A Hero Called Jack
As part of Scotland’s Year of Stories, Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches is organising two events which will take place at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh at the beginning of May.
Donald Smith is one of the workshop leaders for the ‘Learning from the Kist: Storytelling Workshop’, and he has been spending time on the Tobar an Dualchais/ Kist o Riches website as part of his research for the event. In this blog, Donald focusses on the significance of the many ‘Jack’ stories to be found on the site.
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When it comes to name checking there is one character right out front- Jack. Sometimes this is pronounced more like Jake, and to be fair there are lots of references to Silly Jack and Lazy Jack. But it’s all part of an extensive Jack catalogue.
Jack figures most often, though not exclusively, in stories told by the Scottish Travellers. The Traveller storyteller Duncan Williamson explains to Barbara McDermitt (Track 65820) that Jack is the Travellers’ hero because he is of their own kind. This includes when Jack is lazy or out of luck or lacking in native wit, because Travellers have often had to thole being regarded as losers to some degree.
Yet Jack also has a resilient capacity to come out on top in the end through chance, kindness, or a gallus streak that sees him through. He may be lazy or silly but Jack can still outwit the giant (eg Track 36465). The underdog wins out and that makes Jack a Traveller hero. As Duncan comments, through the stories people of all ages, male and female, visualise themselves as Jack.
There is another importance to the Jack tales. They are exemplars of oral traditional storytelling as an art. Take for example the story told by Duncan (Track 29180) in which Jack wins the hand of a princess through the help of an ant, a swallow and a salmon. This is a story built in threes as three brothers take three different gifts/blessings, go on three different roads with three sayings, encounter three helpers, and wind up with three different outcomes.
This oral patterning enables memory in the teller and the listeners. The story is something that can be passed on and enjoyed collectively because everyone can hold it in their mind, emotions, and in their visual imagination. Another fine example from Duncan Williamson’s repertoire is the tale of Jack and the Princess on the Glass Hill (Track 28935). Being able to hear these stories is invaluable, as words on the page do not convey the art of storytelling in its full glory.
Humour is also to the fore in the Jack stories. The Stewart family of Travellers are prime exponents of an exuberant and sometimes fantastic line of humour. Alex Stewart gives a prime example of this (Track 66728) when Lazy Jack nonetheless manages to trick the King into calling him a liar, so winning the contest. Again, hearing this is vital as the story is an exercise in speech rhetoric and pace so that we, the listeners, like the King, are caught off guard. Sheila Stewart continued this family tradition of bravura performance to great effect at festivals and international events.
There is an interesting tension here between family contexts and the way in which Traveller tradition bearers later reached a wider audience with their stories. The Travellers themselves repeatedly say (eg Track 31827) that they remember stories and songs along with the family members who told or sang them. Re-telling is a way of commemorating and keeping their ancestors alive. Yet at the same time the Travellers exhibit what you might call ‘oral poetics’. Some are undoubted artists, yet for them the human and communal value of their traditions remain paramount.
That leads me to the humane values embedded in many of the tales. There is a life wisdom, compassion, love and a sense of justice. That includes the Jack tales even when they are also deploying humour and counter-cultural heroics. Stanley Robertson, the North-east Traveller is a notable example of this tender art. His key note tale of ‘Auld Cruivie’ is about living with the generosity of nature, and defying the oppressions of greed. Duncan Williamson’s ‘Death in a Nut’ (Track 36459) is about accepting the part death plays in the continuation of life.
Jack is often wise in his foolishness.
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Donald Smith has been an active participant in Scots and Irish storytelling for over thirty years. He is a regular workshop leader, lecturer and mentor to developing storytellers. Donald started the Scottish International Storytelling Festival and is also a founding member of the Scottish Storytelling Forum and Edinburgh’s Guid Crack Club.