Jack and the Beanstalk

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other uses, see Jack and the Beanstalk (disambiguation).
Jack and the Beanstalk
Aarne–Thompson grouping
AT 328 ("The Treasures of the Giant")
CountryUnited Kingdom
Published inBenjamin Tabart, The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk (1807)
Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales (1890)
Related"Jack the Giant Killer"

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734[1] and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807.[2] Henry Cole, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly, popularized the tale in The Home Treasury (1845),[3] and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in English Fairy Tales (1890).[4] Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today, and is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralizing.[5]

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal English hero and stock character Jack.[6]

According to researchers at

Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated more than five millennia ago, based on a widespread archaic story form which is now classified by folklorists as ATU 328 The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure.[7]

Story

1854 illustration of Jack climbing the beanstalk by George Cruikshank

Jack, a poor country boy, trades the family cow for a handful of magic beans, which grow into a massive, towering beanstalk reaching up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds himself in the castle of an unfriendly giant. Jack went inside the house and found the giant’s wife in the kitchen. Jack said, “Could you please give me something to eat? I am so hungry!”. The kind wife gave him bread and some milk. While he was eating, the giant came home. The giant senses Jack's presence and cries,

Fee-fi-fo-fum!
The giant was very big and looked very fearsome. Jack was terrified and went and hid inside. The giant cried, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!” The wife said, “There is no boy in here!” So, the giant ate his food and then went to his room. He took out his sacks of gold coins, counted them and kept them aside. Then he went to sleep. In the night, Jack crept out of his hiding place, took one sack of gold coins and climbed down the beanstalk. At home, he gave the coins to his mother. His mother was very happy and they lived well for sometime.

Jack climbed the beanstalk and went to the giant’s house again. Once again, Jack asked the giant’s wife for food, but while he was eating the giant returned. Jack leapt up in fright and went and hid under the bed. The giant cried, “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!” The wife said, “There is no boy in here!” The giant ate his food and went to his room. There, he took out a hen. He shouted, “Lay!” and the hen laid a golden egg. When the giant fell asleep, Jack took the hen and climbed down the beanstalk. Jack’s mother was very happy with him.

After some days, Jack once again climbed the beanstalk and went to the giant’s castle. For the third time, Jack met the giant’s wife and asked for some food. Once again, the giant’s wife gave him bread and milk. But while Jack was eating, the giant came home. “Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!” cried the giant. “Don't be silly! There is no boy in here!” said his wife.

The giant had a magical harp that could play beautiful songs. While the giant slept, Jack took the harp and was about to leave. Suddenly, the magic harp cried, “Help master! A boy is stealing me!” The giant woke up and saw Jack with the harp. Furious, he ran after Jack. But Jack was too fast for him. He ran down the beanstalk and reached home. The giant followed him down. Jack quickly ran inside his house and fetched an axe. He began to chop the beanstalk. The giant fell and died.

Jack and his mother were now very rich and they lived happily ever after.
Be he alive, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread.[8]

Outwitting the giant, Jack is able to retrieve many goods from the giant, including a bag of gold, an enchanted goose that lays golden eggs and a magic golden harp that plays and sings by itself. Jack then escapes by chopping down the beanstalk. The giant, who is pursuing him, falls to his death, and Jack and his family prosper.

Origins

In Walter Crane's woodcut the harp reaches out to cling to the vine

"The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" was published in London by J. Roberts in the 1734 second edition of Round About Our Coal-Fire.[1] In 1807, English writer Benjamin Tabart published The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk, possibly actually edited by William and/or Mary Jane Godwin.[9]

The story is older than these accounts. According to researchers at

Proto-Indo-Iranian variants),[10] and so some think that the story would have originated millennia ago (4500 BC to 2500 BC).[7]

In some versions of the tale, the giant is unnamed, but many plays based on it name him Blunderbore (one giant of that name appears in the 18th-century tale "Jack the Giant Killer"). In "The Story of Jack Spriggins" the giant is named Gogmagog.[11]

The giant's catchphrase "Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman" appears in William Shakespeare's King Lear (c. 1606) in the form "Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man" (Act 3, Scene 4),[12] and something similar also appears in "Jack the Giant Killer".

Analogies

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an

Aarne-Thompson tale-type 328, The Treasures of the Giant, which includes the Italian "Thirteenth" and the French "How the Dragon Was Tricked" tales. Christine Goldberg argues that the Aarne-Thompson system is inadequate for the tale because the others do not include the beanstalk, which has analogies in other types[13][14]

The

The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs". The devil's mother or grandmother acts much like the giant's wife, a female figure protecting the child from the evil male figure.[15]

Moral perspectives

Jack running from the giant in the Red Fairy Book (1890) by Andrew Lang

The original story portrays a "hero" gaining the sympathy of a man's wife, hiding in his house, robbing him, and finally killing him. In Tabart's moralized version, a fairy woman explains to Jack that the giant had robbed and murdered his father justifying Jack's actions as retribution

Red Fairy Book
of 1890).

Jacobs gave no justification because there was none in the version he had heard as a child and maintained that children know that robbery and murder are wrong without being told in a fairy tale, but did give a subtle retributive tone to it by making reference to the giant's previous meals of stolen oxen and young children.[17]

Many modern interpretations have followed Tabart and made the giant a villain, terrorizing smaller folk and stealing from them, so that Jack becomes a legitimate protagonist. For example, the 1952 film starring Abbott and Costello the giant is blamed for poverty at the foot of the beanstalk, as he has been stealing food and wealth and the hen that lays golden eggs originally belonged to Jack's family. In other versions, it is implied that the giant had stolen both the hen and the harp from Jack's father. Brian Henson's 2001 TV miniseries Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story not only abandons Tabart's additions but vilifies Jack, reflecting Jim Henson's disgust at Jack's unscrupulous actions.[18]

Adaptations

Jack and the Beanstalk (1917)

Film and TV

Live-action theatrical films

Live-action television films and series

Animated films

Foreign language animated films

  • Gisaburo Sugii directed a feature-length anime telling of the story released in 1974, titled Jack to Mame no Ki. The film, a musical, was produced by Group TAC and released by Nippon Herald. The writers introduced a few new characters, including Jack's comic-relief dog, Crosby, and Margaret, a beautiful princess engaged to be married to the giant (named "Tulip" in this version) due to a spell being cast over her by the giant's mother (an evil witch called Madame Hecuba). Jack develops a crush on Margaret, and one of his aims in returning to the magic kingdom is to rescue her. The film was dubbed into English, with legendary voice talent Billie Lou Watt voicing Jack, and received a very limited run in U.S. theaters in 1976. It was later released on VHS (now out of print) and aired several times on HBO in the 1980s. It is now available on DVD
    with English or Japanese audio.

Animated television series

Pantomime

Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime showing in Cambridge, England
  • The story is often performed a traditional British Christmas pantomime, wherein the Giant has a henchman, traditionally named Fleshcreep, the pantomime villain, Jack's mother is the Dame, and Jack's the Principal Boy. Fleshcreep is the enemy of a fairy who helps Jack in his quest and Jack has a love interest, usually the daughter of a King, Queen, Baron or Squire, who gets kidnapped by Fleshcreep.[33]

Literature

  • Jack of Jack and the Beanstalk is the protagonist of the comic book Jack of Fables, a spin-off of Fables, which also features other elements from the story, such as giant beanstalks and giants living in the clouds. The Cloud Kingdoms first appear in issue #50 and is shown to exist in their own inter-dimensional way, being a world of their own but at the same time existing over all of the other worlds.
  • Roald Dahl rewrote the story in a more modern and gruesome way in his book Revolting Rhymes (1982), where Jack initially refuses to climb the beanstalk and his mother is thus eaten when she ascends to pick the golden leaves at the top, with Jack recovering the leaves himself after having a thorough wash so that the giant cannot smell him. The story of Jack and the Beanstalk is also referenced in Dahl's The BFG, in which the evil giants are all afraid of the "giant-killer" Jack, who is said to kill giants with his fearsome beanstalk (although none of the giants appear to know how Jack uses it against them, the context of a nightmare that one of the giants has about Jack suggesting that they think that he wields the beanstalk as a weapon).
  • James Still published Jack and the Wonder Beans (1977, republished 1996) an Appalachian variation on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale. Jack trades his old cow to a gypsy for three beans that are guaranteed to feed him for his entire life. It has been adapted as a play for performance by children.[34]
  • Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails, an
    Order of the Stick
    print book, contains an adaptation in the Sticktales section. Elan is Jack, Roy is the giant, Belkar is the golden goose, and Vaarsuvius is the wizard who sells the beans. Haley also appears as an agent sent to steal the golden goose, and Durkin as a dwarf neighbor with the comic's stereotypical fear of tall plants.
  • A children's book, What Jill Did While Jack Climbed the Beanstalk, was published in 2020 by Edward Zlotkowski. It takes place at the same time as Jack's adventure, but it tells the story of what his sister encounters when she ventures out to help the family and neighbors.[35]
  • In the One Piece Skypiea Arc, there is a huge twisted beanstalk that connects Upper Yard and God's Shrine, which is called "Giant Jack".

Video games

Music

  • Stephen Sondheim's 1986 musical Into the Woods features Jack, originally portrayed by Ben Wright, along with several other fairy tale characters. In the second half of the musical, the giant's wife climbs down a second (inadvertently planted) beanstalk to exact revenge for her husband's death, furious at Jack's betrayal of her hospitality. The Giantess then causes the deaths of Jack's mother and other important characters before being finally killed by Jack.
  • British rock musician Mark Knopfler released "After the Beanstalk" in his 2012 album Privateering.[38]
  • Argentinian alternative rock band
    Jacobite Uprising
    .
  • New England pop-folk group The Nields included a song titled "Jack the Giant Killer" on their 2000 album "If You Lived Here, You'd be Home Now".

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Round About Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments. J. Roberts. 1734. pp. 35–48. 4th edition On Commons
  2. ^ Tabart, The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk. in 1807 introduces a new character, a fairy who explains the moral of the tale to Jack (Matthew Orville Grenby, "Tame fairies make good teachers: the popularity of early British fairy tales", The Lion and the Unicorn 30.1 (January 20201–24).
  3. ^ In 1842 and 1844 Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake, reviewed children's books for the Quarterly "The House [sic] Treasury, by Felix Summerly, including The Traditional Nursery Songs of England, Beauty and the Beast, Jack and the Beanstalk, and other old friends, all charmingly done and beautifully illustrated." (noted by Geoffrey Summerfield, "The Making of The Home Treasury", Children's Literature 8 (1980:35–52).
  4. ^ Jacobs, Joseph (1890). English Fairy Tales. London: David Nutt. pp. 59–67, 233.
  5. ISBN 0-393-05163-3
  6. ^ "The Folklore Tradition of Jack Tales". The Center for Children's Books. Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 15 Jan 2004. Archived from the original on 10 April 2014. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  7. ^ a b BBC (20 January 2016). "Fairy tale origins thousands of years old, researchers say". BBC News. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  8. ISBN 0-393-05163-3
    .
  9. ^ Anon., The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk, at The Hockliffe Project. Archived 26 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  10. PMID 26909191
  11. ^ The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Oxford University Press. 2015. p. 305.
  12. ^ Tatar, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, p. 136.
  13. S2CID 162333097. Retrieved 2011-05-28(a possible reference to the genre anomaly).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link
    )
  14. ^ Ashliman, D. L., ed. "Jack and the Bensalk: eight versions of an English fairy tale (Aarne-Thompson-Uther type 328)". 2002–2010. Folklore and Mythology: Electronic Texts. University of Pittsburgh. 1996–2013.
  15. ^ Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. "Devil With the Three Golden Hairs, The". Grimm's Household Tales: Annotated Tale at SurLaLune Fairy Tales.
  16. ^ Tatar, Off with Their Heads! p. 198.
  17. ^ Annotations to "Jack & the Beanstalk: Annotated Tale" at SurLaLune Fairy Tales.
  18. ^ Nazzaro, Joe (February 2002). "Back to the Beanstalk", Starlog Fantasy Worlds, pp. 56–59.
  19. ^ “Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)”. IMDb. Retrieved 18 November 2020
  20. ^ "Weetabix launches £10m campaign with Jack and the Beanstalk ad". Talking Retail. Retrieved 17 May 2017
  21. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7
    .
  22. ISBN 978-1683901235
    .
  23. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7
    . Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  24. ^ [1][dead link]
  25. ^ Kit, Borys (October 10, 2017). "Disney Shelves 'Jack and the Beanstalk' Film 'Gigantic' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 10, 2017.
  26. ^ "Tom and Jerry's Giant Adventure Blu-ray". Blu-ray.com. April 25, 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-25.
  27. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (October 18, 2023). "Netflix Sets Skydance Animation In Multi-Year Deal, First Up Is Alan Menken Musical 'Spellbound;' Rachel Zegler, Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem Star". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved October 18, 2023.
  28. ^ Jack and the Beanstalk (1967 TV Movie), Full Cast & Crew, imdb.com
  29. ^ "Jack and the Beanstalk, 1967, YouTube". YouTube.com. Archived from the original on 2020-02-15. Retrieved 2018-02-06.
  30. ISBN 1-57036-042-1
    .
  31. ^ "Animated Hungarian folk tales". Magyar népmesék (TV Series 1980-2012). Magyar Televízió Müvelödési Föszerkesztöség (MTV) (I), Pannónia Filmstúdió. 27 November 1980. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  32. ^ "Revolting Rhymes: Two half-hour animated films based on the much-loved rhymes written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake". BBC Media Centre. Retrieved 2018-02-26.
  33. ^ "Cast of Jack and the Beanstalk are ready for panto season". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  34. ^ Jack and the wonder beans (Book, 1996). [WorldCat.org]. Retrieved on 2013-07-29.
  35. ^ What Jill Did While Jack Climbed the Beanstalk. Badger and Fox and Friends.
  36. ^ "Title name translation". SuperFamicom.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-09. Retrieved 2011-05-24.
  37. ^ "Game Data". GameFAQs. Retrieved 2008-04-21.
  38. ^ Monger, James Christopher. "Privateering". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 November 2020.

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