Jack (playing card)
A Jack or Knave, in some games referred to as a Bower, in
History
The earliest predecessor of the knave was the thānī nā'ib (second or under-deputy) in the
As early as the mid-16th century the card was known in England as the knave which originally meant 'boy or young man', as its German equivalent, Knabe, still does. In the context of a royal household it meant a male servant without a specific role or skill; not a cook, gardener, coachman, etc. The French word valet means the same thing.
The word 'Jack' was in common usage in the 16th and 17th centuries to mean any generic man or fellow, as in
The term became more entrenched in card play when, in 1864,
The German nickname of Bauer ("farmer" or "peasant") often used for the Jacks, appears in English as the loanword, Bower, used for the top trumps (usually Jacks) in games of the
Representations
In the English pattern,
In some southern Italian decks, there are androgynous knaves that are sometimes referred to as maids. In the Sicilian Tarot deck, the knaves are unambiguously female and are also known as maids.[7] As this deck also includes queens, it is the only traditional set to survive into modern times with two ranks of female face cards. This pack may have been influenced by the obsolete Portuguese deck which also had female knaves. The modern Mexican pattern also has female knaves.[8]
Poetry
The figure of the jack has been used in many literary works throughout history. Among these is one by 17th-century English writer Samuel Rowlands. The Four Knaves is a series of Satirical Tracts, with Introduction and Notes by E. F. Rimbault, upon the subject of playing cards. His "The Knave of Clubbs: Tis Merry When Knaves Meet" was first published in 1600, then again in 1609 and 1611. In accordance with a promise at the end of this book, Rowlands went on with his series of Knaves, and in 1612 wrote "The Knave of Harts: Haile Fellowe, Well Meet", where his "Supplication to Card-Makers" appears,[9] thought to have been written to the English manufacturers who copied to the English decks the court figures created by the French. The Knave of Hearts appears as a thieving antagonist in the traditional children's poem The Queen of Hearts
Example cards
The cards shown here are from a
Trickster figure
The jack, traditionally the lowest face card, has often been promoted to a higher or the highest position in the traditional ranking of cards, where the ace or king generally occupied the first rank. This is seen in the earliest known European card games, such as Karnöffel, as well as in more recent ones such as Euchre. Games with such promotion include:
- All Fours
- Bête
- Belote
- Bezique
- Cribbage
- Doppelkopf
- Egyptian Ratscrew
- Euchre
- Five-hundred
- Forty-fives
- Hearts
- Jass
- Karnöffel
- Klaberjass
- Lanterloo
- Marjolet
- Noddy
- Pinochle
- Polignac
- Primero
- Reversis
- Schafkopf
- Sheepshead
- Skat
- Spoil Five
- Sueca
- Twenty Eight
- Switch
See also
- List of poker hand nicknames
- One-eyed jack
- "The Jack", a song by AC/DC, in which the playing card is a metaphor for an enthusiastic sexual partner with expertise-level "hand stuff" skills.
- The Knave of Hearts, a character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
- The Jack of Diamonds, a group of artists founded in 1909 in Moscow
- "Jack of Diamonds", a traditional folk song
- George de Sand in the 1994 anime Mobile Fighter G Gundam
- Knave of Hearts, a 1954 film directed by René Clément
- The Jack of Hearts (Jack Hart), a Marvel Comics superhero
- The Jack of Hearts, a 1919 short Western film
- "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts", a song by Bob Dylan
- Pub (trans. The Jack), an album by Đorđe Balašević.
- King, Queen, Knave, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov first published in Russian under his pen name, V. Sirin
- "Jack of Speed", a song by Steely Dan, a group of musicians see Donald Fagen
References
- ISBN 1-4129-6670-1
- ^ English pattern at the International Playing-Card Society. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ Berry, John. (1998). "Frequently asked questions". The Playing-Card. Vol. 27-2. pp. 43-45.
- ^ Games and Fun with Playing Cards by Joseph Leeming on Google Books
- Urban Legends Reference Pages
- ^ Courts on playing cards, by David Madore, with illustrations of the English and French court cards
- ^ Tarocco Siciliano, early form at the International Playing-Card Society. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ Scotoni, Ralph. Mexican Pattern at Alta Carta. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ The Knave of Harts: Haile Fellowe, Well Meet, where his Supplication to Card-Makers by Samuel Rowlands (1600)
Good card-makers (if there be any goodness in you), Apparrell us with more respected care,
Put us in hats, our caps are worne thread-bare, Let us have standing collers, in the fashion;