Trickster Jack

By E. Reid Gilbert and Garret Clark

Every culture has its own trickster character. The Southern Appalachian Mountain trickster is Jack, whom readers may know from traditional stories like "Jack in the Giant's Newground" and "Jack and the Bean Tree."
The stories in Trickster Jack, which focus on the shenanigans of Jack and his older brothers, are actua

• Language: English
• Publisher: A3D Impressions
• Release date: Oct 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732728530

E. Reid Gilbert

E. Reid Gilbert has earned academic degrees from five institutions. This journey has included careers in Methodist and Unitarian ministries, two Fulbright awards to India and Thailand, founding and directing the Wisconsin Mime Theatre and School (which the New York Times dubbed the 'center of mime training in the US), administrator of the International Mimes and Pantomimists, serving on NEA review panels and performing in various solo and full-scripted venues as well as college and university teaching. He has directed more than forty theatre productions, including Shakespeare, Japanese Noh, Commedia Del Arte, original and international scripts and has written five production scripts. His private study included Folklore with Richard Chase, Modern Dance with Charles Weidman, Mime with Etienne Decroux and Japanese Noh with Sidayo Kita. Having conducted many classes and workshops on masks, he has taught "Architecture as Extend Mask" at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. He also taught at Union College in KY and Lambuth College in TN. For ten years he directed the Valley Ridge Theatre in Thomas WV and taught Movement for Actors at the Ohio State University from which he is now retired. He was the founder and first President of the Jackson (TN) Arts Council, and he is past Executive Director of the Thomas Education Center (WV). His most recent creative activities have been in writing. In addition to his books, he has written several stage scripts. His recent film script. Sapling Spring is based on his novel, Shall We Gather at the River. Currently, he is a member of the Old Pueblo Playwrights, located in Tucson, and the National Theatre Conference.

Book preview

What Readers are Saying

TRICKSTER JACK is an easy read, full of imagination and humor that will coax readers to make up their own tales. The kid in you will enjoy this book, no matter how old the rest of you may be.

—PENNSY

Absolutely marvelous book. Very original. Graceful writing and a sly sense of humor...an authentic study of the legend of the trickster in America. In this age of Wham! Bam! Pow! bling culture, this book takes us back to a time when storytelling, a wicked sense of humor, and zany foolishness was the entertainment of the day. Reid Gilbert is a modern Mark Twain; a trustworthy humorist who pokes fun without throwing punches and who illuminates without embarrassing.

—Charles Knouse

...the writer takes us helter-skelter on a trip with Jack through ten stories of how he was involved in setting up old time riddles and introducing some new vocabulary into the English language. Where would the words willful and tomfoolery emanate except from Jack’s older brothers, Will and Tom…a highly recommended read for all ages.

—Barbara Banks

This book is dedicated to my three daughters, Tari, Adrienne, and Karen, all of whom endured many hours of stories, songs, and ol’-time sayin’s, with the hope that they will share these memories and these tales with grandchildren Alexis, Clayton, Sam, Priya, Theo, and Maia.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tricksters Or, The Globalization of Foolery

Jack and the Candlestick

Little Jack Horner

Jack Plays Mother Goose

Jack’s Childhood

Sweetheart

Jack’s New Wagon

Jack’s End of a Romance

Penny Saved

Jack’s Diet

Old Jack

Old Jack’s Indoor-Outhouse

The Jack Game

About the Author

Tricksters Or, The Globalization of Foolery

Having grown up in the southern Appalachian Mountains under the storytelling tutelage of Richard Chase, the author of Jack Tales and Grandfather Tales, I have come to appreciate the mischief maker Jack. Later I was introduced to cunning Ananzi of Africa, lawbreaker Sri Thananchai of Thailand, wily Coyote of Native American stories, boasting Karagoz of Turkey, bumbling Hans­wurst of Germany, and scheming Harlequin of Italy. I even spent time in England tracking down Little Devil Doubt of the ancient mummers’ plays. It seems that every culture has its own trickster character, differing only in part from the imps of other cultures.

It is obvious that Shakespeare was aware of these traditional characters, particularly for the character of the Fool in King Lear. Even though the Fool played tricks and teased everyone, including Lear, he was the only one who could survive telling the truth to the king. Perhaps only through tomfoolery do we unearth the truth of the human condition and relationships.

Although each of these tricksters is unique, they all exhibit some similar traits such as laziness, gluttony, boastfulness, and, of course, cleverness. They also come from a lower social class and often act contrary to the limits of the law and beyond the bounds of moral codes. They are certainly not role models, and yet each is endearing to admirers who can relate to his peasan­­­­t roots, as he challenges authoritative persons and conventions.

Each is usually a master linguist in whatever culture he appears, using an accepted idiom but interpreting it literally, or using language in such a way as to confuse or deliberately mislead his opponents. Sri Thananchai uses verbal trickery to get a second wife, while Jack flouts English grammar rules against double negatives when he declares quite determinedly with a quintuple negative: I don’t never take nothing off nobody, nohow. When he is subsequently corrected by his teacher, who also states that inversely a double affirmative can never become a negative, Jack answers with a sarcastic, Yeah, right! positively proving his teacher negative. The reader can begin to sympathize with any verbal opponent of Jack or his fellow tricksters.

One of the appealing facets of the trickster figure is that he seems to have absolute freedom to make whatever choice he wishes, and although his choices are always in his self-interest he never seems to be self-centered or egotistical. He invites us with his sense of playful freedom into the realm of humor, and recent medical research has confirmed the healing power of humor. Also, ironically, Jack and his compatriot tricksters exhibit faith in the ultimate moral structure of the universe, which can withstand their onslaughts of foolishness and rapscality.

This excursive interest of mine has not been confined to academic and scholarly research. Much of my information and inspiration have come from neighbors and family members.

So, with these globalized tricksters in mind and my own Great­ uncle Sammy Jane as inspiration, I dare to turn Jack, the Appalachian trickster, loose on a question that has bedeviled many a folk for a long time: where did all those nursery rhymes and old-timey sayings originate, and under what conditions?

Now, Jack was known far and wide for his tricks and rascally jokes. Everybody around had either been the butt of one of his practical jokes or knew someone who had come out on the short end of the stick in some kind of dealings with him.

Yet, for all his energy in foolishness he was uncommonly lazy. His own grandma, not wanting to own up to his laziness, said he was just born tired and never got rested up.

He was also a glutton and never seemed to gain any weight. His uncle Moyer said that he ate so much that it tired him out just carrying it around, and the exercise of it kept him as skinny as a rail.

It seemed that no matter what happened to him or anybody around him, Jack would have something to say about it, making up a little saying like, Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Some of the sayings are still around today, although, over time, some of them have been changed or forgotten.

So we’ll just take a look at how Jack had a hand in coming up with some of those old rhymes and sayings.

Jack and the Candlestick



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You probably already heard about Jack; most folks either know something on him or at least’ve heard of some of his trickery ways, the scrapes and rapscallion situations he got himself into and usually out of. He was a born natural for cooking up some kind of mischief, just for the devilment of it, or jumping into something when he should’ve been paying more attention.

In fact, it was someone who told him that he should’ve been looking closer; probably something his daddy would’ve said, because he was always trying to correct Jack. Well, Jack turned that admonition into the old-time saying Look before you leap.

Now, Jack lived quite some time ago, but he was so well known that lots of sayings can be traced back to some kind of foolery he got himself into. This here story will be a kind of English lesson, though I hate to own up to it. You see, Jack actually invented some of the words in our language, which you’ll find out about.

Even though Jack’s time of life was a long time ago, some of his remaining family lived across a couple of ridges from one of my cousins, Lige Bowen, and it was him what told me on Jack so many times.

Now, I’ll have to be straight with you; I can’t rightly say that I believed all those things that were told on Jack for a couple of reasons: in the first place Lige was the outlandishest hand to add a little something extra to a pot;  even if it was already boiling (he was awful bad to drink, don’t you know), and in the second place I couldn’t hardly believe that Jack or nobody else could’ve gotten himself into half those scrapes reported on him and come out alive or without landing up in jail someplace.

Now this here was one special time when there was quite a bit of talk about the doctor’s daughter. Oh, there wasn’t anything particular wrong with her. It was just that her circumstances were a little bit peculiar, and you know how that goes when things are not right on track, so to speak; well, folks would begin to talk. And the honest fact was that the girl was already sixteen, wasn’t married, and hadn’t even begun to talk with any of the boys in the neighborhood,