Talk:Jack and the Beanstalk

The history of Jack the Giant-Killer

Here's a link to an archived book about Jack the Giant Killer (published in 1860, written by William Samuel Forteyl), most likely related to the same story.. for someone else to edit the page with if they wish;

References

Jacob's Ladder / Jacob Wrestles the Angel.

The lack of a justification for Jack's actions and the connection between the Beanstalk and the Tree of Life make me wonder whether any folklorists or mythologists have considered the relationship between Jack and the biblical Jacob. The Tree of Life mythology is certainly present in the bible (Revelations 20, Genesis 2). In Genesis 29, we learn that angels ascend and descend from Bethel to Heaven by way of a great ladder. In Genesis 33, Jacob catches one such angel and wrestles it until daybreak when it must depart (up the ladder). Jacob demands a blessing and receives an astounding one, becoming Israel, the father of the nation.

There are few direct references, but many parallels:

Jack traded away all he had; Jacob sent all he had ahead of him. Jack climbs to the heavens; Jacob's angel descended from Heaven. Jack's beanstalk grows while he sleeps; Jacob saw the ladder in a dream, and wrestled the angel overnight. Jack steals his treasures; Jacob forces the angel to surrender the blessings under duress; Jack steals a harp, and a bird which forever creates gold; Jacob steals a blessing from an angel (depicted in Rev. 5 as blessing through music from a harp), and an eternal kingdom. Most curiously, Jacob stole both his birthright and his blessing, and the bible seems to regard this as curiously virtuous; Jack steals the harp and the goose, and yet is the hero of the story. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.58.121.34 (talk) 03:58, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

The Tree of Life connection has no citation. I am going to remove it from the article. I don't think there is very much connection with Jacob. There are many stories of supernatural stairways etc. There is no necessary relationship.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm finding multiple connections between Jack and the Beanstalk and the Tree of Life, or the Cosmogonic Tree. I don't know how to do references, but here are some: "Ocean Migration: Paths, Timing, Sequence and Range of Prehistoric Migration in the Pacific and Indian Oceans" by CEM Pierce and EF Pierce; "Russian Magic" by Cherry Gilchrist; "The Wonder of Boys" by Michael Gurian; "Mystic or Sorcerer (probably the best of these) by Sheik Yusuf Shahab el din Hofler; — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.35.195 (talk) 12:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

You can find connections, but do the citations make the connection?--Jack Upland (talk) 07:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Question

This is amazing! Am I the only one or does anyone else see a need for a reference a "Psychoanaliytical interpretation" of Jack and the Beanstalk that includes discussions as this one did? What does this possibly add to anyone's useful knowledge of this fairy tale? Everyone knows that Freudian have this dog and tend to find this in everything they see. Sorry, but when my young child is looking up references to a simple fairy tale I resent having to later explain the "power of the phallus" or "masturbation" to them at their young age. There may be a time for that later but not now. Including silly references such as this takes away from the power of a child's imagination to make up their own interpretation of this simple yet beautiful. This section is useless-NOT and I will report anyone who continues to include it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockmon7 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 13 March 2008 (UTC) Template:Unsigned -->

I agree with that, it should be removed. It could be referenced in an article about Freudian psychoanalysis, but I think it has no place here. - Redmess (talk) 22:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Can someone look over my synopsis of the story and correct it as necessary? -- Zoe

Is it just me or is having a spoiler warning for Jack and The Beanstalk just a little silly? - Sando

Why? Because it's a classic story? Peach Boy is another classic fairy tale -- can you tell me the ending without looking it up? (It's Japanese. But expecting someone who is, say, Japanese, to know Jack and the Beanstalk is as silly as expecting an Englishman to know Peach Boy.) Goldfritha 00:16, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know what Talking instrument Jack stole from the Giant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.108.21.232 (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is the English-speaking WP, so the audience is less the entire world than it is the English-speaking world. But I think having a spoiler warning on Peach Boy would be almost as silly--you don't "spoil" a folktale by giving away the ending, they're meant to be told over and over and do not depend on the element of surprise. "Wow--happily ever after! Who woulda thought?" Nareek 11:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Scanned Images of the 1807 Edition

This now appears to be a dead link. I'm not one of the primary contributors to this page, so I'm not taking it off, but I want to give a heads-up Otto1970 20:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Spelling

Which is it, "Fee Fie Foe Fum" or "Fee Fi Fo Fum" ? Both spellings are used in the article, mostly the 3-letter version even though Google shows more hits for the 2-letter spelling).

You pretty much answered you own question... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.151.216.89 (talk) 02:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC).

Spoiler warnings

The plot summary in this encyclopedia article is helpfully labelled "Plot synopsis". As such it's all the warning a reader needs. I've removed the unnecessary and ugly "spoiler" warning underneath it. --Tony Sidaway 23:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Excess

removed excessive pop culture references

"Controversies"

I find it ironic that there has actually been "controversy" over Jack and the Beanstalk, but no controversy under articles on fairy tales considerably more murderous than this one, or even under Goldilocks and the Three Bears in which the protagonist not only steals the food and breaks the chair, but also gets away with it. How much does the "controversies" section really have to be here? Not050 (talk) 01:44, 21 January 2008 (UTC)Not050

Pantomime

I came here looking for details of this well-known pantomime. I'm not surprised to find that it is based upon an old folk tale, but I am surprised that the pantomime version is hardly mentioned at all (the only mention is an external link to a commercial site that will try to sell you a script). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phil the (talk • contribs) 15:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Jack

Is a caring boy that wants to make his mother proud —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.158.248 (talk) 05:39, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The name Jack, at the time of first publishing the tale, was known to be a status reference and slang at that for 'any man': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_%28given_name%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.144.53.99 (talk) 01:17, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Origin

The article sais, that the original author of the tale is either British or German. As this is labeled with "citation needed" I looked it up in the German Wikipedia: "Die genaue Herkunft der Geschichte ist unbekannt, obwohl klar zu sein scheint, dass der Autor ein Brite gewesen ist.", which means: "The exact origin of the story is unknown, for though it seems to be clear, that the author was British." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.31.232.166 (talk) 08:16, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

More information about the origin is here: http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/17/more-original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.90.218 (talk) 01:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Late English Historian Sir Francis Palgrave (in the Collected Historical works of Sir Francis Palgrave KH pages 200-201) researched and wrote once that Jack and the Beanstalk was an oral legend that arrived in England at the time of the Vikings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Protobaltoslav (talk • contribs) 10:05, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Film adapt. : Woody 's version in 1947!!!

{{editsemiprotected}}

To be placed in film adaptations:

text:

Walter Lantz productions and Universal Pictures released in 1947 Woody the Giant Killer, starring Woody Woodpecker . Although the title suggest connections with Jack the Giant Killer tale, the cartoon shows Woody growing a magical beanstalk and entering the giant's castle atop.

May I have a citation for that? Thanks Leujohn ^(talk) 10:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Not done for now: Pending citation.--Aervanath talks like a mover, but not a shaker 21:06, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

King Lear

"The giant's "Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!" was included in William Shakespeare's King Lear." Does the source note the line is in KL, or actually say KL got it from JatB? The play's 200 years older than the fairy tale... is it theorized the fairy tale is at least that old? Шизомби (talk) 03:22, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Refer to Sir Francis Palgrave for one hypothesis of the age of the tale, around the time of the vikings he was said to have written, and an oral legend at that, that is still being weighed as to veracity types that he qualified the statement with.

In the 'round the fireplace' version of the tale it was and is known to have been subjected to acute dramatisation, pinpointing which bits means a knowledge of trends in theatre and publishing genre of this type and this publication...good luck! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.144.53.99 (talk) 01:13, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Fee-fi-fo-fum#Origin states:

(quote) In William Shakespeare's play King Lear, the character of Edgar exclaims:

Fie, foh, and fum,

I smell the blood of a British man.

If so, there is more to be said here about King Lear and the little we do say now is wrong. --P64 (talk) 18:49, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Oddities in the plot summary

The plot summary is rather garbled. It contains references to various entities (an all-powerful count, and Jack's eventual wife) who are never introduced. I presume these were added by one of the anonymous edits, but I couldn't see with one. Wardog (talk) 17:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

The plot summary is based on Tabart's 1807 version, the first English version in print. It has undergone revision and variation since then but it seems to me that using the first printed English edition rather than one of the dozens of subsequent variants is the most reasonable approach and the one least likely to cause disagreements over details. Tower4Sitz (talk) 20:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Fee-fi-fo-fum

Why no mention of the most famous bit, the 'Fee-fi-fo-fum, which has got its own Wikipedia page, after all? 81.156.126.53 (talk) 13:37, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Francis Palgrave and Genre

"Jack" is not a legend. Legends are typically based on romanticized facts such as the legends of Johnny Appleseed, Robin Hood, or Dick Turpin. Legends deal with the possible and the believeable. "Jack", as we know it today and as it was first published in 1807, is a fairy tale -- it features magical elements such as the beans, the talking harp, the golden hen, a castle in cloudland, etc. Palgrave's conjectures about viking sources are not supported by modern scholars and folklorists. If the tale is indeed "viking" then some remnants would be found in Scandinavian tales but there appear to be no such remnants. Please do not return the Palgrave material to the article. It's dated (he died in 1861!) and not supported by modern scholars. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 736StIves (talk • contribs) 06:14, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

• Would you please stop altering the first line of the lead? A simple sentence works best. It doesn't need to be complicated with Viking sources, oral legends, popularly believed, and so on. The tale as we know it today (and in Tabart's edition) is a fairy tale and is categorized by the Library of Congress and the British Library as so. Please stop deleting this. I haven't found anything in modern scholarship that indicates the tale is a Viking oral legend. Palgrave may be the only one and should not be given too much weight. After all, his research is at least 100 years old and modern scholars probably take it with a grain of salt. Please stop altering the first line. I don't like to think you're doing this every day to "assert" yourself or to "play around" or to provoke an edit war. Before altering anything could you take your work to the Talk Page so others can discuss? 736StIves (talk) 00:37, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

GENRE DISCUSSION IN SCHOLARSHIP I appreciate that ORAL LEGEND isn't found in modern scholarship and thats why I suggest a section discussing GENRE as modern scholarship typically uses only Aarne Thompson's classification system that, amazingly enough, modern scholars define as insufficient, this indicating GENRE complexities that are mostly unexplored but CERTAINLY acknowledged...the primary reference for the acknowledgement of the GENRE problem is Christine Goldberg: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/mat/summary/v015/15.1goldberg.html The most important thing to take from that article is that the classification system for fairy tales is INSUFFICIENT for the tale, so what is it?

Folktale?

Wiki definition..."Fairy tale is a type of short narrative that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories thus designated explicitly refer to fairies. The stories may nonetheless be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described)[1] and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables."

Okay, so Francis Palgrave refers to veracity in the included reference but due to him not having the internet and only speaking English, he may have misunderstood a little...or not? Though most Nordic people you might speak to don't think that's Valhalla.

So veracity and different types of veracity are areas of modern exploration in this anomaly of genre exploration that's open to us since we have more information than before.

VERACITY TYPES, a Brainstorm (not exhaustive) -Multiple existence of similarities a) across genres b) across continents -Existence of viking DNA in areas of co-occurrences of the tale -Known viking settlements and tale types, in accordance with the idea that vikings were many people -STRICT reading of the tale in accordance with oral legend reading skills as compared to the classification of the tale as 'fairytale' 'a la' Aarne Thompson -and so on

I do argue while it's ambiguous though that TALE or FOLKTALE/FOLKLORE is less misleading until scholars can sort that out...it's more than one hypothesis.

Oral Legend/Folktale? (more or less the same thing in times of the absence of publishing) I suggest in this section exploring Francis Palgrave's ideas with references to oral legend reading skills. I have included one link to that extent.

If there is some agreement for a section on Genre discussion...great

Reverted edits

Tower4Sitz, who made many edits here, is a sock of banned editor ItsLassieTime - see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ItsLassieTime. This editor has a long history of serial copyvio and plagiarism problems. Per WP:BAN I reverted their edits. The page should stay in the state I reverted to unless someone is willing to examine each of their edits for copyvio. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:02, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

we lost a lot of good quality revisions at the same time, I wish that it wasn't done spontaneously...(see discussion above) if we (discussing above) can please be unbanned to fix this, the article was starting to look better than the C it currently has in terms of referencing and content etc.

Also, why can I amend the first line of the article but not the external links even though the history page says I made this action?

Responding to unsigned comment above - the content will have to be rebuilt. I understand that there was a lot of good content here and as soon as I have a chance I'll help rebuild it. Any edits an editor other than the banned editor made can be pulled out of history and reinstated as far as I'm concerned. The problem with banned editors who engage in plagiarism and copyvio is that it effects the work other editors have done. I could have brought the article down to a stub or if I'd had the time checked diligently for copyvio and if found then the page can be deleted. This seemed to be the best solution given the threats I was receiving on my page. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 11:35, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

I (protobaltoslav) and the person discussing with me were not among them, thanks for the go ahead to revert. I did see your page I wont comment save to suggest you report offensive comments like anyone would.

The person discussing with you is another sockpuppet of the same banned user, so their edits also have to be deleted. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:15, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear Protobtoslav, don't put back any edits made by User:NewHouse4533, User:736StIves, and User:Tower4Sitz. They are all sockpuppets of the banned user ItsLassieTime. I need go through the history to check the other users. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 20:06, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

What I have done is put back reverts of my edits that they actually did, and they did, add some value to, perhaps that's not sock puppetry in that case? I can only tell you what I saw of the user. Currently having a problem with genre denial :) by Nikkimaria, otherwise, just a couple more references to replace back. Protobaltoslav Im no puppet, my edits are not problematic, I was just too lazy to log in, seems to be an issue with this page so...I'll heed the login, if that was the base for the revert.

Unintelligible text in the "Variants" section

The text in the "Variants" section of the article beginning with "The biblical tale of Jonah..." is written in such a convolutedly over-the-top manner that it is nearly impossible to actually understand what it is saying and how it applies to the topic of the article. "Escatological admonition"? "Overweaningly powerful"? Seriously?? It makes me wonder if it was introduced by someone as a joke, simply to see how long this text would survive in the article or if this was written simply out of a love for really big words as opposed to a love for conveying knowledge. Seeing how long this text has survived in the article, I also wonder if I am the only one who needs to read it five times to understand it or if everyone else is just afraid to admit that they don't get it either. This parapgraph doesn't fit in with the rest of the article nor does it fit into an encyclopedia that is intended to be intelligible for a reader with an average vocabulary. "Big words" might sound somehow "professional" or "smart", but Wikipedia should not sacrifice intelligibility for merely sounding intelligent. Ruebezahl (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Remarkably we have linked widow, income, bean, and axe in section 1 (i unlinked the last three). -P64 updated 2013-07-06

Yet we mention the "didactic of fable", the "profane dualism", and the "transcendent hope in Divine Providence" without assistance in section 4. Those three I tagged for clarification, clarification, and citation.

--P64 (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the text. There seems no connection between the story of Jonah and this tale. There has never been any citation for this. It suspect it was an esoteric joke. I also removed the reference to the fable The Gourd and the Palm-tree. Again, there is no obvious relevance. This is not a page about legendary vegetables.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:38, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I have now removed the reference to the world tree. This has been tagged "citation needed" for almost six months. It just seems to be a theory of an editor.--Jack Upland (talk) 06:29, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Template:Jack

We are having some difficulty determining what to do with {{Jack}}. Most importantly, we are trying to determine whether Jack the Giant Killer and Jack and the Beanstalk should have separate templates. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fictional characters#Template:Jack.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:16, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Yesterday I tagged the lead assertion 'closely associated with the tale of "Jack the Giant Killer"' {{citation needed}}. Today I replaced the lead mention of JtGK by a See also listing, as this article does not support a close association

Fee-fi-fo-fum#Origin reveals some association, one way or the other.

--P64 (talk) 18:46, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

British English

Moralise previously appeared many times, moralize once. I imposed ise uniformly (that is, also memorialise, satirise, terrorise, villainise). This NEEDS review by someone who knows EN.wiki usage of British English.

This concerns Oxford spelling rather than American vs. British English. --P64 (talk) 17:49, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy and the Peanut Stalk

Does anybody remember a 1970's comedian creating an oral parody, "Jimmy and the Peanut Stalk," replacing Jack with young Jimmy Carter, and the giant with Gerald Ford? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.225.17.141 (talk) 23:41, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Jack Spriggins

Why is "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" printed in 1734 not the oldest known printed version??? It has a magic bean; Jack climbs a beanstalk up to the giant's castle; the giant says "Fee-fi-fo-fum". It's clearly the same story, though it has variations, and is "not suitable for children".--Jack Upland (talk) 00:29, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

I have now changed this.--Jack Upland (talk) 02:11, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

The article should be revised on this basis, but this would need some research. It appears that the sources used in the article were not aware of the Spriggins version.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:46, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

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Harp Anthropomorphism

I don't know if this is explicitly stated in the original text, but there seems to be a popular trend of depicting the golden harp in the shape of a woman, or at least with a woman's head. Any idea how that started? Booger-mike (talk • contribs) 14:01, 9 May 2022 (UTC)