Jacks

Never believe anything a Jack says….

G’Afternoon — Give me a moment to turn down The Dead’s ‘Jack Straw’ off Steppin’ Out England ’72 which is playin’ on the Infinite Jukebox so we can talk.

This is one of The Jacks speaking. Which Jack? Ahhh, that would be spoiling my fun! We Jacks are at our very best when we’re more myth than reality.

Now my red headed colleen, what story were you telling me that one of me fellow Jacks told you he heard from an old blind Welsh crwth player of ill repute who likes his metheglin a bit too much? Oh, that one about The White Goddess and how The Mabinogion came to be? You believed him? Did you check your purse afterwards to see if all of your silver was still there?

Surely you know that all of us Jacks are born liars, errrr, storytellers? That all storytellers are telling not the truth, but a story to entertain? So be we Jack Flanders, Jack Straw, Broad Arrow Jack, Jack Spriggan, Jack Daw, Jack Sparrow, Jack Merry, Jack of Fables, Grimjack, Gypsy Jack, Ramblin’ Jack, Jack Sprat, Jack Frost, Mad Jack, Jack B. Nimble, Spring Heel Jack, Headless Jack, the Jack of Beanstalk fame, or Whiskey Jack — we all are not to be trusted to ever tell the truth without embellishing it. All of us Jacks really do like having reality and myth dance a lively improvised jig. Most find this part of our charm.

Of course, we couldn’t do what we do, we storytellers, without the complicity of our audience. Yes, darlin’, an audience of one is still an audience, sometimes the very best of audiences, depending upon the situation. Inspiration and necessity are at the root of the storyteller’s trade. And there’s not a one of us Jacks who wouldn’t be inspired by a lass with hair the colour of spun firelight, just like yours. It reminds me of the tale of the Baroness and the Gypsy, he with his eyes dark and bright like globes of midnight sun, and she with her hair like an ocean of red gold…

…What? Well of course the Baroness in my tale looks just like yerself. And why wouldn’t she? And yes, some ladies have admired my dark eyes, and even called them fine, just as the Baroness did our Gypsy lad’s. It’s that part of storytelling — that insertion of reality into myth, of us into story — which makes it ours. It goes both ways, though. We’re shaped by our myths and legends just as we shape them. They’re living things, stories, and as real as we dare them to be.

Did you just ask me if this particular Jack is more myth or more man? No, lass, I’m not laughing at you — more at my own self. There are times when we storytellers get too caught up in our tales, or they in us, I s’pose. It wasn’t my intention to tell you tales which put you in doubt of my reality. I’m certainly real, as real as yerself, as real as the Gypsy and the Baroness, as real as the King of England sitting on his throne today.

Beg pardon? There is no Royal family since The Commonwealth was formed by Cromwell, you say? Ah yes, of course. It was that other Jack, in that other time with that other life, who snuck into the English King’s bedchamber to have a peek in his wig cupboard. No, no, he meant no mischief, did Jack. Well, not much, at any rate. It was simply a bet, you see, and mayhaps a wee bit of idle curiosity. Would you like to hear that story, while we help ourselves to another pint? You would? No, that Jack’s eyes were not dark as night — they were greener than the moors, my lovely colleen, though many ladies found them just as fine as our Gypsy lad’s. The whole thing started the day Jack caught sight of the Royal Palace’s comeliest upstairs chambermaid, a girl with eyes grey as the stormy seas and fringed in black lashes, just like your own…