THE 'ORRIBLE 'OUSE OF TERRIBLE OLD TAT - Odin, Thor and Mary?

Welcome once more dear fiends to the 'Orrible 'Ouse of Terrible Old Tat! Or rather welcome back to Asgard and the world of Valhalla! Published in 1983 for the ZX Spectrum and ported to the Commodore 64 in 1985, Valhalla was, as we have previously discussed, a ground-breaking and ambitious game. It was worlds away from the legions of Jet Set Willy clones which were clogging up game shelves back then. But was the game itself any good? 

It certainly sounded like it was going to be amazing - hanging out in a world of Norse gods and monsters, undertaking epic quests, and generally being allowed to do what the hell you liked. Well, provided you could get the bugger to load that is - for the first drawback to Valhalla was a long loading time, which greatly increased the chances of it crashing.  However, once you had listened to the five  or so minutes of electronic screeching - surely a formative influence on a generation of kids who would grow up to invent acid house, techno and jungle a decade or so later - the first thing to strike you is the scale of the world. 

The game plays out in three distinct realms from old Norse cosmology, Asgard (the world of the gods), Midgard (the land of humans) and Hell (realm of the dead). Traditionally in Norse legends there were nine worlds, with additional realms for giants, elves, dwarves and so forth, but here three worlds work well enough. And just like in the old sagas, brave heroes could physically travel between the worlds. Now in the game, these worlds of possibly exciting adventures comprised of some 81 different screens, each one a separate location - as can be seen here on the map of Valhalla. Now travel between the locations was accomplished in the usual text adventure fashion i.e. typing into "go north", "go south-east" etcetera. And there were some short-cuts available too - some screens/locations had hidden "ringways" - magic portals that teleported you to another location if you possessed a magic ring. 

But there were two downsides to all of this. Firstly you really needed to make some kind of map if you wanted to avoid becoming hopelessly confused and lost. But more importantly, travelling to another location meant the game had to draw another scene. Now the Movisoft engine did so by drawing in layers - first the background, then the midground, foreground, buildings, people and any items there. Hence travelling was a bit on the slow side as it tended to take about half a minute or so to render everything. Now playing Valhalla now, this kind of thing makes the game very slow and tedious indeed, however in fairness back in the day people didn't expect things to happen super quickly quite as much, and this kind of waiting for the computer to render a new screen wasn't exactly uncommon in the early adventure games. Plus it's easy to forget now how impressive the graphics were back then, for it was only a couple of years earlier than game graphics had consisted of basic shapes such as rectangles and squares moving about. And of course there was a novelty value to watching the computer draw in each scene layer by layer too.

Now as for doing the quests, while the instructions which came with the game were good,  it took so long to travel anywhere or get anything done, many players soon got distracted and started just having fights for the hell it and generally running amuck. Which is arguably closer to how real Vikings might have behaved... Well, that was my excuse anyway. But anyhow, historical accuracy aside, the game itself had a certain sense of mischief to it anyway. To begin with you could spend many happy hours egging on various gods and monsters to fight each other, but Valhalla had some mischief of its own up its sleeve too.

Firstly as the program had a limit on how many items could be in any one location. There could only ever be eight items in one place, whether on the ground, in a chest, or in a cupboard.  And if this limit was exceeded, the game had a novel and amusing solution. For the very second a ninth item was dropped, a character cheekily named Klepto appeared and stole one!

Which item got pilfered by Klepto was entirely random, and hence it was very possible he could take one of the much sought magic items you'd been questing for if you weren't careful. Of course, should this calamity befall you, you may very well ended up typing in "Klepto is a little shit" into the game... Although in fairness, given the freedom offered by Valhalla, and bearing in mind the general character of kids, if you were playing this back in the day, you'd no doubt already been typing in every rude word you could think of. 

However this would reveal another of Valhalla's little jokes. For swearing elicited the cryptic response - "Mary is not amused".  And a small figure would march on the screen and come and give your character a slap! Now if you are thinking "hang on, I don't remember a Mary in Norse mythology!" you'd be quite right. For this character was named after a very familiar and often hated figure in 1980s Britain - the self-appointed moral guardian Mary Whitehouse. 

For many years Mrs Whitehouse campaigned relentlessly and fearlessly against swearing, sex and violence in our media, and as a result was seen by many as being more terrible than all the monsters and demons of Valhalla, mainly of course by kids who were mad keen to see all that swearing, sex and violence. Ironically, many of us only learned about the existence of some erotic TV series or violent movie in the first place thanks to Mrs Whitehouse protesting about it. Naturally when playing Valhalla, it was great fun to just bait Mary, albeit in a pixelated form. And of course, a new unintended subgame emerged - and that was trying to discover exactly how many and which swear words the game's text parser recognised! 

Now of course, it would have been child's play to have the game's text parser not to recognise any swearing at all, but a generation of kids are very glad that they did. After all, anyone who played The Hobbit really wanted to the game to recognise the command "Tell Thorin to shut the fuck up about gold". Quite clearly, the programming team behind Valhalla had played more than a few adventures and what's more understood the mindset of their target audience. Hence Mary was a fun way to allow you to swear within the game, but, and this is the clever bit, in such a way so that boring grown-ups, who had a massive downer on computer games anyway, couldn't kick off about it. Now that's real genius! 

THE 'ORRIBLE 'OUSE OF TERRIBLE OLD TAT - Valhalla I Am Loading!

Hello dear fiends! Welcome once again to the 'Orrible 'Ouse of Terrible Old Tat! Now then, last time we were adventuring in the long lost lands of home micro gaming, searching for treasure, slaying dragons and wishing Thorin would stop singing about ruddy gold all the time. As we discussed at some length, the home micro version of The Hobbit back in 1982 was something of a milestone in computer gaming, and a newly formed company called Legend was very keen to pick up where Bilbo and Gandalf had left off...  

Now Legend, a spin-off company from business software outfit Microl, were not a fly-by-night (or should that be type-by-night) games publisher. Unlike dozen of other software houses that sprang up around the same time - for there wuz gold in tham thar gamin' hills - Legend didn't release hundreds of titles which very often looked suspiciously similar to other hit games. Rather they released a handful of high quality titles, with their first offering Valhalla setting the bar rather high. 

Written for the ZX Spectrum, and later ported to the Commodore 64, Valhalla was a game that came in a big box that screamed "QUALITY PRODUCT", and with a price tag to match - a very very expensive for the time £14.95. Although it was re-released a few years later as a classic title, in more modest packaging and at the pocket money friendly price of £2.99.  Valhalla was created by Richard Edwards, Graham Asher, Charles Goodwin, James Learmont and Andrew Owen, and was mostly written in the common language to home micro's BASIC, with the game engine being dubbed "Movisoft", which sounded very futuristic and interactive. In fact it's a very early example of a game having a named software engine.

And very impressive it was too. Like The Hobbit there was a vast world to explore, a large cast of characters to interact with and you played the game by typing instructions into the game. The downside of this ambition was that the game notoriously took bloody ages to load - well over 5 minutes to load - which a long time even in the era of the home micro when loading a game took several minutes. As one reviewer of the day quipped "I only just had enough time to load Valhalla - let alone review it". And as with many of the larger home micro games, a longer loading time meant increased chances of the game glitching and not loading properly. I know of several folks who never got the darn thing to do anything but display the loading screen. Which admittedly was rather nice, showing a digitised version of the famous 7th century Anglo-saxon helmet found at Sutton Hoo, but not exactly as thrilling as hanging out and fighting with Norse gods and giants. 

So then, provided you got the game to load properly, what did Valhalla offer the player? Well, the goal of the game was to collect six magic objects - Ofnir (a key), Drapnir (a ring), Skornir (a shield), Skalir (a sword), Felstrong (an axe) and Grimnir (a helmet). These magical treasures could only be collected in order, hence to get Drapnir you had to have Ofnir first and so forth. And while the items were in particular locations, if you died, any you had would be taken from you and hidden in a random location somewhere in the game world. On the upside however, dying was not a big deal in a world of gods and monsters, for if you were slain, you found yourself in Hell. However in accordance with the old legends and sagas, the land of the dead as just one of nine worlds in the old Norse cosmology, and hence just as you could travel from the world of men (Midgard) to the realms of the gods (Asgard), if you had died, the adventure wasn't over, you could just walk out of the Hell and continue your quest.

Valhalla also had some rather clever features too. Those of you have know your Dungeons & Dragons (whether as a tabletop game, or one of the many computer RPGs that use its rulesets) will be familiar with the concept of a player's character having an alignment - that is to say, a defined trait which maps out their philosophy and morals, whether good or evil, an upholder of law or a devotee of chaos. Now in Valhalla, your character doesn't have the usual RPG style character sheet with stats and traits, but very cleverly the game does take note of how you behave in the game world. When you begin your character is neutral - that is to say he is classed by the game as neither good nor evil. However as play progresses, your actions are noted by the game engine and other characters in the world of Valhalla will react accordingly. Hence if you are helpful and friendly to characters on the side of good such as Thor or Odin, all characters on the light side of the Force as it were will be inclined to be more helpful to you in your quest. Likewise being chummy with the likes of Loki will earn you favour with the forces of darkness. A very cool bit of programming I'm sure you will agree, and very ahead of its time. 

However Valhalla has an even bigger claim to fame, for it was one of the very first true open world games. Now The Hobbit is often hailed as being a pioneer of open world gaming as you could head off anywhere into Middle Earth, but at the end of the day if you wanted to get anywhere at all in the game you still had to follow a linear plot that mirrored the journey and adventures in the original book. Now normally in RPG games, the world waits for you to do something and then reacts, but things were not like that in Valhalla. Here the world of the game carried on regardless of what you were doing, characters would go about their business without waiting to react to you - they would travel between the world, eat, drink, and fight as they pleased. In fact, once the game started it would essentially play itself. Obviously that's not to say it would make choices for you and you could sit back and watch the game do the quests for you. But on the other hand, events in the game weren't tied in the slightest to you doing the quests, and indeed if you just wanted to explore, hang out with the gods or get into fights - i.e. generally doing what the hell you liked - you could.

Now all of this was obviously very impressive... But technical cleverness doth not a great game make. After all, there have been many titles down the years that boasted of having revolutionary concepts, ground-breaking coding and super new spanky graphics, but in terms of actual playability have sucked harder than a Hoover on overdrive! Next week, we are dusting off the old Spectrum, praying the rubber keyboard hasn't perished, and will be playing Valhalla! 

THE 'ORRIBLE 'OUSE OF TERRIBLE OLD TAT - Shut up Thorin!

Welcome once again dear fiends to the 'Orrible 'Ouse of Terrible Old Tat! This time we are continuing our explorations of the weird world of the home micro and taking a look that some games that are truly legendary. Or at least was released by a company called Legend...  

Now at the dawn of the home micro age, there was a common perception that these small and affordable computers, that didn't require a massive room filled with spinning tape wheels and an evil genius with a beard who would program it to run amuck and try and take over the world, would mainly be used for serious purposes. Such as science, education and business. And naturally as soon as the public began snapping up the likes of the Sinclair ZX81, many saw a glimmer on the technological horizon of vast empires built on writing software. And this was no mirage - indeed there was a new frontier opening based on computer publishing... 

But the gleaming city which was built on software didn't turn out to be based on accounting programs. Nor was it built on rock and roll as predicted by Starship. For despite the efforts of pioneers and gadget gurus to educate the public on the power and potential of the mighty micro, what actually happened was that people bought them and then completely failed to get to grips with them. However, the nation's kids very quickly mastered how to load a game, and very soon the software sections in shops were expanding to contain a tidal wave of games. 

Now in these early days, one of the companies formed to create and sell business software was an outfit called Microl. However at some point in 1982, Microl very cannily realised that the big money was in games, and set up a spin-off outfit solely to create gaming titles. Headed up by John and Jan Peel, this new gaming software company was called Legend. Now although there were a host of fly-by-night companies that popped up and foisted a legion of shoddy games upon us all, Legend was no quick cash-in venture and the Peels were interested and excited by the possibilities of the emerging games scene. Quite correctly, they realised that computer games weren't just a passing fad, and that the power of the home micro allowed for gaming to evolve way beyond the arcade titles of the past and become a whole new media in themselves. And from the start they were aiming for quality. In an interview with Your Spectrum magazine (see here) , the Peels claimed "We are looking for TV quality images coupled with the interactive potential of a home computer". 

Now one of the most impressive games in the early days of home micros was The Hobbit created by Beam Software in 1982. In many ways, this computer game version of JRR Tolkien's classic wasn't exactly breaking new ground - it was basically a text adventure, a style of computer game which had been around since the mid 1970s. However these earlier text games had been mainly played on computers in labs and universities, and the general public still generally thought of computer games as things like Pong, Space Invaders or Pac Man. However The Hobbit really grabbed the public's attention - to begin with it came with a copy of the original book (see! computers were educational!) and as well as the usual typing in of phrases such as "Ask Gandalf to open the door" and "Ask Thorin to stop singing about gold", The Hobbit came with pictures. Yes, they were primitive and took ages to load but they were based on famous illustrations and really brought the game to life. 

And to the vast majority of people who were just discovering the joys of computers, The Hobbit was a massive leap forward in game-play from running about overeating or crashing spaceships. Instead of repeating the same actions or doing the same tasks over and over again, except slightly quicker on each level, in The Hobbit you could go where you liked and do what you liked. Well, provided the program could understand the command you typed in. The text parser in The Hobbit was good, but it never understood the more frequent types of commands typed in by kids determined to mispend their youth, as seen below...

Now obviously to get anywhere in the game you had to replicate the plot line of the original book, and in fact you could complete the adventure in under ten minutes if you knew what you were doing (as can be seen in walkthrough videos like this one).  However there was nothing to stop you heading off in any direction you liked, and causing mayhem in Middle Earth. And this kind of freedom in a computer game was nothing short of astounding back in the day. In fact, the lure of just wandering anywhere you liked was so great, most players never found some of the notorious bugs in some versions of the game which actually made the proper adventure unfinishable! 

Now the Peels rightly recognised that The Hobbit was a real milestone in the development of computer gaming, not just in the technical sophistication of the game engine but also in the impact it had made on the public's perception of what games could be. They realised that games that let players create their own adventures, tell their own stories had the potential to be as addictive as soap operas, and thus Legend's first venture was intended to pick up where The Hobbit left off. Very astutely for their first game, they chose as their subject matter some of the very same source materials that had inspired Tolkien's famous tales, Norse mythology. And the game that resulted was Valhalla! 

Next time - we voyage to the realms of Asgard, journey to Hell, and insult assorted Norse divinites!  

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Jack Frost Revisited

Jack Frost by Arthur Rackham

Winter is here and old Jack Frost is back up to his old tricks, a-nipping at our nose once again. But what do we actually know about this frosty sprite? For despite Jack Frost being a familiar figure in the popular imagination, he is something of a mystery. Consider for example, why do we have no clear image for him? Sometimes he's depicted as an old man, sometimes as a boy, and sometimes as some species of icy goblin!

Now if you were to do some causal digging here and there, you will find the popular wisdom on the subject is that the figure of Jack Frost is derived from Norse mythology. From a minor demi-god named Jokul Frosti, whose name means literally "icicle frost", and was reputed to be a son of Kari, god of the wind to be precise. However there are a few small problems with this theory. Firstly there is no "Jokul Frosti" to be found in Scandinavian mythology - there is a Jokul who was the son of a wind deity, but he bears no resemblance to the Jack Frost of popular lore, possessing no special powers or supernatural duties, and what is more appears to have been just an ordinary man and is barely mentioned in the old sagas and tales. Closer to the mark there was a Frost Giant named Frosti, but details about him are even scarcer, and this wintry titan had no special duties regarding winter weather either.

Jack Frost by Eric Kincaid

Of course we should also note that the Vikings didn't have any glass windows on which famously Jack Frost paints his marvelous icy arabesques, which rather deprives our wintry sprite of his most famous activity. Hence given the lack of any mythological mention of him or anyone like him, we should rightly discount these dubious claims of Norse origins and move along before we catch a chill!

So where does Jack come from? Well Jack Frost first appeared in artwork on October 5th, 1861. It is a cartoon by Thomas Nast, which appeared Harper's Weekly. It has the caption - OUR NEW MAJOR-GENERAL, and refers to a speech made by Major-General Benjamin F. Butler, who stated "Our faithful old Ally of the North, GENERAL JACK FROST, shall come and clear away the Malaria of the South, and we shall march Southward from this place, and there shall be no footsteps backward until this Rebellion is crushed out of this Union." At the time in the Civil War, there had been outbreaks of cholera, and it was hoped the coming freezing winter weather would kills of the infections hindering the war effort. 

However later, much like that other winter icon Santa Claus who Nast also first drew in a satirical cartoon, would later draw another less bellicose version of Jack in a non-political context.  In the illustration Central Park Winter published in 1864, Jack Frost appears as the genial fellow presiding over the scenes of wintry fun presented. However you wouldn't necessarily recognise them as the same fellow - indeed if it weren't for the caption, the Central Park Jack you might very well  take to be another Nast version of Santa. 

Also in the 19th century, poet Hannah F. Gould penned a much anthologised poem named Jack Frost and these verses presents the essence of the character we know today, a supernatural character who is responsible for freezing weather, who paints frost patterns, and displays a sense of mischief too - 

JACK FROST

by Hannah F. Gould

The Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,

    And whispered, "Now I shall be out of sight;

    So through the valley and over the height,

      In silence I'll take my way:

    I will not go on with that blustering train,

    The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,

    Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,

      But I'll be as busy as they."

    Then he flew to the mountain and powdered its crest;

    He lit on the trees, and their boughs he dressed

    In diamond beads - and over the breast

      Of the quivering lake he spread

    A coat of mail, that it need not fear

    The downward point of many a spear

    That hung on its margin far and near,

      Where a rock could rear its head.

    He went to the windows of those who slept,

    And over each pane, like a fairy, crept;

    Wherever he breathed, wherever he slept,

      By the light of the moon were seen

    Most beautiful things - there were flowers and trees;

    There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees;

    There were cities with temples and towers, and these

      All pictured in silver sheen!

    But he did one thing that was hardly fair;

    He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there

    That all had forgotten for him to prepare -

     "Now just to set them a-thinking,

    I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he,

   "This costly pitcher I'll burst in three,

    And the glass of water they've left for me

      Shall 'tchich!' to tell them I'm drinking."

Indeed this early literary appearance, he's not actually mentioned by name, and very tellingly up until the 1920s the poem was often printed under the alternative title of Freaks of the Frost - which rather suggests the phrase 'Jack Frost' might not have spread into common enough usage to make sense as a title for audiences everywhere.

In a similar vein, Charles Sangster penned a verse for children entitled Little Jack Frost which appeared in New York magazine The Aldine (Vol.7, No.16, 1875).  While Gould's verse has something of the flavour of folk tales to it, Sangster's poem is more a modern nursery rhyme, with younger children in mind. And not too long after Jack would begin appearing in children's fiction -  in 1902 turning up as a character in Frank L. Baum's book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. And from then on Jack becomes linked with both magical stories and Christmas, and has appearing in all manner of books, comics and movies. 

But what of his origins? Well consulting the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, we discover that the first written reference to Jack Frost they cite comes not  from some Viking saga, or even Merrie Olde English folk tales, but surprisingly late in the day, in 1826 to be precise. And rather than being in a tome on legends or folklore, it actually appears in the pages of a British journal, The Sporting Magazine when it was reported that "Jack Frost, however, put a veto on our morning's sport".

However purely by chance while researching another famous wintry figure, old Father Christmas, I discovered an earlier reference to Mr Frost. I was consulting an ancient tome - believed to have been published around 1730 and penned by that ever prolific scribe Anonymous.  The book is called Round About Our Coal Fire, or Christmas Entertainments with the added subtitle - "Together with some curious Memoirs of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present."

Now in the first chapter in which our unknown author details the reminiscences of Christmases past alluded to in the subtitle, he remarks -

This Time of Year being cold and frosty generally speaking, or when Jack Frost commonly takes us by the Nose, the Diversions are within Doors, either in Exercise or by the Fire Side

So then Jack has been dancing merrily through our winters for a good hundred years earlier than I had previously reckoned! Or rather, perhaps I should say, he has been dancing through our language since at least the 1730s - the causal way our mystery writer drops in the reference to him makes it plain he expected his audience to know exactly what he was talking about. But all the same, I suspect Jack Frost has a linguistic, rather than a mythological basis.

In England from around the 1500s onwards, "Jack" was a common slang term for a man, usually a funny or clever fellow. And this is not only the origin of words like "jackanapes" (a chap who's a cheeky monkey), "jack-o-lantern" (a fellow who held a light), and sailors being 'jack tars', but it is also the origin of all the various Jacks in fairy tales, nursery rhymes and folk tales. In addition, people have always enjoyed playfully personifying various objects and abstracts, and hence in England, where we famously love to talk about the weather, inclement winter weather would naturally be personified in this way. Hence the winter elements that doodles on your window, creates slippery slides out of pathways and seemingly to nips at your nose, would of course be given the name of a cheeky chappie - and hence Jack Frost springs to life.

So then, it would appear that our wintry sprite emerges not from ancient legend, but from a simple turn of phrase. He first bounds into our language and then as literature written specifically for children begins to emerge in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jack dances into our imaginations. However that is not to say that in the lands of myth and legend, there are not figures who personify winter and cold weather, but they are tales for another day...

Jack Frost by Arthur Rackham

   

FOLKLORE ON FRIDAY - Jack Frost Nipping At Your Nose

Jack Frost by Arthur Rackham

Winter is here once more and old Jack Frost is back up to his old tricks, a-nipping at our nose once again. But what actually do we really know about this frosty sprite? For despite Jack Frost being a familiar figure in the popular imagination, he is something of a mystery. Consider for example, why do we have no clear image for him? Sometimes he's an old man, sometimes a boy and sometimes some species of icy goblin!

Now if you were to do some causal digging here and there, you will find the popular wisdom on the subject is that the figure of Jack Frost is derived from Norse mythology. From a minor demi-god named Jokul Frosti, son of Kari god of the wind to be precise, and whose name means literally "icicle frost". However there are a few small problems with this theory. Firstly there is no "Jokul Frosti" to be found in Scandinavian mythology. There is indeed Jokul who was the son of a wind deity, but he bears no resemblance to the Jack Frost of popular lore. Closer to the mark there was a Frost Giant named Frosti but details about him are scant, and this wintry titan had no special duties regarding winter weather either.

Jack Frost by Eric Kincaid

Of course we should also note that the Vikings didn't have any ruddy glass windows on which famously Jack Frost paints his marvelous icy arabesques! Hence we should rightly discount this dubious Norse origin claims and move along before we catch a chill!

So where does Jack come from? Well Jack Frost first appeared in artwork on October 5th, 1861. It is a cartoon by Thomas Nast, which appeared Harper's Weekly. It has the caption - OUR NEW MAJOR-GENERAL, and refers to a speech made by Major-General Benjamin F. Butler, who stated "Our faithful old Ally of the North, GENERAL JACK FROST, shall come and clear away the Malaria of the South, and we shall march Southward from this place, and there shall be no footsteps backward until this Rebellion is crushed out of this Union." At the time in the Civil War, there had been outbreaks of cholera, and it was hoped the coming freezing winter weather would kills of the infections hindering the war effort. 

However later, much like that other other winter icon Santa Claus whose popular image he helped create, Nast would later draw another less bellicose version of Jack in non political contexts, such as the genial wintry fellow presiding over the scenes presented in the illustration Central Park Winter in 1864. However you wouldn't necessarily recognise them as the same fellow. Indeed Central Park Jack, if it weren't for the caption you very well might take for another Nast version of Santa. 

Also in the 19th century, poet Hannah F. Gould penned a much anthologised poem named Jack Frost and these verses presents the essence of the character we know today, a supernatural character who is responsible for freezing weather, who paints frost patterns, and displays a sense of mischief too - 

JACK FROST

by Hannah F. Gould

The Frost looked forth, one still, clear night,

    And whispered, "Now I shall be out of sight;

    So through the valley and over the height,

      In silence I'll take my way:

    I will not go on with that blustering train,

    The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,

    Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,

      But I'll be as busy as they."

    Then he flew to the mountain and powdered its crest;

    He lit on the trees, and their boughs he dressed

    In diamond beads - and over the breast

      Of the quivering lake he spread

    A coat of mail, that it need not fear

    The downward point of many a spear

    That hung on its margin far and near,

      Where a rock could rear its head.

    He went to the windows of those who slept,

    And over each pane, like a fairy, crept;

    Wherever he breathed, wherever he slept,

      By the light of the moon were seen

    Most beautiful things - there were flowers and trees;

    There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees;

    There were cities with temples and towers, and these

      All pictured in silver sheen!

    But he did one thing that was hardly fair;

    He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there

    That all had forgotten for him to prepare -

     "Now just to set them a-thinking,

    I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he,

   "This costly pitcher I'll burst in three,

    And the glass of water they've left for me

      Shall 'tchich!' to tell them I'm drinking."

In a similar vein, Charles Sangster penned a verse for children entitled Little Jack Frost which appeared in New York magazine The Aldine (Vol.7, No.16, 1875).  While Gould's verse has something of the flavour of folk tales to it, Sangster's poem is more a modern nursery rhyme, with younger children in mind. And not too long after Jack would begin appearing in children's fiction -  in 1902 turning up as a character in Frank L. Baum's book The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. And from then on Jack becomes linked with both magical stories and Christmas, and has appearing in all manner of books, comics and movies. 

But what of his origins? Well consulting the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary, we discover that the first written reference to Jack Frost comes not  from some Viking saga, or even Merrie Olde English folk tales, but surprising late in the day, in 1826 to be precise. And rather than being in a tome on legends or folklore, it actually appears in the pages of a British journal, The Sporting Magazine when it was reported that "Jack Frost, however, put a veto on our morning's sport". 

Now people have always enjoyed playfully personifying various objects and abstracts, and in England from around the 1500s, "Jack" was a common slang term for a man, usually a funny or clever fellow. And this is not only the origin of words like "jackanapes" (a chap who's a cheeky monkey) and "jack-o-lantern" (a fellow who held a light), but also all the various Jacks in fairy tales, nursery rhymes and folk tales. Also in England, we famously love to talk about the weather and so naturally (perhaps inevitably!) inclement winter weather getting in the way of your day-to-day activities would be talked of as that Jack Frost being up to no good. 

Indeed his first literary appearance, the Gould poem mentioned above, he's not actually mentioned by name, and very tellingly up until the 1920s the poem was often printed under the alternative title of Freaks of the Frost - which rather suggests the phrase 'Jack Frost' might not have spread into common enough usage to make sense as a title for audiences everywhere. So then, it would appear that our wintry sprite emerges not from ancient legend, but from a simple turn of phrase. Now that is not to say that in the lands of myth and legend, there aren't figures who personify winter, but they are tales for another day...

Jack Frost by Arthur Rackham