English Fairy Tales

XIX. JACK THE GIANT-KILLER.
Source.—From two chap-books at the British Museum (Lon-
don, 1805, Paisley, 1814). I have taken some hints from
“Felix Summerly’s” (Sir Henry Cole’s) version, 1845. From
the latter part, I have removed the incident of the Giant
dragging the lady along by her hair.
Parallels.—The chap-book of “Jack the Giant-Killer” is a
curious jumble. The second part, as in most chap-books, is a
weak and late invention of the enemy, and is not volkstümlich
at all. The first part is compounded of a comic and a serious
theme. The first is that of the Valiant Tailor (Grimm, No.
20); to this belong the incidents of the fleabite blows (for
variants of which see Köhler in Jahrb. rom. eng. Phil., viii.
252), and that of the slit paunch (cf. Cosquin, l.c., ii. 51).
The Thankful Dead episode, where the hero is assisted by
the soul of a person whom he has caused to be buried, is
found as early as the Cento novelle antiche and Straparola, xi.
2. It has been best studied by Köhler in Germania, iii. 199-
209 (cf. Cosquin, i. 214-5; ii. 14 and note; and Crane, Ital.
Pop. Tales, 350, note 12). It occurs also in the curious play of
Peele’s The Old Wives’ Tale, in which one of the characters is
the Ghost of Jack. Practically the same story as this part of
Jack the Giant-Killer occurs in Kennedy, Fictions of the Irish
Celts, p. 32, “Jack the Master and Jack the Servant;” and
Kennedy adds (p. 38), “In some versions Jack the Servant is
the spirit of the buried man.”
The “Fee-fi-fo-fum” formula is common to all English sto-
ries of giants and ogres; it also occurs in Peele’s play and in
King Lear (see note on “Childe Rowland”). Messrs. Jones
and Kropf have some remarks on it in their “Magyar Tales,”
pp. 340-1; so has Mr. Lang in his “Perrault,” p. lxiii., where
he traces it to the Furies in Aeschylus’ Eumenides.

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Joseph Jacobs