many pencil drawings and references to folktales and legends. Examples: B is for ballads; J is for Jonesborough, its storytelling festival, and Jack tales; L is for legend, with a retelling of the Cherokee legend about the Milky Way; M is for moonshine, with a yarn about curing a cow with moonshine; U is for "Unto These Hills" (Cherokee drama); X for "x marks the spot" includes a number of superstitions and a story told by fiddler Roy Sharp at the Lunsford Festival, about getting incredible fiddling skill from an encounter with the devil at a crossroads. The narrator says her Daddy tells the Jack tale. Davis, Donald. "The Time Jack Got the Silver Sword." Jack Always Seeks His Fortune: Authentic Appalachian Jack Tales. Little Rock: August House, 1992. pp. 83-98. Davis comments on the multiplicity of tales in which Jack defeats giants. in this one, Jack's family moves west to find their own land, but they can't get to the good land on the other side of the king's land because giants block the way. They are tempted to take shortcuts. While Jack keeps watch from a tree, he sees three giants and notes that they are dumb, so he can trick them into thinking he is small but powerful. While he pretends to help the giants get into the castle (since they are too big to get themselves over the wall), Jack finds a sleeping princess who is so dizzyingly beautiful he falls in love, which gives him the strength to drink a draught that makes him strong enough to handle a long silver sword in the castle, and he uses it to cut off the giants' heads. Jack wins the princess and brings his family to live on the king's land. Davis, Donald. "The Time Jack Stole the Cows." Jack Always Seeks His Fortune: Authentic Appalachian Jack Tales. Little Rock: August House, 1992. pp. 119-31. Davis comments that he likes this tale because the giants are so "nasty" and Jack comes up with such good tricks. Jack is out hunting game for his mother and himself when he gets caught out in the dark and seeks shelter in an open house. He is a little like Goldilocks when he finds three beds, he can't resist eating leftover food, and he falls asleep. Three 14-foot disgusting robber giants come home and threaten to eat him, until he insists he is a robber, too. Jack steals one cow by messing himself up with pig blood and dirt so he looks like a "dead boy," scaring a farmer into leaving his cow by the road while he runs for help. He steals another cow by dropping a shoe so that a farmer looks for its mate, and dropping the same shoe later on so that the farmer goes back to get the first one for his wife, leave a cow unattended. He passes the third part of the robber test by moo-ing so that a farmer leaves a cow alone to look for the one he can hear. Then he bets the giants that he can steal in an hour as much as they stole in a year, so he tells the sheriff about the giant robbers, he and the sheriff surprise them and tie them up, and gets half their possessions as a reward while they go to prison. Throughout Jack expresses concern about getting home to help his mother. This is an interesting version of "the master thief," similar to Jack and the Doctor's Girl, with giants as the thieves. See the giant-killers in "Jack and the Bean Tree" and "Mutsmag" (Appalachian versions of British "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Molly Whuppie"). Other tales about encounters with giants are listed in the Mutsmag bibliography. Jack is the braggart who defeats wild opponents in "Jack and the Varmints," and Jack defeats the Fire Dragon in his underground lair. "The One-Eyed Giant." In Roberts, Leonard. I Bought Me a Dog: A Dozen Authentic Folktales from the Southern Mountain. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1954. A first-person narrator tells of an adventure in 1901 similar to the Polyphemus episode in The Odyssey, an unusual episode within an American hunting tale. After the giant eats his two friends, the narrator blinds the giant and escapes under the belly of the giant's pet goat. Outside the giant's cave in Mississippi, seven giants chase the narrator but only succeed in scooting him across the river. Then he tells a tall tale with a series of coincidental marvels involving different animals (comparable to "Jack and the Varmints"). Told by Jim Couch, Harlan County, Kentucky. "Jonis and the Giant's Girl." In Roberts, Leonard (collector). Nippy and the Yankee Doodle, and Other Authentic Folk Tales from the Southern Mountains. Collected by Leonard Roberts. Berea, KY: The Council of the Southern Mountains, 1958. See Jack and King Marock. Merrywise and Nippy tales collected by Leonard Roberts also tell of a small youngest son who defeats giants. "Nippy" in South From Hell-fer-Sartin' and "Merrywise" in I Bought Me a Dog are similar to "Mutsmag." "The King's Well" in Nippy and the Yankee Doodle also involves Merrywise and giants. "John and the Giants." In Musick, Ruth Ann. Green Hills of Magic: West Virginia Folktales from Europe. 1970. Rpt. Parsons, WV: McClain, 1989. pp. 118-22. Italian tale told by Rocco Pantalone, Fairmont, 1960. Musick noted that it was the only Italian Jack tale she knew of. The tale begins like Jack and the Varmints (or "The Brave Little Tailor") but the king forces John to kill giants after the mediocre shoemaker kills 1500 flies and wears a belt saying "John, Strong Man, with one slap killed 1500 men." John convinces the giants he has superhuman strength by throwing a bird instead of a stone, pretending he can throw an iron ball across the sea, and claiming he felt bedbugs and dust flying when they tried to kill him in the night while he was hiding. He fools one giant into slitting his stomach by putting mush inside a sheepskin over his own stomach. He shoots another giant while turkey hunting, so the last giant gives him riches to get rid of him. He avoids one more giant attack by pretending he had kicked one of his mules and couldn't see where it went. John returns to the king and marries the princess. "The Gypsy and the Bear." In Musick, Ruth Ann. Green Hills of Magic: West Virginia Folktales from Europe. 1970. Rpt. Parsons, WV: McClain, 1989. pp. 242-44. A Russian tale told by Valentino Zabolotny, Grant Town, 1954, as he heard it from his father. Gregory, a "quick-witted" gypsy living in the woods in southern Europe, keeps a bear from eating him by bragging about his incredible strength, and hiding at night so that the bear believes Gregory survives a fierce beating in bed. He wins a final contest by fooling the bear into thinking he wins a race up a mountain; he is pulled up by grabbing the bear's tail, and is then flung to the top when the bear turns around near the top.
Lucky Jack and the Giant: An African-American Legend. Retold by Janet P. Johnson. Illus. Charles Reasoner. Legends of the World Series. Troll, 1998. John and Lucky Jack are both sent by their father to seek their fortunes. John buys a store and prospers. Lucky Jack, unused to work, squanders his money from his father. An old woman in the swamp sends him to see Long Beard, a giant who sets him several impossible tasks of work. The giant's daughter Julie provides several kinds of magic help so that Jack can complete the work and they can escape from the murderous giant. With a wife and children, Jack works hard in his brother's store. A page on African-American heritage discusses the blending of African and European folklore in this tale and other High John the Conqueror Tales or Jack Tales, in which a woman often helps a hero on a magical quest. This one contains a "confident hero, high adventure, and mystical elements" typical of African-American literature. "Jack the Giant-Killer" in Jacobs, Joseph. English Fairy Tales, 1898. Jacobs' main sources were two early nineteenth-century chapbooks at the British Museum. He also gives detailed notes on other variants and literary as well as mythological parallels. Jacobs notes that "The 'Fee-fi-fo-fum' formula is common to all English stories of giants and ogres; it also occurs in Peele's play [The Old Wives' Tale] and in King Lear" (Dover edition, 1967, pp. 242-43.) Jacobs' version is reprinted online at Rick Walton, Children's Author: Classic Tales and Fables. A chapbook version of "The History of Jack the Giant Killer" (placing Jack in Cornwall in the reign of King Arthur, as in Jacobs) is reprinted online from Andrew Lang's The Blue Fairy Book at Rick Walton, Children's Author: Classic Tales and Fables. The Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the Giant-Killer Project (University of Southern Mississippi) gives verse and prose versions of historic tales, with illustrations from old manuscripts. Ross, Tony. Jack the Giantkiller. London: Andersen Press, 2002. N. pag. An English picture book in which Jack uses tricks to defeat a series of giants, including a two-headed one. Jack's adventures include the rescue of three princesses and other captives; a magic sword; a cloak of invisibility; "two fiery dragons [that] barred Jack's way"; and a silver horn which wakes up statues that are enchanted lords, ladies, and knights. A statue less ugly than the others turns from a hind into a beautiful princess whom Jack marries. Ross's colorful modern illustrations give a comical slant to the old-fashioned folktale scenes. Swope, Sam. Jack and the Seven Deadly Giants. Illus. Carll Cneut. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. A book by a New York author, with black and white pictures by a Belgian illustrator. In seven chapters plus "Prologue" and "The End," young Jack, who starts out as an orphan and bad boy, searches for his mother and combats giants that represent the seven deadly sins: the Giant Poet, the Terrible Glutton, Mrs. Roth, the Wild Tickler, Avaritch, Orgulla the Great, and the Green Queen. See colorful cover at Farrar, Straus and Giroux web site (in section on new books for young readers for May 2004). "Jack the Giant Killer." In Doherty, Berlie. The Famous Adventures of Jack. Hodder Children's Books, 2000. English book published in U.S. by HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2001. This is the final tale told in full to Jill, a girl in the frame story who visits Mother Greenwood and gets caught up in tales about different legendary Jacks from the same family. This violent story of Mother Greenwood's father Jack, killing many giants one after the other, has been anticipated throughout the book until Jill is ready to hear it. The cat character is terrified of the magic belt with Celtic words saying, "This is the brave young Cornishman who slew the giant Cormoran." The giants have names from the ancient tales and Jack uses tricks as well as the cap of knowledge, coat of invisibility and shoes of swiftness that he gets from his distant cousin (a giant whom he just chases away with threats of the king's soldiers approaching). From St. Michael's Mount to North Wales, Jack rids the country of giants, beheads them, sends their single or multiple heads to the king, and rescues captives, some of whom were turned into animals and objects. Jack marries the princess who had been captured and turned into a white doe. This "bravest man who ever lived" is the grandfather of the Jack who has gone up the beanstalk by the end of the book. Jill puts on the belt and goes up to join him, to see if there is one giant left. Last
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05/25/2008
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