"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]
"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]
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, much to the dismay of his widowed mother. The beans grow into a massive beanstalk reaching up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds a road that leads to a big house, with a tall woman standing outside. He asks for breakfast and she gives him some bread, cheese, and milk, but warns that he might become breakfast himself if he is not careful, since "My man is an ogre and there's nothing he likes better than boys broiled on toast." While he is eating, the ogre comes home, with the woman telling Jack to quickly hide in the oven.
Sensing the boy's presence, the ogre 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 suggests that he is smelling "the scraps of the little boy you liked so much for yesterday's dinner". So the ogre eats his breakfast, three broiled calves. Afterwards he takes out some bags of gold. Counting the gold, he falls asleep. Jack creeps out of his hiding place, takes one of the bags, and climbs down the beanstalk. He gives the gold to his mother, who is very happy. They live well for some time, until it is almost used up.
Jack decides to try his luck once more and climbs up the beanstalk. Again he meets the woman at the doorstep and asks her for breakfast. While he is eating, the ogre returns and Jack quickly hides in the oven. Again the ogre suspects that somebody is there, but then sits down for his breakfast – three broiled oxen. Afterwards he asks his wife for "the hen that lays the golden eggs". He says "Lay!" and the hen lays an egg of pure gold. The ogre falls asleep, and Jack takes the hen and climbs down the beanstalk.
Though Jack and his mother now have an inexhaustible source of golden eggs, Jack is "not content" and climbs the beanstalk for the third time. He avoids the women, slipping into the house unseen when she goes to get some water, and hiding in the copper. When the ogre comes home, he once more cries out "Fee-fi-fo-fum", suspecting someone is there. His wife suggests that the "little rogue that stole your gold and the hen" may be hiding in the oven. But when they find the oven empty, she concludes he is smelling the boy she has just broiled for his breakfast. The ogre eats his breakfast, then asks his wife to bring him his golden harp, which sings beautifully when he orders it to "Sing!"
Once the ogre has fallen asleep, Jack takes the harp and wants to leave, but the harp calls out "Master! Master!" The ogre wakes up, seeing Jack running away. Pursued by the ogre, he quickly climbs down the beanstalk, then asks his mother to bring an axe. He chops down the beanstalk and the ogre falls to his death. Jack and his mother are now very rich and live happily ever after, with Jack marrying a princess.[8]
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 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".
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'.
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]
A Warner Bros. film directed by Bryan Singer and starring Nicholas Hoult as Jack is titled Jack the Giant Slayer and was released in March 2013.[19] In this tale, which is amalgamated with "Jack the Giant Killer", Jack climbs the beanstalk to save a princess and thwart an attempted coup using a magic crown that would allow humans to control the giants.
In the 2014 film Into the Woods, and the musical of the same name, one of the main characters, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) climbs a beanstalk, much like in the original version. He acquires a golden harp, a hen that lays golden eggs, and several gold pieces. The story goes on as it does in the original fairy tale, but continues on past the "happily ever after". In this adaptation, the giant's vengeful widow (Frances de la Tour) attacks the kingdom to find and kill Jack as revenge for him murdering her husband, where some characters were killed during her rampage. The giant's wife is eventually killed by the surviving characters in the story.
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 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.
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.
Giantland is a 1933 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by United Artists. The short is the first is an adaptation of the fairy tale by Disney with Mickey Mouse in the title role.[21] It was the 62nd Mickey Mouse short film, and the twelfth of that year.[22]
In the 2010s, Walt Disney Animation Studios had plans to do another adaptation of the fairy tale called Gigantic. Tangled director Nathan Greno was to direct and it was set to be released in late 2020. On October 10, 2017, its cancellation for creative struggles was announced.[23]
The first being Woody the Giant Killer from 1947, where Woody faces the giant to take over his castle.
The second being Woody and the Beanstalk from 1966, where Woody meets the giant's son who became heir to the castle after his father died chasing Jack. This short was directed by Paul Smith.
In 2024, the winner of the Doric Film Festival, Spirit of the Festival Award was Aaron Gayle[26] for his animated version of Jack an e Beanstalk with all characters speaking the North-east Scotland dialect (Doric), and with an amusing twist in the tale of the Giant's demise. This was his second award as the previous year, he won for an original animated version of The Three Little Pigs, in Doric The Three Wee Grumphies.[27]
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.
A Hungarian variant of the tale was adapted into an episode of the Hungarian television series Magyar népmesék ("Hungarian Folk Tales") (hu) in 1977, with the title Az égig érő paszuly ("The Giant Beanstalk").[31]
In the PBS Kids television series Super Why! (2007-2016) the main protagonist Whyatt Beanstalk is the middle brother of the protagonist of Jack and The Beanstalk. Whyatt changes into Super Why with The Power to Read.
Jack and the Beanstalkpantomime 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 bookJack 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
An arcade video game, Jack the Giantkiller, was released by Cinematronics in 1982 and is based on the story. Players control Jack, and must retrieve a series of treasures – a harp, a sack of gold coins, a golden goose and a princess – and eventually defeat the giant by chopping down the beanstalk.
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.
1 2 Round About Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments. J. Roberts. 1734. pp.35–48. 4th edition On Commons
↑ 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 Unicorn30.1 (January 20201–24).
↑ 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 Literature8 (1980:35–52).
↑ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, p. 132. ISBN0-393-05163-3
↑ "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.
↑ "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.
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