found: The moonlit road, via WWW, Jan. 16, 2013(The "Jack tales" typically involve a young hero named Jack who is thrown onto the long road to adulthood, and must overcome many obstacles using his intelligence, bravery, and occasionally, trickery.)
found: Oxford encyclopedia of children's literature, 2012(Jack tales: So-called Jack tales from Celtic and English oral traditions typically narrate an ordinary young man's fantastic adventures. Traveling away from home, with varying combinations of luck, magical help, trickery, and resourcefulness, Jack completes arduous tasks or defeats giants or witches to obtain riches, rescue girls, and sometimes marry a princess. Although some storytellers immersed in Jack tales try to give Jack consistency, they inevitably acknowledge that his personality and circumstances change from tale to tale. He may be an only child, often a poor widow's son, but sometimes two brothers attempt similar quests and hinder his progress. Jack can be a clever, boastful, greedy trickster, or more virtuous like the heroes in European fairy tales. Or he plays the fool, succeeding through dumb luck. As in nursery rhymes and folk expressions (Little Jack Horner, Jack Frost, Jack-o-lantern), Jack is a generic name.)
found: The Greenwood encyclopedia of American regional cultures: the South, 2004(Folklore: The Jack tales of Appalachia; Jack tales are long, humorous stories that tell of the adventures of the fictional hero named Jack, an Appalachian farm boy who possesses uncanny good luck and manages to continually stumble upon success. Jack is usually portrayed as somewhat unworldly or unsophisticated, yet possessing remarkable street smarts, being particularly imaginative, quick-thinking, and resourceful. While folktales of similar structure and motifs are found in various cultures throughout the world, Jack tales appear to be most similar to European marchen and the various African American genres of trickster tales)
found: LCSH, Oct. 22, 2014(Jack tales)
