"Jack and the Devil." in The
People Could Fly, Virginia Hamilton.
US African American
~11 minutes
Jack tricking the Devil twice
Jack and the Devilthere is a mention of some
other characters (Jack's
family and the Devil's family in Hell).
Jack is evil/the Devil appears
Jack tricks the devil/Receives More Time
Jack is evil/the Devil appears again
Jack tricks the Devil/Makes a deal to be left
alone
Jack dies and has nowhere to go
Jack is an evil man with a bad drinking habit
and cruel ways. The Devil appears at
his doorstep to take him away to hell. Jack tricks the devil into transforming
himself into a ten-cent piece and then keeps that ten-cent piece in his pocket
until the Devil agrees to leave Jack alone for one year. During the year, Jack
does not repent like he told himself he would and the Devil visits him again to
take him away. Again, Jack tricks the
devil into climbing a tree and won't let him down until the Devil promises to
leave him alone for good. He does just that.
Eventually Jack dies and goes to heaven. The angels don't want him in heaven because he is a bad man. He is sent down to hell and the Devil
abandons him because of Jack's trickery. Jack is now destined to wander around
with no place to go and just the faint light of a burning coal to guide him.
The Devil's laugh (sound effect)
The magic trick of making one dime into two
dimes
Falling from heaven to hell (physical effect)
There is nice repetition in the story with
the Devil visit Jack twice and getting tricked both times. It is a fairly dark story; one that middle school
aged children would pay attention to, mostly because of the mention of the
Devil. The actual story uses the word
"hell" and I opted not to in my telling. Even though kids in middle school would have heard that word before,
I just didn't think it quite appropriate to use it in this story, but rather to
merely imply that is the place Jack would go.
In addition, if the magic trick is done well, that should excite them
and catch them by surprise, just as the Devil did to Jack and Jack then in turn
did to the Devil.
Storytellers Sourcebook
There are many other versions of the story
with Scottish and Irish origins. These
all include references to turnips, and when the Devil throws Jack the burning
coal, Jack places it within his turnip and this is where the jack-o-lantern
came from. I read that to this day,
Scottish children still carve turnips on Halloween to commemorate the
occasion. I enjoyed Hamilton's version
more because it was darker and didn't directly relate to Halloween. I felt that mentioning the Jack-o-lantern
would almost be anticlimactic and make it more of a fun story than a chilling one. I much prefer Jack wandering the Earth with
no place to go as a punishment for wrongdoings, rather than making a hero out
of Jack by claiming that is where Jack-o-lanterns came from.