Jack Tales and other Magic Tales

Märchen or magic tales are fantastical stories definitively understood as fictions; they are the oral stories analogous to the literary genre of fairy tales. Characterized by the presence of mythical creatures and magic objects, these tales often feature a down-on-their-luck protagonist who goes out into the world to find their fortune.

Jack Tales are an especially popular set of stories belonging to the larger American magic tale category. English, Scottish, and Irish immigrants brought the stories with them when they settled in the Appalachian Mountains in the 18th century. Jack Tales are most famously told by members of the Hicks, Harmon and Ward families, who lived in North Carolina. Many recordings of their tellings are available in the AFC archives, along with written versions of their stories created through lengthy fieldwork (Richard Chase) or close engagement with the archival collections (Carl Lindahl).

Jack, the protagonist of these stories -- or Tim, as he is called in New England -- is an everyman character who finds himself on fantastical adventures. Through his cleverness, through sheer luck, or through supernatural help, he conquers enemies like giants or robbers, and concepts like poverty, hunger, or stinginess. Over time, storytellers adapted the Jack Tales to their new mountain environment, and Jack's (mis)adventures reflect the lifeways of the communities who told his stories.

Selected Collections from the American Folklife Center

D. Michael Battey collection of Frank Proffitt, Jr. Recordings
Call Number: AFC 1995/002
Field recordings of songs, instrumental music, and stories, including Jack tales, performed by Frank Proffitt, Jr. sometimes accompanying himself on banjo and dulcimer. He performs several tales including "Pick britches," "Jack and the rich old man," "Heifer hide," "Sop doll," and "Chunk o' meat." He recalls stories about folk song collectors Frank and Anne Warner, who recorded his father, Frank Proffitt, Sr., the source of many songs and tales performed by Frank, Jr.
Herbert Halpert collection, 1930-2004
Call Number: AFC 2004/008
Published/Created: 1930-2004, bulk 1936-1955
Sound recordings, text resources, music transcriptions, photographs and photographic negatives, ephemera and other materials primarily representing the documentation and analysis of the folklore of regions of New York; New Jersey; Kentucky; Pennsylvania; Indiana; and Alaska by folklorist Herbert Halpert from the 1930s to 1950s. Recordings from Samuel Harmon are available at SR261-272.
Library of Congress and Fisk University Mississippi Delta collection, 1941-1943
Call Number: AFC 1941/002
The collection consists of a portion of the materials generated by a joint field project in Coahoma County, Mississippi, 1941-1942, conducted by the Archive of American Folk Song, Library of Congress and Fisk University. Field recordings were made of music, church services, children's games, singing games, jokes, folktales, interviews, toasts, hollers, blues, and dance music in African American communities in Mississippi. Buck 'Asa' Ulysses Jefferson tells Jack tales in file AFS06627.
Maud Gentry Long collection of Jack tales and folk songs
Call Number: AFC1948/110
Collection of recordings from the repertory of Jack tales performed by Maud Gentry Long of Hot Springs, North Carolina, with riddles, folk songs, ballads, and hymns.
Richard Chase Appalachian recordings
Call Number: AFC 1977/022
Field recordings of folk music, folk songs, ballads, fiddle tunes, shape-note singing, hymns, and popular songs, a few accompanied by piano and guitar; also play-party games, poems, recitations, riddles, tales, conversations and mummers' Christmas plays. Includes performances by Horton Barker, John Greer, Clyde Sturgill, Mrs. Cal Hicks, Robert Hammond, V. Morris, Mrs. Kit Williamson, and others, with a few performances by Richard Chase, plus vocal quartet and recorder music.
International Storytelling Collection, 1973-2013
Call Number: AFC 2001/008
Collection includes the archives from 1973-2013 of the International Storytelling Center, which produces the annual National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Includes office files, photographs, sound recordings, and video recordings of storytelling performances at the Festival and activities at the Center and its predecessor organizations, including conferences, board meetings, interviews with storytellers and others, and various materials submitted by storytellers from throughout the United States and from around the world that document their careers. The collection holds many recordings of Jack Tales. For a small sample, you can find recordings of Jack tales from Ray Hicks (73FECW01, 80FEBT03, 82FEHT07, 87FEPT09, 93FEPT06, 93FERT09, 97FERT07). An interview with Richard Chase about his research on Jack Tales is available at 75BCLR01. Recordings of other magic tales are available from Connie Regan Blake (82FEPT07, 97FECT02, 97FERT07) and Diane Wolkstein (92FEHT17).
Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle Expedition
Call Number: AFC 1935/001
Published/Created: 1935
Collection of field recordings of African American, Bahamian, and Haitian songs, music, tales, and church services recorded on instantaneous discs by Alan Lomax, Zora Neale Hurston, and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in 1935 for the Archive of American Folk Song. Zora Neale Hurston accompanied the recording expedition in Georgia and Florida, but she not did go to the Bahamas. Recordings include blues, work songs, ballads, tall tales, dance music, ring dances, circle games, sea songs, string band music, vodou music, guitar, harmonica, drums, children's games and songs; gospel music, and church services with sermons, hymns, and prayers. The collection includes interviews conducted on St. Simon's Island with speakers of Gullah as well as Jack tales recorded in Andros Island and Nassau in the Bahamas.

Text Resources in the AFC Reading Room

The Jack Tales by Richard Chase
Call Number: GR110.N8 C5
ISBN: 9780395669518
Published/Created: 1993-09-27
A collection of folk tales from the southern Appalachians that center on a single character, the irrepressible Jack.
American Folktales by Carl Lindahl; Peggy A. Bulger (Foreword by)
Call Number: GR105.5 A44 2004
ISBN: 0765680629
Published/Created: 2003-12-31
This two-volume collection of folktales, available in the American Folklife Center Reading Room, was curated by eminent folklorist and author Carl Lindahl. It comprises magic tales, legends, jokes, tall tales and personal narratives, including several Jack tales from Sam Harmon and Maud Gentry Long.
Outwitting the Devil by Charles L. Perdue (Editor)
Call Number: GR110.V8 O87 1987
ISBN: 9780941270427
Published/Created: 1987-10-01
Twenty-eight magic tales (of the same genre as "Jack and the Beanstalk") collected in southwestern Virginia by Virginia WPA Writers' Project workers during the late 1930s.
Jack in Two Worlds by William B. McCarthy (Editor)
Call Number: GR105.37.J32
ISBN: 0807821357
Published/Created: 1994-07-29
The "Jack" known to all of us from "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the hero of a cycle of tales brought to this country from the British Isles. Jack in Two Worlds is a unique collection that brings together eight of these stories as transcribed from actual performances by tellers and eight interpretive essays by leading folktale scholars. The "two worlds" in the book's title refer to the Jack tales' popularity first among traditional Appalachian taletellers and now among storytelling revivalists. The tellers included in this volume represent both worlds. Unlike previous collections of Jack tales, in which the stories were heavily revised and rewritten, the tales in this volume have been transcribed verbatim and are presented in a format that preserves much of the oral quality of the taletellers' craft. The result is a body of richly nuanced tales that can be read with pleasure both by scholars who are studying the Jack tale tradition and by general readers who love a good story. The taletellers are Stewart Cameron, Donald Davis, Ray Hicks, Bonelyn Lugg Kyofski, Maud Long, Frank Proffitt, Jr., Leonard Roberts, and Marshall Ward. The essayists are Bill Ellis, Carl Lindahl, William Bernard McCarthy, W. F. H. Nicolaisen, Cheryl Oxford, Joseph Daniel Sobol, Kay Stone, Ruth Stotter, and Kenneth A. Thigpen.

Other Resources in the Library of Congress

Mountain Magic - Jack Tales I by Jackie Torrence / Earwig
Call Number: Earwig LPS 4906
Published/Created: 1984
Storyteller Jackie Torrence recounts three Jack Tales: Jack and the northwest wind, Jack and the three sillies, and Jack and the king's new ground. Request in advance in the Recorded Sound Resource Center.
Mountain Magic - Jack Tales II by Jackie Torrence / Earwig
Call Number: Earwig LPS 4907
Published/Created: 1984
Storyteller Jackie Torrence recounts two Jack Tales: Soldier Jack, and Jack goes out to seek his fortune. Request in advance at the Recorded Sound Resource Center.
Jack Tales by Ray Hicks; Owen Smith (Illustrator); Lynn Salsi (Retold by)
Call Number: PZ8.1.H533 Jac 2000 FT MEADE
ISBN: 0935112588
Published/Created: 2000-10-01
Enter the fantastic world of one of America's greatest living storytellers where wicked giants and enchanted animals pursue and entice Jack. The Blue Ridge Mountains have been home to the Hicks family for eight generations, and Ray Hicks has been telling the stories he learned at his grandfather's knee for most of his 78 years. An audio CD of Hicks telling in his inimitable dialect accompanies the book. Request in the Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms; request the CD in advance at the Rec Sound Res Center.
Perspectives on the Jack Tales and Other North American Märchen by Carl Lindahl (Editor)
Call Number: GR105.37.J32 P47 2001
ISBN: 1878318756
Published/Created: 2001-11-22
This volume is about North American Märchen, a vernacular art form that is often strangely ignored or misconstrued. At the same time, the vitality and appeal of the genre are evidenced by its persistent presentation as written literature. The essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about "magic" tales and their tellers, reconsidering the performance, collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of narratives that continue to live orally as one mechanism of intergenerational communication or as a symbolic expression of worldview. Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms.
Grandfather Tales by Richard Chase
Call Number: GR105 .C4 2003 OVERFLOWJ34
ISBN: 0618346902
Published/Created: 2003-08-25
A collection of folk tales from North Carolina and Virginia for a slightly older audience than that for Chase's Jack Tales. Request in the Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms.

Folktales and Oral Storytelling: Resources in the American Folklife Center Collections

Jack Tales and other Magic Tales

Selected Collections from the American Folklife Center

Text Resources in the AFC Reading Room

Other Resources in the Library of Congress