Jack lived with his mother, a widow who kept pigs, and while she worked hard, he did not. In fact Jack spent his days sitting beside the fire playing cards with his dog, a big old Highland Collie. No one could tell if the dog really played cards and of course people thought Jack was a nitwit, a fool with no sense at all.
On the day that Jack turned twenty-one he got up from the fireside and stretched. He was a tall young man and the clothes he had worn for years no longer fitted him, so he looked quite odd with his trousers up round his knees and his shirt sleeves at his elbows.
‘Mother,’ Jack said, ‘away you go to feed your pigs. I’m away to seek my fortune.’
‘Oh Jack, you daft laddie! You’ve never been past the gate and you’ll get lost. Away and play with your doggie.’
Well they argued for a bit but when his mother had turned her back Jack was out of the house, across the farmyard and out of the gate. He was in an unknown world and he didn’t know where he was or where to go, so he kept walking down the road until he reached a crossroads with a signpost. One of the signs read: To the Land of Enchantment. And that’s the road Jack took.
Jack had been walking for some time and he was feeling very hungry, wishing now he had asked his mother for a bannock or something to eat along the way. Just ahead he saw a horse trough all covered with moss and when he reached it he was pleased to see it was filled with water. There was a wee robin sitting on the edge. Jack bent down to take a drink.
‘Hello Jack,’ said the robin.
‘Goodness me, a bird speaking! I’ve never heard a bird speak before. Why are you speaking?’ asked Jack.
‘Jack, you are in the Land of Enchantment where everyone can speak and understand each other – birds, animals and people,’ said the robin.
‘Well if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears I never would have believed a bird could speak,’ said Jack. ‘But how do you know my name?’
‘Oh Jack, we knew you were coming. We’ve been waiting twenty-one years for you,’ said the robin.
‘Well that was a long wait,’ said Jack. ‘You know what I’d like birdie,’ he said, ‘I could do with something to eat.’
‘Follow me, Jack,’ said the wee robin as it flitted off down the road.
They came to a lovely black-thatched cottage where an old woman sat rocking to and fro in a rocking chair. Jack thought she must be at least a hundred years old.
‘Go on in and get your supper, Jack,’ said the old woman.
So he went inside and what a sight met his eyes! There was a table laden with a bowl of hot, steaming porridge, the best he’d ever tasted, plates of scones and oatcakes and a great jug of ale, all served by the old woman’s lovely granddaughter. When he could eat no more she asked if he would like to go to sleep, and of course he was very tired after his long walk, so she took him to a room with a great feather bed.
As soon as he lay down he was fast asleep, but he woke during the night and found he was lying on three peats covered with a sheepskin. Jack thought it was strange but it was still better than lying in the ashes beside the fire at his mother’s house. However, in the morning he woke up in the fine feather bed.
‘What a queer country this is,’ thought Jack as he got up and went down to find breakfast ready for him.
‘Before you leave, Jack,’ said the young girl, ‘go outside and my grandmother will give you some advice. In this land you will need all the advice you can get.’
So Jack greeted the old woman, ‘Well, Grannie, how are you doing this morning?’
‘I’m fine, Jack,’ she replied. ‘I must warn you as you go along the road today never talk to anybody first. Wait until they speak to you and then you can reply.’
So Jack thanked her and said goodbye and when he was just setting off the young girl gave him a parcel of scones.
Down the road went Jack and he walked and walked and walked and along the way he ate the scones. After a long while he heard bells, church bells, ringing away so sweetly and as he came up over the ridge he saw a pretty village. He opened up the parcel to finish the last of the scones and there he found a gold coin. He was surprised of course and he looked at it carefully and put it in his pocket before heading into the village.
Jack found an inn and, since he was feeling hungry again, ordered a big plateful of food and some home-brewed ale. While he was eating he noticed three men playing cards in the corner. They did not speak at all, just played cards. One of the men was dressed from head to toe in green and Jack could see from his face that he was a clever and cunning man. He wasn’t a young man but he wasn’t a very old man either, just a clever man with brains.
Jack forgot the old woman’s advice not to speak first and went over to ask if he could get a game of cards with them.
‘Have you got any money?’ asked the man dressed in green and Jack showed him the change left over from his gold coin.
‘Can you play cards?’ he asked Jack, ‘We don’t play with men who cannot play cards.’
‘Oh, I’ve practised a bit in my day,’ said Jack, sitting down, and the four of them began to play. The clever man in green was a good card player but he couldn’t beat Jack because Jack had practised all his life with his collie dog! Jack was winning all the money so the other two men left and Jack and the clever man played and played through the night until it was almost dawn.
Finally the man in green put down his cards, ‘You are too good a man at cards for me,’ he said. He got up and said, ‘Goodbye Jack.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Jack, ‘you know my name. Who are you?’
‘I’m the Green Man of Knowledge.’
‘Where do you live?’ asked Jack.
‘East of the moon and west of the stars,’ the man replied.
‘That’s a queer direction,’ said Jack, but the man just left saying he could make what he wanted of it.
Jack had won heaps of money so he put some in his pocket and the rest into bags and asked the innkeeper to look after it while he went to find where the Green Man of Knowledge lived.
‘Don’t follow him,’ said the innkeeper, shaking his head, ‘you’ll go to disaster if you follow him.’
But Jack was not worried and set off to follow, heading on down the road out of the village, and he walked and walked and walked until he came to a thatched cottage.
‘Well this cottage is like the other one, so maybe they will help me on my way and I can pay them,’ said Jack to himself as he knocked on the door.
‘Come in, Jack!’
‘Goodness,’ said Jack, ‘they are well informed in this country. Everyone knows my name.’
‘I suppose you are hungry Jack so sit down and have something to eat,’ said an old woman who was sitting in a rocking chair. She was even older than the first woman he’d met, maybe two hundred years old, knitting away making something round.
The meal was served by another young girl, ten times more bonnie than the first girl, and when Jack went to bed the same thing happened. The feather bed turned into peat when he lay down.
In the morning Jack saw that the old woman had finished her knitting and it lay on the floor and she said, ‘I know you are looking for the Green Man of Knowledge so we are here to help you.’
‘I’ll take all the help I can get,’ he said and after his breakfast the old woman gave him the piece of round knitting.
‘Take it outside and lay it on the ground and sit on it. Sit cross-legged; cross your arms and whatever happens don’t look behind you, Jack. If you look behind you it is the end. Say “Away with you” and it will take you where you need to go and when you land pick it up, whirl it three times round your head and say “Home with you” and it will come back to me.’
So Jack thanked the old woman, thinking this was very queer indeed. He did just as he was told, and soon he was flying so fast he could hardly breathe. He was dying to look back but he remembered what the old woman had told him and this time he did not ignore the advice and he kept looking forward. In no time at all he had landed and he was very pleased indeed to be standing on firm ground again. He took up the knitting and twirled it three times round his head, saying, ‘Home with you’, and off it went!
As Jack walked on he heard a ting-ting-ting and knew it was a blacksmith at work and soon he came to a house. Jack scratched his head, for there sitting rocking away was another old woman in a chair, even older than the last. If age counted in that land she was older!
‘Well, well, Jack,’ she said, ‘we’ve been waiting for you. Go inside and get something to eat and have a good night’s rest.’
Just as before, he had his meal and slept on a bed that changed from feathers to peat and in the morning the old woman told him to go to the smiddy shop where her husband had made something for him.
‘Do as he tells you Jack and you won’t go wrong,’ she said.
The blacksmith had much to tell Jack. ‘You are getting closer to the Green Man of Knowledge so you must remember he is a clever man and it won’t be easy. There is a river to cross but I can’t help you cross it. There is a bridge but if you step on that bridge it will turn to spiders’ webs and you will fall through into the water. The water will turn to boiling lava and you would be instantly dead. There is only one person who can help you Jack.’
“And who would that be?’ asked Jack.
‘The Green Man of Knowledge has three daughters,’ replied the smith, ‘and the youngest one is the most powerful. It is she who will help you but you have to catch her first. They come down to the river each morning to swim and when they touch the water they turn into swans: two black swans and a white one. It is the white swan you must get, Jack. Hide near to the bridge and wait until they cross. See where they put their clothes and once they have become swans swimming you must pick up her clothes and everything that belongs to her. If you leave even a hairpin she will make a gown out of it and not help you at all.’
‘Well, well,’ said Jack, ‘it’s all very strange but I’ll try it.’
The blacksmith gave Jack a very, very large horseshoe, ‘Sit on the horseshoe, Jack, just as you did with the knitting, use the same words but whatever you do remember never look back.’
So Jack took the horseshoe and did as he was told, he never looked back and landed on the bank of a river. He twirled the mighty horseshoe over his head and sent it back home like before and then he hid and waited by the bridge. Soon afterwards three beautiful girls came tripping over the bridge towards him and Jack saw that the youngest one was the most lovely. He was careful to notice what she was wearing and then, when he saw two black swans and a white swan swimming, he went to find their clothes. He gathered up all the clothes of the youngest, even her ribbons and hairclips and hid them.
After a while the two black swans went to the bank to get dressed and they crossed back across the bridge as young ladies but the white swan called out, ‘Where are you Jack? I need my clothes. Surely you are a gentleman.’
Jack called back, ‘I was well warned about you and I’m no gentleman. I’m just Jack the Fool. If you want your clothes you’ll have to carry me across the river. It’s a cruel thing to ask but I know you can do this.’
‘Sit on my back then Jack,’ she said, ‘but for your sake and mine you must not tell my father how you crossed this river.’
So Jack promised and she opened up her wings and Jack sat on her back and she took him across the river and when he landed he left her clothes on the dry bank.
Jack walked up to the castle but before he got there the girl ran past him away round to the back as he knocked on the door. The Green Man of Knowledge was flabbergasted … shocked!
‘How did you get here? How did you cross the river?’
‘Oh I came the way you come but I flew across the river,’ said Jack as cool as can be.
‘You have no wings, Jack.’
‘Ah,’ said Jack, ‘I can grow wings if I want to; nothing is impossible.’
‘Well, Jack, come in,’ he said, ‘I must shake your hand.’ But as he reached for Jack’s hand he gave him a push and Jack fell down through a trap door into a wee room, fine for a mouse but not big enough for a man like Jack. ‘Eat, drink and be merry,’ laughed the Green Man of Knowledge.
‘A lad would not be merry on this!’ said Jack as he looked at the cup of water and the green, mouldy bit of bread in the room. Then the trapdoor shut.
After a while Jack heard a whisper, ‘Jack, I’ve come to help you. My father is evil and when you caught me you broke the spell and now I am free to love you and to help you.’ It was the youngest daughter. She gave him some food, a fine feast it was, and warned him to be careful since her father was a cruel man.
In the morning the Green Man of Knowledge opened up the door and asked how Jack was after the night. Jack said he had been well fed and had never slept so well.
‘Well you are easy to please, Jack,’ he said, letting Jack out of the hole, ‘I shall set you three tasks. Firstly, tomorrow you must go down the deep well to find my wife’s ring. It’s easy enough and I could do it but I want to see what kind of man you are.’
Jack peered down the deep dark well and saw it was dry and he wondered how he could get down and back up. Jack was still wondering what to do that night while shut up in the wee room when he heard White Swan whispering to him. That’s what he called her, White Swan.
She brought him food again and told him that the task should be impossible but that she would help him. ‘I will turn myself into a ladder, Jack, from the top to the bottom. I will make the muddy bottom clear as crystal so you can find the ring, but Jack please be very careful as you climb for if you miss a step you will break a bone in my body.
In the morning the Green Man of Knowledge took Jack to the well. Jack peered over the edge and felt for the ladder and then he hopped over and cried out pretending he was falling. But all the time he was stepping down the ladder and sure enough at the bottom he could see the ring. He missed his step once and thought sadly he might have broken the girl’s neck. He reached for the ring, put it into his pocket and very, very carefully climbed back up wondering how badly hurt she must be.
‘You are a clever man, Jack,’ said the Green Man of Knowledge, ‘so give me the ring.’
But Jack would not. ‘I did the work so I will keep the ring.’
‘Someone is helping you, Jack! Who is it?’
Jack said nothing of course and so the Green Man of Knowledge shut him up in the little room again and Jack wondered about the second task. White Swan came to him with food that night and Jack was very pleased to see her.
‘I thought I had broken your neck,’ he said.
‘One more step and that would have been true but you did break my little pinkie. So I wore gloves at dinner and my father did not see. We are safe for now. But tomorrow, Jack, he wants you to build a castle out of nothing in only one hour.’
‘Goodness,’ said Jack, ‘I couldn’t thatch a roof in three months, let alone build a castle in an hour.’ But he knew White Swan would be there to help him.
In the morning the Green Man of Knowledge asked how he spent the night and Jack said he had spent a fine night and that he liked this castle.
‘If you like this castle then here is your next task. I want you to build a castle finer than this on the other side of the hill and I will give you one hour,’ said the Green Man of Knowledge.
‘Right,’ said Jack, ‘away with you then because I cannot work if anyone is watching.’
Jack looked around for White Swan but she did not appear. He sat down and worried and fretted thinking how he would be a dead man soon and then, just when he thought he should make his escape, he heard her. He turned around and there she was and behind her was the most magnificent castle.
But then he saw a hole in its wall.
‘Oh lassie, that hole is as big as a house, it’s a mistake,’ said Jack, ‘he will see me dead for this.’
‘It is no mistake, Jack. When he asks about it tell him you left it for him to fill up and see what he says. You are safe so long as you do not tell him who is helping you.’
The Green Man of Knowledge was mighty surprised to find the castle and he walked round it until he found the hole.
‘So you could not complete the task!’ he said.
‘I left that so you could fill it,’ Jack replied.
The Green Man of Knowledge again asked who was helping him but Jack told him he only had an old collie dog for a friend.
‘Well, Jack, your last task will be to clear all the ants from the wood in thirty minutes and if you can do this you can have as much money as you can carry and any of my daughters as a wife. And you will have your freedom again.’
‘I’d like my freedom since I have an old mother working with pigs. I’d like to go back home and help her and see my old doggie too. So off you go while I get on with the job,’ said Jack.
How she did it Jack never knew but White Swan had the job done in thirty minutes and was gone just as the Green Man of Knowledge returned.
‘You are a clever man, Jack,’ he said and this time he took Jack back to his castle and gave him a fine meal in the great hall. Then he gave him four bags of gold and asked Jack to come out to the stables where he kept a herd of fine horses, all of them mares.
As Jack was walking he heard White Swan whispering, ‘Jack, take the old donkey – take the old donkey.’
When Jack arrived at the stables he saw the most beautiful horses, each one strong enough to carry him and the gold. He looked at the poor wee donkey and thought it could not carry the gold let alone carry him as well. The donkey looked at him and he knew what he had to do.
‘I’ll take the wee donkey,’ he said, ‘she’ll be fast enough for poor Jack.’
The Green Man of Knowledge was angry and said he should take one of the horses rather than be shamed riding through the countryside on such a poor old nag. But Jack loaded the gold on to the back of the donkey and when the donkey hee-hawed he sat upon her and away they went.
Jack knew this was really White Swan helping him again and he called to her to slow down for fear she might kill herself running so fast. But no sooner had he said this than they realised the Green Man of Knowledge was riding hard behind them.
‘Jack, I can’t run fast enough. Take a drop of water from my left ear and throw it behind you. Ask for rivers and lakes behind us and a clear road ahead of us.’
Jack did this and saw the rivers and lakes and asked the wee donkey to rest up a bit but she said no, for the Green Man of Knowledge was riding a fine black mare, one of her wicked sisters. So she ran and ran until she called to Jack, ‘Take a stone from my right ear and throw it behind us and ask for mountains, hills and dales behind us and a clear road ahead of us.’
Jack did as she told him but over the mountains and hills and through the dales the Green Man of Knowledge was soon upon them and all the while the wee donkey ran and ran until Jack feared for her life.
‘Jack, I love you,’ she cried out, ‘and I will destroy the Green Man of Knowledge but it will put a spell on us both. Look in my left ear and take the spark of fire. Throw it behind you and ask for a wall of fire behind us and a clear road ahead.’
Jack did as she said and when he looked around the Green Man of Knowledge rode into the wall of fire and disappeared. As soon as that happened the wee donkey turned into the young girl again and Jack was standing on his own two feet holding the four bags of gold.
‘Now, Jack, because of this I must leave you for a year, but one year from today I will come for you. In all that time you must not let anyone kiss you, not even your mother,’ the girl told him, ‘for if anyone kisses you then you will be under a spell and you will forget me. Don’t let anybody kiss you Jack.’
‘I won’t let anyone kiss me,’ said Jack, ‘and I will be waiting for you.’
Jack set off down the road thinking a year is not too long and of course he had all that gold. Soon he realised he was very close to home and in no time at all he hopped over the fence and his mother rushed out so happy to see him. She was trying to kiss him of course but Jack was having none of that. So he went into the house and there was his big old collie dog wagging his tail and he jumped up, put his paws on Jack’s chest and gave him a big lick. That was it! In that instant Jack forgot everything.
Jack had plenty of money so people said Sir Jack this, and Sir Jack that, instead of calling him Jack the Fool, since money seems to make a difference. He bought a big house and was working away at a new business and doing very well even though he could not read or write. After some months Jack and the miller’s daughter walked out together and soon enough they were engaged to be married.
The day of the wedding was exactly one year after Jack came home and while the guests gathered he was still busy in his office when a young girl knocked on the back door. Though she was dressed in a torn skirt and a tattered blouse she was very beautiful and she asked for a job.
‘What can you do?’ asked the cook.
She said she could cook and clean and so the cook took her on to help with the wedding and to stay on after the wedding to clear up after the guests. She was set to washing dishes while they waited for the preacher but time passed and the preacher was late.
The guests were getting impatient and Jack’s mother wondered what could be done to keep everyone happy. She went to those working in the kitchen and the ragged girl spoke up.
‘I can do a trick with my wooden cockerel and my wooden hen, they can peck and talk and that might amuse everyone until the preacher arrives.’
So Jack’s mother took her to the guests, all dressed in their fine clothes, and the ragged girl set the wooden cockerel and hen on the floor and scattered some corn. Jack came out to watch while they pecked and picked up the corn. Then everyone was amazed when the hen spoke to the cockerel. ‘Do you remember me, Jack?’ she said.
The cockerel looked at the hen and replied, ‘Remember you? No I can’t say that I do,’ and he went on picking up the corn.
The hen asked, ‘Do you remember the Green Man of Knowledge?’
‘The Green Man of Knowledge? No I don’t remember him,’ said the cockerel.
‘Do you remember me, Jack, the woman you love?’ she asked.
‘Ah … no, sorry, I don’t remember you.’
‘Well, Jack, do you remember the little donkey that saved your life and destroyed the Green Man of Knowledge?’ said the wooden hen.
The cockerel stopped pecking at the corn and looked at the hen, ‘Yes I do remember.’
Jack looked at the wooden hen and then he looked at the ragged girl and thought of the wee donkey, ‘I do remember! I remember you!’ he shouted out.
He hugged and kissed the lassie and told the surprised guests the whole story I have told you, and that took a long time didn’t it!
By the end of the story the preacher had arrived, the miller’s daughter became a bridesmaid and Jack married the girl he still called White Swan.