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Jack and the Beanstalk

English fairy tale From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jack and the Beanstalk
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For other uses, see Jack and the Beanstalk (disambiguation).

"Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale with ancient origins. 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]

Quick Facts Folk tale, Name ...

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

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Story

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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, much to the dismay of his widowed mother. However, that very night, the beans 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 goes inside and finds the giant's wife in the kitchen. Jack says, "Could you please give me something to eat? I am so hungry!" The kind wife gives him bread and some milk. While he is eating, the giant comes home, whereupon the wife hides Jack in the oven.

The giant, who is very big and looks very fearsome, senses Jack's presence and cries, "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll have his bones to grind my bread!" The wife says, "There is no boy in here!" So, the giant eats his food and goes to his room. He takes out a sacks of gold coins, counts them and puts them aside. Then he goes to sleep. In the night, Jack creeps out of his hiding place, takes the sack of gold coins and climbs down the beanstalk. At home, he gives the coins to his mother. His mother is very happy and they live well for some time.

Jack climbs the beanstalk and goes to the giant's house again. Once more, he asks the giant's wife for food, but while he is eating, the giant returns. Jack leaps up in fright and hides under the bed. Again the giant suspects that somebody is there, but his wife asserts otherwise. After eating, the giant goes to his room, where he takes out a hen. He shouts, "Lay!" and the hen lays a golden egg. When the giant falls asleep, Jack takes the hen and climbs down the beanstalk. Jack's mother is very happy with him.

After some days, Jack once again climbs the beanstalk and goes to the giant's castle. For the third time, Jack meets the giant's wife and asks for some food. Once again, the giant's wife gives him bread and milk. But while Jack is eating, the giant comes home. "Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive, or be he dead, I'll have his bones to grind my bread!" he cries again. "Don't be silly! There is no boy in here!" says his wife.

The giant has a magical harp that can play beautiful songs. While the giant sleeps, Jack takes the harp and wants to leave. But the magical harp cries out, "Help master! A boy is stealing me!" The giant wakes up and sees Jack with the harp. Furious, he runs after Jack, but Jack is too fast for him. He runs down the beanstalk and reaches home. The giant follows him down. Jack quickly runs inside his house, fetches an axe, and chops down the beanstalk. The giant falls and dies. Jack and his mother are now very rich and live happily ever after.[8]

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Origins

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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 Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the tale type (AT 328, The Boy Steals Ogre's Treasure) to which the Jack story belongs may have had a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) origin (the same tale also has 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".

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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 Brothers Grimm drew an analogy between this tale and a German fairy tale, "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]

Iona and Peter Opie (The Classic Fairy Tales 1974 p.163) saw instead parallel's with the Grimm's tale 'The Flail from Heaven'.

Moral perspectives

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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[16] (Andrew Lang follows this version in the Red Fairy Book of 1890). The story published by Jacobs gives no explicit justification because there was none in the version he had heard as a child, but it has a subtle retributive tone by mentioning 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]

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Adaptations

Film and TV

Live-action theatrical films

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Jack and the Beanstalk (1917)

Live-action television films and series

  • Gilligan's Island did in 1965 an adaptation/dream sequence in the second-season episode "'V' for Vitamins" in which Gilligan tries to take oranges from a giant Skipper and fails. The part of the little Gilligan chased by the giant was played by Bob Denver's 7-year-old son Patrick Denver.
  • In 1973, the story was adapted as The Goodies and the Beanstalk, in the BBC television comedy series The Goodies.
  • In season 2, episode 4, aired September 8, 1983, [Shelley Duvall's] Faerie Tale Theatre made an adaptation of the story titled "Jack and the Beanstalk." It starred Dennis Christopher as Jack, Elliott Gould as the Giant, Jean Stapleton as the Giantess, Katherine Helmond as Jack's Mother, and Mark Blankfield as the Strange Little Man. It was written by Rod Ash and Mark Curtiss and directed by Lamont Johnson.
  • In the Season 3 premiere 1995 episode of Barney & Friends titled "Shawn and the Beanstalk", Barney the Dinosaur and the gang tell their version of Jack and the Beanstalk, all in rhyme.
  • "Beanstalks and Bad Eggs", a 1997 episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
  • A season 2 (1999) episode of The Hughleys titled "Two Jacks & a Beanstalk" shows a retelling of the story where Jack Jr. (Michael, Dee Jay Daniels) buys magical beans as a means of gaining wealth and giving his family happiness and health. He and Jack Sr. (Darryl, D.L. Hughley) climb the beanstalk to see what prosperity awaits them.
  • The Jim Henson Company did a TV miniseries adaptation of the story as Jim Henson's Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story in 2001 (directed by Brian Henson) which reveals that Jack's theft from the giant was completely unmotivated, while the giant Thunderdell (played by Bill Barretta) was a friendly, welcoming individual, and the giant's subsequent death was caused by Jack's mother cutting the beanstalk down rather than Jack himself. The film focuses on Jack's modern-day descendant Jack Robinson (played by Matthew Modine) who learns the truth after the discovery of the giant's bones and the last of the five magic beans. Jack subsequently returns the goose and harp to the giants' kingdom.
  • In an episode of Tweenies (1999-2002) titled "Jake and the Beanstalk", the characters perform a pantomime based on the story with Jake as the role of Jack and Judy as the giant. The title "Jake and the Beanstalk" was also used for an episode of Jake and the Never Land Pirates.
  • ABC's Once Upon a Time (2011-2018) debuts their spin on the tale in the episode "Tiny" of season 2, "Tallahassee" where Jack, here a woman named Jacqueline (known as Jack) is played by Cassidy Freeman and the giant, named Anton, is played by Jorge Garcia. In this adaptation, Jack is portrayed as a villainous character. In season 7, a new iteration of Jack (portrayed by Nathan Parsons) is a recurring character and Henry Mills' first friend in the New Enchanted Forest. It was mentioned that he and Henry fought some giants. He debuts in "The Eighth Witch". In Hyperion Heights, he is cursed as Nick Branson and is a lawyer and Lucy's fake father. Later episodes revealed that his real name is Hansel, who is hunting witches.
  • The 2020 Japanese tokusatsu series Kamen Rider Saber adopts the story as a "Wonder Ride Book" called Jackun-to-domamenoki, which is originally used by one of the protagonists, Kamen Rider Saber, but later becomes one of Kamen Rider Buster's main Wonder Ride Books.
  • Episode 1165 of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (original airdate April 2, 1971) features a marionette show of the story (replacing the usual "Neighborhood of Make Believe" segment), in which the giant was the cause of Jack's poverty, and was holding a princess prisoner. Ultimately the same carny who had sold Jack the magic beans ends up hiring the giant as a sideshow act, producing a happy ending for everybody.

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

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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 is 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]
  • 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]

Video games

Music

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Jack and his cow, as depicted in a production of Into the Woods
  • 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.
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See also

References

External links

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