Everyman Jack and the Green Man

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KEYNOTE ADDRESS EVERYMAN JACK AND THE GREEN MAN Gail E. Haley "I'll tell you a story about Jackanory, and now my story's begun; I'll tell you another about Jack's brother, and now my story is done." — Anonymous, English This enigmatic little nursery rhyme refers to a character who has become the subject of countless folklore studies and oral retellings. He is still alive, healthy, and gallivanting around the mountains of North Carolina and Virginia , but he is certainly a close relative of another figure — The Green Man, whom I encountered in England. While my opinions may seem idiosyncratic, I would like to discuss them as brothers (or uncle and nephew) and share with you some of my experiences in discovering and interpreting them both in different ways. Thank you for asking me to address you today. I'm always happy to be in the company of other storytellers , writers , and people who are concerned with children's literature and storytelling. Although most of you know me as a writer and illustrator of children's literature, I am also an avid folklorist, student of comparative religion, producer of audio visual material, and more recently a college professor. I have no hobbies since my work is my hobby. I have great perceptual difficulty in determining between work and play. I am a confessed and incurable book junkie, but I am finding a certain schizoid side of my personality which is more and more addicted to the study of oral tradition, primarily that of minstrels and chapmen, and how it evolved into literature. While I am certainly not a storyteller in the sense that some of you may be, I do consider that books and the written word are valid carriers and preservers of story. It is to a sense of story and the archetypal needs to express s ideas that I will address myself today. My own methods of research are unorthodox. I have raised the hackles of scholars of folklore, indigenous music, and medieval art by invariably crossing the lines of what is accepted behaviour. The expression of character or story is an artifact, created at a time when it was well understood in context with other contemporary artifacts, rituals, and everyday happenings of the people who created them. Any single item might be viewed as a sort of microchip of information, each recalling the whole of the society in which it was created. If we had the proper method of recalling the data it contains , we could reconstruct the society from which it came. No single approach to research, no matter how careful, will tell us everything we need to know. Looking back toward the past, we must sometimes dowse, speculate, and then research to fill in the holes we do not understand. For that reason, I use a holographic approach -- calling on information from any source which brings the reality of the world I seek to reconstruct into focus . If I am unable to find out bits of information about something — say a Wild Man's methods for taming a unicorn — in the literature available, I may spend days on the floor of a cathedral, inspecting the underside of miserichords , until I find the answer. Some totally puzzling nursery rhyme may only become clear while examining a bit of tapestry or the corner of a manuscript . I believe that we must make assumptions in order to experience new information. It would be better if we could become time travellers and go back to see the whole picture, but until we can be beamed up or down in time, we must do the next best thing — unravel and untangle the coloured bits of information gleaned from the thread basket of remnants which we have. Because of our limited time, I will not give you voluminous notes or quotes to justify my methods. Any opinions stated here are purely the author's and in no way reflect upon the good name of this station. I'm also quite fond of the African disclaimer: "We do not really mean, we do not really mean what we are about to say is so." In folklore or mythology, personification is...

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