Jack the giant killer. Jack Frost. Jack-in-the-Green. Jack Be Nimble. Jack is an old name, a variation of the Hebrew Jacob (supplanter) and John (God is gracious). Fairy tale Jacks have the luck. They're also tricksters; Jack the giant killer uses his wits against the giants. a jackanapes is a troublemaker. The Jack-in-a-box is a creepy toy incorporating a clown (fool/trickster) into a not-so-delightful musical surprise. The jackal, a hunting animal that was once believed to be a scavenger of the dead, is also used as an epithet for one who performs menial or degrading tasks for another. The Egyptian funerary god Anubis, guide to the afterlife, is depicted with a jackal head.
Jack-o'-Lanterns and Jacks-in-the-Green have an older meaning. One scares away evil forces on Halloween and the other is a spirit of the forest, a representative of goat-footed Pan or the antlered Cernunnos, or even the vine-adorned god of ecstasy, Dionysus.
The hawthorn is a tree protected by the fairies. It's a May day tree and no part of it should be brought indoors or bad luck will follow. Its symbolism is in its duality of benevolence and malevolence, just like the fairies themselves.
In THORN JACK, Jack Hawthorn is the heroine's guide to the otherworld, a mortal stolen and stitched up with alchemical roses by the immortal Fatas to serve them as an assassin, a lover to their queen, and as a charming lure to mortal girls.
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