Extraordinary Discourse 244

Orchestrated Polyphrenia

Jack is an archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character appearing in legends, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes, generally portrayed as a young adult. Unlike moralizing fairy heroes, Jack is often portrayed as lazy or foolish, but through the use of cleverness and tricks he usually emerges triumphant. In this way, he may resemble a trickster.

Some of the most famous include "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Jack Frost", "Jack the Giant Killer", "Little Jack Horner" and "This Is the House That Jack Built". While these heroes are not necessarily congruous, their concepts are related and in some instances interchangeable. The notion of "Jack" is closely related and sometimes identical to the English hero John. He also corresponds with the German Hans (or Hänsel) and the Russian Iván.
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Another definition of “magic tales” is a type of folktale characterized by its performance aspect. Classically these tales are always told orally, not read from written texts although written forms are part of their history. It is the core of the story that remains the same while the details change based on the time period, the local culture the teller and the audience (Mellor). In his introduction to Jack the Giant Killer, Charles de Lint describes folklore as “a great cauldron of soup into which each generation throws new bits of fancy and history, new imaginings, new ideas, to simmer along with the old. The story-teller is the cook who serves up the common ingredients in his or her own individual way, to suit the tastes of a new audience.”
The Folklore Tradition of Jack Tales