Chase, Richard. "Hardy Hardhead." The Jack Tales. Boston: Houghton, 1943, pp. 96-105. With a full-page drawing of Shootwell and Jack's flying ship in the sky, and a drawing of Hardy Hardhead jumping above the witch's hackle, by Berkeley Williams, Jr. Jack's brothers won't help a "weezledy old man" when they set out to rescue the king's girl, but Jack shares his lunch and receives "a little trick" he can unfold into a ship that sails dry land when he says, "Sail, ship! Sail!" Jack encounters Hardy Hardhead, Eatwell, Drinkwell, Runwell, Harkwell, Seewell, and Shootwell, who help him win money from the witch in betting contests. Runwell knocks the witch into the ocean, ridding the King's girl of enchantment, but it is not known whether Jack married the King's girl. Chase's notes list many parallels from different countries of tale type 513B, The Land and Water Ship.
Stephenson, R. Rex. Jack's Adventures with the King's Girl. Orem, UT: Encore, 1999. Reprint by Eldridge. Dramatic story theatre adaptation combining "Hardy Hard Head" and "The Hainted House." The Ferrum College Jack Tale Players often performed "Hardy Hard Head" separately (see photos above and below). In it, Jack (but not his brothers) sets off to free the king's girl from a witchin'. When he gives an old beggar man his lunch, the man gives him a magic piece of paper he can turn into a land ship. He meets Hardy Hard Head, See Well, Shoot Well, Drink Well, and Run Well, who sail with him and help him beat the witch at her own contests. Each helper has amusing lines relating to his or her special talent. There is no money involved and the witch is not destroyed, but Jack frees the King's girl. An audience member chosen as the princess gets to sail in the ship and decide whether to accept the proposal of Jack or another character at the end of the performance. In some performances the magic helper roles would be played by multiple characters, especially Drinkwell, who might be the Drink Well Twins or a whole group of Drink Well Kids. See 2009 video clip of drinking the river dry in Flickr (with other photos and video in same set) and in YouTube.
Haley, Gail E. "Jack and the Flying Ship." Mountain Jack Tales. New York: Dutton, 1992, pp. 53-66. A dramatic wood engraving shows Drinkwell drinking all the witch's water that she needs to get through winter. Haley's plot is similar to Chase's, with Jack's brothers failing because they are greedy. Mourning Belle is the witch's name. Jack frees the king's girl and they like each other, but he is content to pursue other adventures with his reward of gold when she prefers one of the king's guard. Jack goes home and gives his ship to his crew, since the land near home couldn't support them. Jack pays back the hundred dollars the hungry man, Old Graybeard, had given him. Whenever he wants a ride, he shouts for Harkwell to bring the ship back. Haley's granny narrator says she rode in the ship as a girl, before airplanes filled the skies. The big flying ship is shown in color on the back of the book jacket. See Appalachian Folktale Collections A-J for more details on Haley's book of Jack tales and Muncimeg. "Hardy Hardback." In Isobel Gordon Carter. "Mountain
White Folk-Lore: Tales from the Southern Blue Ridge." Journal of American
Folklore 38 (1925): pp. 340-74 (this tale on pp. 346-49). A landmark article containing Jack
tales told by Jane Hicks Gentry (1863-1925), recorded by Carter in 1923. Carter comments on the decline of storytelling among mountain families who used to know them better, although they had not been recorded as ballads had. This tale opens with the king offering his daughter to anyone who "could do more than his old witch," The Jack Tales Wall at SWVCC includes an image of Hardy Hardhead and the magic landship. SW VA artist Charles Vess was commissioned in 1992 to create a brick sculpture wall at Southwest Virginia Community College in Richlands, Virginia. Vess explains the use of specific Jack Tales with photos of scenes on the wall at The Jack Tales Wall, Green Man Press web site. Brick sculptor Johnny Hagerman completed this wall. (Photo at right by Tina L. Hanlon, 4/9/10) Hicks, Ray. "Hardy Hard-Ass." In Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales & Their Tellers. Ed. William Bernard McCarthy. Chapel Hill: Univ. of NC Press, 1994. Chap. 1, pp. 3-26, is "Jack in the Raw: Ray Hicks," with background by Joseph Daniel Sobol, who describes visits to Hicks' home. Sobol notes that "the stories grow out of an active, functioning communal and personal mythos," assimilated into "the fabric of his identity." He quotes Barbara McDermitt on Hicks saying, "I'm Jack. Everybody can be Jack. Jack ain't dead. He's a-livin. Jack can be anybody" (pp. 4-5). He told "Cat and Mouse" and then talked about how Richard Chase collected the tale he called "Hardy Hardhead" from Ray's family and took out the rough parts. When he was a kid they called it "Hardy Hard-Ass." Hicks, Orville. "Hardy Hard Head." Orville Hicks Story Teller. YouTube, Apr. 6, 2017. 17:42 minutes. Davis, Donald. "Jack and Granny Ugly." Jack and Granny Ugly. Audio recording. August House Audio, 1997. This 30-minute tale contains many details about the evil old woman with a long nose who is a couple hundred years old, and hasn't brushed her teeth, cut her toenails or combed her hair for most of her life. No one knows why she kidnaps the king's girl. Tom, Will, and Jack try to rescue the girl but Tom and Will give up because they can't jump on a hackle like Granny Ugly does, even though they try helping themselves with devices such as padding their feet. Only Jack shares his food with an old woman on his journey Although he had less to share than his brothers, the woman turns it into a feast and then gives him a little wooden boat, which becomes his magic flying boat. Hardy Hardhead and the other helpers, some of whom are female, have a huge head, wide mouth, etc. Granny Ugly reminds Jack that he has to do things in threes in stories and he says he forgot he was in a story. Then she makes him win four times, although he says that in a hundred stories he's never had to do anything more than three times. After Run Well wins the foot race to the ocean and back, Granny Ugly is so angry she blows up. Jack returns the king's young daughter to her parents without any mention of marriage between them. Jack and his friends get so much money, they are still flying around in the sky today. Torrence, Jackie. "Jack and Hardy Hardhead: Visualizing Stories." Jackie Tales: The Magic of Creating Stories and the Art of Telling Them. Introduction by Ossie Davis. Photographs by Michael Pateman. New York: Avon, 1998. This unusual book contains background on African American storyteller Jackie Torrence and details on her style of storytelling. Each tale is accompanied by details on voice and gestures throughout the text, many photographs of Torrence as she tells it, and marginal notes about sources, themes, details in the tale, and audience reactions. She was from east of the NC mountains, but as a child she heard Richard Chase's Jack tales read at school, not realizing that the reader was giving them an African American flavor. She often told mountain tales as a very popular storyteller herself. The Jack Tales section also contains "Soldier Jack: Long Journeys and Quests," and "Jack's Trip to Hell": The Messages in Stories" (the latter from a Scottish Tinker Torrence met). "Hardy Hard Head." Told by Anndrenna Belcher. Telling Tales. Program 1 in KY Educational TV series of 16 folktale programs, 1990. In Part One. See http://www.ket.org/education for information on programs and videos. Teacher's Guide online contains Table of Contents in Part One, then summaries of each tale and discussion questions and activities. Also has background on the storytellers and Introduction to Storytelling by Belcher, who also tells "Two Gals" in this series. Stivender, Ed. "Hardy Hardhead." Oral telling included in A Storytelling Treasury: Told at the 20th Anniversary National Storytelling Festival (at Jonesborough, TN). 5 cassettes. National Storytelling Network, 1994. Stivender's "Jack and the Magic Boat" is also published in More Best-Loved Stories Told at the National Storytelling Festival. Jonesborough, TN: National Storytelling Press, 1992. The following notes are based on a recording of Stivender's performance at the 1992 National Storytelling Festival, archived in the American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Jack sees the missing princess on a milk carton. Jack's brothers Will and then Tom don't share their food with a stranger and can't pass the first test of the wizard who captured the princess; they return home with heads bloodied from the wizard's hackle. Jack is not the family favorite as he's "on the foolish side" and is always telling stories. He has only dry biscuits and tap water but shares them with an old woman with a staff, who gives him magic bark that becomes a ship when he says "Sail, ship, sail." He meets Hardy Hardhead, Drinkwell, Eatwell, and 3 women Hearwell, Seewell, and Smellwell. They sense things 1000 miles away, hearing a caterpillar eating, seeing a raven eat it, and smelling raven's vomit because caterpillars are poison. Then Shootwell shoots the raven. Judy says she's called Runwell on the track team. The wizard's 4 tests involve the hackle, drinking a creek dry, eating a cow, and filling an eggshell in the Pacific Ocean, 3000 miles away. The wizard puts Runwell to sleep with chloroform but Hearwell, Seewell and Smellwell report on this and Shootwell shoots away objects so that Runwell can wake up, catch up, and win the race. The wizard, who has threatened repeatedly to slit their throats and suck out their brains, lifts a spell from the princess (after jokes about her bad spelling and about whether good "guys" or people won the contests.) The princess accepts a ride home and there is no mention of marriage. The king and queen give Jack and his gang $1000, so they spend the rest of the day flying around wondering how to invest it so that they can live well with family values. "Jack and the Flying Ship." Videos at this link from Facebook page of Jack Tales Storytelling Theater of the Smoky Mountains. The narrator calls the princess the "Smoky Mountain Sleeping Beauty," under the ugly witch's spell for 100 years. The witch says that someone who beats her at four contests can break the spell. "Jack Tales Storytelling Theater of the Smoky Mountains originated at Clear Creek Campground in 1987." Facebook pages include photos and videos from a variety of tales. "Jack Tales Storytelling Theater is performed at Jack's Playhouse, located in the Adventure Bound Camping Resort (also known as Crazy Horse Campground), Highway 321, between Cosby and Gatlinburg, Tennessee" (accessed 5/1/10). Jonah McDonald, Storyteller & Adventure Guide, lists "Jack and Hardy Hard-Head" on his web site (2012) as one of the tales he tells, along with "Jack and the Devil," "Jack's First Job," "Jack and the Doctor," "Jack and the Varmints," "Jack and the Robbers." Catskins escapes by taking a magic flying box from her guardian. Jack's magic helpers in "Hardy Hardhead" have incredible abilities similar to those of tall tale heroes. See AppLit's Tall Tales and Jack Tales: Literature and Writing Activities. Jack finds similar magic helpers and a land ship in "Jack the Woodchopper." In Jimmy Neil Smith, ed. Why the Possum's Tail is Bare and Other Classic Southern Stories. New York: Avon, 1993. Collected by James Taylor Adams from Spencer Adams in 1941. Reprinted from Perdue, Charles L., Jr. Outwitting the Devil: JACK TALES from Wise County Virginia. Santa Fe, NM: Ancient City, 1987. Jack unintentionally makes the king's daughter smile while walking by her house with three preachers and three girls stuck to his golden goose, which he earned by helping an old man. Before marrying the king's daughter, Jack has to find a man who can eat a thousand loaves of bread, a man who can drink a thousand bottles of wine, and a ship that can sail on both land and water. In the end, Jack and his wife become king and queen. Jack rescues his brothers and outsmarts a witch with the help of magical animals and objects in R. Rex Stephenson's story theatre script "Jack and the Witch's Tale." He obtains help by first doing favors for the witch's cow, pig, and mill so they help hide him from the witch, while his brothers would not take time to help the things that asked them for favors. (See The Jack Tales in Stephenson bibliography.) "Big Jim McCool." In Roberts, Leonard. Old Greasybeard: Tales From the Cumberland Gap. Illus. Leonard Epstein. Detroit: Folklore Associates, 1969. Rpt. Pikeville, KY: Pikeville College Press, 1980. pp. 47-49. When Big Jim is rabbit hunting, a talking buzzard scares him so he calls his dogs Runwell, Holdfast, and Heavyhead, to fight the buzzard. It swallows all three but chokes on Heavyhead's bell so Jim is able to cut them out of the buzzard. Roberts links it with lies about big birds and tales of gluttonous predators, such as "Little Red Riding Hood." "The Man and the Devil's Daughter." In Roberts, Leonard (collector). Old Greasybeard: Tales From the Cumberland Gap. Illus. Leonard Epstein. Detroit: Folklore Associates, 1969. Rpt. Pikeville, KY: Pikeville College Press, 1980. pp. 99-105. Drinkwell makes a brief appearance in this tale to help Sally rescue her man from the devil's well full of animals and snakes. For more on this tale, see Jack and King Marock. "Hardy Hardhead" is a sermon by Drew, the pastor at First Presbyterian Church in San Saba, Texas. Jan, 20, 2013. He grew up with Jack tales at summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The kids liked the long tale "Hardy Hardhead" the best. The sermon compares the church to Jack's flying ship and Jack's adventures with companions of different abilities to Paul with the Corinthians. The text is 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. The sermon contains this sidelight: "Funny story about Shootwell. The city of Memphis used to have a street named Shootwell, but then they built the hospital on that road. Well, it didn’t seem right to have a street named Shootwell that lead up to the hospital, so they changed it to Getwell." Compare Appalachian "Hardy Hardhead" with Related Tales from Other Regions: "The Ship That Sailed on Land and Water." Told by Alice Lannon in Newfoundland in 1999, a tale passed down in her family. Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 38, Jan.-Aug. 2001. Available online through library services. With critical essay by Martin Lovelace called "A Model of Appropriate Behavior?" Also reprinted in Perspectives on the Jack Tales and Other North American Märchen. Ed. Carl Lindahl. Bloomington: Folklore Institute, Indiana University, 2001. Lovelace describes it as containing tale types "'The Land and Water Ship' (AT 513B), prefaced by 'Squeezing the (Supposed) Stone' (AT 1060) and 'Eating Contest' (AT 1080). In many ways, it is a male-centered tale. Jack's boast that he can do 'anything a good strong man can do' typifies the aggressive self-confidence the tales seem to recommend as a model of how working men should be when facing employers." A female emphasis is added to the masculine tale when "Jack's success depends not on his own merit, but rather on his kindness to elders and particularly to women." Jack and his fantastic helpers defeat a giant and accomplish other incredible feats such as leveling a mountain. In the end Jack is given the king's daughter to marry and turns down the offer of a castle because he has his own place. This special double issue on North American märchen contains additional discussion of Newfoundland Jack tales, and some comparison with Richard Chase tales. "The Ship That Sailed on Land." French tale in Judith V. Lechner. Allyn & Bacon Anthology of Traditional Literature. New York: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2004. pp. 80-84. "And Who Cured the Princess?" Jane Yolen's retelling of an Israeli tale. In Yolen's book Mightier than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys. Illus. Raul Colón. New York: Silent Whistle/Harcourt, 2003. "The Ash Lad and the Good Helpers." Norwegian Folk Tales From the Collection of Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Moe. Transl. Pat Shaw Iversen and Carl Norman. Oslo: Dreyers Forlag, 1982. pp. 170-77. Espen Ash Lad is the youngest of three sons, who succeeds in getting the king a ship that can sail on land. His brothers set out before him but don't tell the truth to an old man they meet. Espen Ash Lad tells the truth and shares his provisions and gets advice to cut a chip from an old oak and go to sleep, which he does while the ship is built. As instructed, he picks up everyone he sees, and his six men have magic skills. The king doesn't think the sooty lad looks like a worthy son-in-law when he claims his reward with the ship, so he sets tasks such as emptying a storehouse of meat, drinking a cellar full of wine, fetching water from the world's end in ten minutes, and sitting with three hundred cords of wood while it burns. Finally he gets the promised reward of the princess and the kingdom, too. Ness, Evaline. Long, Broad & Quickeye. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1969. Ness's retelling of Andrew Lang's version of a Bohemian tale. A prince on a quest to find the princess he is destined to marry meets the three title characters, who help him rescue the princess from an old wizard who has imprisoned her in an Iron Castle. When the princess is turned into small objects, Long, Broad and Quickeye can see her anywhere, travel far (on sky-high long legs), and drink up the sea (Broad can expand to any size) to rescue her. The wizard transforms into "an ugly black bird," the princess and everything in the castle are released from a stone-like state, and the knights who were turned into stone in the castle are able to attend the wedding of the prince and princess. The three magic helpers go off to help others. Ness's multimedia illustrations create a variety of dramatic effects with gold, black, orange, and related tones. "Long, Broad and Sharpsight." A Bohemian tale in the section on Western Slavonians in Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources by A. H. Wratislaw [1890]. Reprinted in The Internet Sacred Text Archive. Includes an interpretation of the tale as a nature myth in which helpers representing the rainbow, cloud, and lightning help Man cultivate the earth. The wizard who has imprisoned the princess represents drought and the people and nature come alive again when she, the earth, is rescued. Connections with "Sleeping Beauty" are also noted (as the kingdom wakes up after a long, cursed period of paralysis.) "Longshanks, Girth, and Keen." From Czechoslovak Fairy Tales. Ed. Fillmore Parker. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1919. Reprinted at SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages. Similar to the Bohemian tale retold by Ness (above). Mahy, Margaret. The Seven Chinese Brothers. Illus. Jean and Mou-sien Tseng. New York: Scholastic, 1990. This traditional Chinese tale contains seven identical brothers who use extraordinary individual powers, similar to Jack's group of helpers, to outwit an executioner under the command of the Emperor who fears their powers. Seventh Brother's tears (each one large enough to flood a village) sweep away the armies and the Emperor. An editor's note explains the historical background of this ancient Han tale, connected with the Great Wall of China. Tucker, Kathy. The Seven Chinese Sisters. Illus. Grace Lin. Morton Grove, Ill: A. Whitman, 2003. "When a dragon snatches the youngest of seven talented Chinese sisters, the other six come to her rescue" (Worldcat). Similar to the traditional tale "The Seven Chinese Brothers." McDermott, Gerald (adapter and illustrator). Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti. Henry Holt, 1972. A Caldecott honor picture book with geometric designs based on arts of the Ashanti culture of Ghana, West Africa. In this Anansi tale, the spider folk-hero has six good sons, See Trouble, Road Builder, River Drinker, Game Skinner, Stone Thrower, and Cushion (very soft). These skills enable them to rescue Anansi when he is swallowed by a fish and then taken into the sky by a falcon. Anansi would like to give "a great globe of light" to a son but they argue so long about which son deserves this reward that the god Nyame takes the beautiful light into the sky forever. Telling Tales, Part One (see above) lists several other parallel tales, including "The Six Servants" by the Grimm Brothers and one from Chile. Zipes, Jack, ed. Chap. 13, "Extraordinary Heroes: ATU 513—The Extraordinary Companions, ATU 513A—How Six Go Through the World, ATU 513B—The Land and Water Ship. The Golden Age of Folk and Fairy Tales: From the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang. Hackett, 2013, pp. 453ff. This chapter contains nine European variants of these tale types, from an 1819 Grimm tale to one by Karl Erben in 1890. Russian Flying Ship Tales The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship: A Russian Folktale. Illus. Christopher Denise. New York: Philomel, 1994. The peasant Fool (a third son), hoping to win the tsar's daughter with his flying ship, takes along Listening One, Swift-of-foot, Marksman, Gobbler (a big eater), Thirstyman, Woodman (who can produce an army by scattering his bundle of wood), and Strawmonger (who can produce cold weather by scattering straw). The tsar, like the witch in Jack Tales, sets the fool a number of impossible tasks which his companions can perform. It takes an army to frighten the tsar into giving the Fool riches and his daughter. This version of the popular Russian tale is illustrated with animals as the characters. Harris,
Rosemary.
The Flying Ship. Illus. Errol Le Cain. Faber and Faber, 1975.
The picture of the
peasant hero in this book makes a good comparison with the British-American Jack. "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship." The Russian tale retold by Arthur Ransome in Old Peter's Russian Tales. London and Edinburgh:T. C. & E. C. Jack, Ltd., 1916. Reprinted at SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages. A picture book retelling illustrated by Uri Shulevitz won the 1969 Caldecott award (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1968). Caldecott Connections to Language Arts by Shan Glandon has activities for sharing this book (Greenwood, 2000, pp. 25-33). Available in Google Books (accessed 7/28/13). The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship. Dir. David Suchet. Videocassette. WGBH Boston, 1991. Cosgrove Hall Productions, 2001. 1 hour. PBS Series Long Ago and Far Away. Adaptation of the Russian folktale highly recommended by reviewers and viewers. Richard Alleva wrote, "This superb production uses stop-motion and Claymation more tactilely than I have ever seen" ("Kids' Vids: To Be Seen and Heard." Commonweal 8 Mar. 2002). "The Flying Ship." Adapted from the Russian by Andrew Lang in The Yellow Fairy Book, 1894, reprinted at Gutenberg.org. One of the illustrations of the flying ship and comrades, by J. H. Ford, is at right. After he is kind to an old man, the Simpleton finds a flying ship, which the king requires from the man whom he will allow to wed his daughter. The Simpleton's helpers are called the swift runner, the glutton, the sharp-eared comrade, etc. They help him accomplish more incredible tasks set by the king and win the hand of the princess. Published as a picture book illustrated by Dennis McDermott (Morrow Junior Books, 1995. 48 pp.). Lang's Yellow Fairy Book also contains the related tale "How Six Men Travelled Through the Wide World." Theater at Monmouth (Monmouth, Maine) adapted the Russian tale for the stage. A pdf Resource Guide (2012) contains illustrations, detailed background, and resources for teachers. Links checked 2/2/06 | Top of Page | Last
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so Jack isn't trying to rescue the princess from the witch but just win contests with the witch. Jack's brothers Will and Tom try first and get their heads cut off by the king for failing, after the hackle kills them and the witch bounces off the hackle and dances around. Both have been rude to a "little dried up old man" along the way. Jack takes only dried bread but he's kind to the old man and tells him he's trying to make a ship sail on land (seeming to suggest that he's trying to do the impossible). The old man sends him to a spring to turn it into wine, which they drink. (See "