Title: Jack and the Bull
Bibliographic
Information:
The Jack Tales. Ed. Richard Chase. Cambridge, MA:
Houghton Mifflin Co., 1960.
Ethnic Origin: Southern Appalachian adaptations of
English/German fairy tales
Running Time: 6 min (?)
Power Centers:
1-
Bull
saves Jack from starvation: loyalty and friendship, “foiling the bad guy”
2-
Bull
and Jack outwit/kill mean woman and escape: sense of adventure
3-
Three
fights with bulls, ending in Jack’s bull’s death: excitement of battles,
continued loyalty and protection of Jack by his bull, even after death
4-
Outwitting
old witch: rewards
Characters: Man, wife, 3 daughters, Jack, black
bull, 3 other bulls, witch, farmer, giant woman
Scenes:
Wife tries to
starve Jack. Bull provides food.
Wife tries to kill
bull. Jack and bull escape.
(I chose to
stop here, but story continues)
Three fights with
bulls.
Three encounters
with witch.
Working for
farmer, saving hogs from giant woman.
Synopsis:
A boy named Jack works
for/lives with a man, woman and their 3 daughters. The wife hates Jack and
decides to starve him to death, but a magical black bull intervenes. By
unscrewing the bull’s horns, Jack finds bread to eat and milk to drink. As Jack
grows fat instead of thin, the wife becomes suspicious and sends each of her
daughters in turn to spy on Jack. The first 2, with one and two eyes
respectively are put to sleep by Jack’s fiddling, but the third (with three
eyes) stays awake and tells her mother Jack’s secret. The mother insists that
she needs to eat a bull’s liver as a ploy to kill the bull, but the bull
outwits her. Instead of hitting the bull in the head, Jack strikes the wife
instead and then escapes. Jack and the bull travel uneventfully until one day
as the bull drinks from a spring, blue bubbles float up through the water. The
bull warns Jack that this is a bad sign, and later that evening they encounter
a big blue bull, which Jack’s bull fights and conquers. The next day, red
bubbles and red bull. The third day, white bubbles and white bull, which kills
the weakened black bull. Jack’s bull had counseled Jack to remove a strip of
hide with his horns if he were unable to kill the white bull, so Jack continues
to be protected and fed. After traveling on, Jack works for an old witch,
herding her sheep. Three times she attacks him, and the bull’s hide and horns
save him. (“Tie, strop, tie; Beat, horns, beat!”) The witch gives him a suit of
clothes, a sack of money, and a horse with saddle and bridle, in return for relief
from the beatings. Jack travels on,
spends his money and finds another job. He feeds and watches over a farmer’s
hogs that have been disappearing, one-by-one.
A giant woman tries to carry off a couple of hogs while Jack is in a
tree shaking down apples for the hogs. He again uses the bull’s hide, the hogs
attack the giant woman, and the farmer comes and cuts off her head. Jack is
richly rewarded and goes home.
Rhymes,
Special Phrases, Flavor:
“ Tie, strop, tie,
Beat, horns, beat !”
Use of mountain
dialect and idioms
Jack’s use of
fiddle to put girls to sleep
Audience : K-3
Why is this
story appropriate for audience?
At this age,
children are usually familiar with the fairy-tale characters of the mean
stepmother and stepsisters, who are the aunt and three variously-eyed
daughters. They should be old enough to be developing their own ideas about
justice and punishment. The death of the mean old woman should seem like a fair
punishment for her poor treatment of Jack. Jack’s independence in running away
to seek his fortune, and in defeating the mean old aunt should also appeal to
this age group. The element of fantasy of the talking bull and his magical
horns appeals to the young imagination. According to Piaget, repetition is
important for children of this age group. In “Jack and the Bull” there are many
events that happen three times: three spying daughters, three bullfights, old
witch beaten three times. This story also reflects Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Jack is deprived of food, and the bull provides for him. The bull protects and
cares for Jack, even after he is killed by the third bull. Another reason I
selected this tale for this audience is that when I asked my mother, who
teaches K-3, what stories her kids enjoyed, she immediately said “Jack Tales.”
Other variants:
“One-Eye,
Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes.” Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Garden City,
NY: Nelson
Doubleday,
Inc.
“One-Eye,
Two-Eyes, and Three-Eyes.” Tit for Tat and Other Latvian Folk Tales.
Retold by Mae
Durham,
from the translation of Skaidrite Rubene-Koo.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and World Inc., 1967.
“Billy Beg and
the Bull.” Giants and Witches and a Dragon or Two. Selected by Phyllis
R. Fenner.
New
York: A. Knopf, 1946.
Comparison:
Grimm’s version and
the Latvian variant are what could be considered “the original” story. “Jack
and the Bull” is clearly a departure from the original, but it follows closely
to the pattern of events in at least the beginning. In the Grimm tale, the
daughter with two-eyes is ostracized and made to do all the work. She only has
crumbs to eat and so her goat provides food when she says a certain rhyme. In
the Latvian tale, a stepdaughter must spin large quantities of flax, and a cow
does the work for her. In all of the variants, the helpful animal is killed,
but continues to protect its charge. “One-Eye” is a wonderful fairy-tale that
ends happily ever after with a girl marrying a prince. I personally dislike
this sort of ending, and prefer Jack’s adventures to the girls’ predictable
matrimonial bliss. Also, the full telling of “One-Eye” is rather long for a
young audience and can’t be cut short. I like the episodic nature of the Jack
tale; it can be ended quickly leaving the audience wanting to hear more, or it
could be spun out for any number of adventures. As a native North Carolinian,
the Appalachian Jack tales hold a lot of cultural appeal and also familiarity.
“Billy Beg and the Bull” is closer to “Jack and the Bull” in style and similar
in content. The language of the story however seems awkward to me as it is
written in the book. The dialect sounds contrived, especially when applied to a
story that begins with a King and a Queen. Like the Jack tale, “Billy Beg” can
be broken down into episodes. After his bull is killed (same as Jack’s), Billy
takes a job protecting a man’s herd from 3 giants. Although this episode is
exciting and fun, it is too long and drawn out to hold a young audience’s
attention. Of course the episode could be shortened, but it would lose the fun
of its exaggeration and description of the fight. The ending is an interesting
variation of the Cinderella tale- Billy fights a dragon to win the princess,
but then runs away leaving his shoe. A search ensues for the man who can wear
the boot, and Billy gets to marry the princess. Somehow I don’t find his
running away very believable. Jack is an honest, dependable, ordinary boy who
happens to have a lot of adventures. I find the story to be amazing and yet
down-to-earth, with a lot of potential for laughter.