As told by Donald Davis in

Southern Jack Tales

August House Publishers

'Who is the birth that has never been born and never will be?'

Gaelic folk-stories riddle.

This Jack Tale bears a remarkable resemblance to the tales of shape-shifting and the mystical births of the great prophets Math, Taliesin, and Merlin who were magicians, shape-shifters and spiritual advisors to the high kings.

From Caitlin and John Matthews' Encyclopedia of Celtic Wisdom -

Magical opportunities for the soul's conception outside wedlock and normal sexual relations are common in Celtic lore. Conception by eating an animal which has a human soul within it figures strongly: Etain's mother conceives her daughter by swallowing the fly in whose form Etain has been enchanted; Tuan mac Carill is in salmon form when he is swallowed by the wife of Carill; Gwion shapeshifts into a grain of wheat and is eaten and born of Ceridwen.

Conception is often accompanied by the visit of an otherworldly husband or spirit. As in the Christian mythology of Mary's immaculate conception and visitation by a divine spirit Manannan is one of the chief night-visiting lovers of Celtic tradition, engendering the druidic hero Mongan upon Kentigerna. Otherworldly fathers visit the mothers of Merlin and Conaire.

The First Time Jack Came to America

There was a time when Jack's daddy had disappeared and nobody knew what had happened to him. Some folks said that he was dead. Others said that he had gone off to a war or to seek his own fortune and that he would come back sometime.

Whatever had happened, he was not there, and Jack and Tom and Will and their mama were having an awful tough time just getting along. Whenever Jack said something about it, his mama always just said, 'Unless you can make it on your own, Jack, you can't make it at all! That might be right, Jack thought, but it was sure nice to have some help.

Anyway, all three boys had jobs in town, and every day they had to get up and walk about four hours to get to work. It was hard to do that and not end up being late by the time you got there.

One day Tom was late getting started and was walking along by himself, just trying to make up for lost time, when he met a little old woman. She was carrying a big load of firewood, and the load had her so bent over that she just couldn't straighten up.

She looked at Tom as he went by and said, 'Son, could help out an old woman in a time of need?' Tom did feel sorry for her, but he was already late for work and just couldn't by any later.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but I just don't have time.' He saw that old woman stick her tongue out at him as he went on to town to work, but he never did see her anymore after that.

When Tom got home that day, he told Jack and Will what had happened. Will couldn't believe it. 'Why, Tom,' he said, 'just last week, n a day when I was late, I met the same old woman. I couldn't stop, and she really made a face and ran her tongue out at me as I left.'

Jack listened and said, 'I don't think I want to tangle up with her, I'm going t try to be on time from now on!'

But as sure as you could guess, not a week passed before Jack slept too late one day. He ended up going to work late and just hurrying as fast as he could to try to make up for lost time.

Before he got halfway to town, he met that little old woman who was all bent over with her load of wood. 'Jack,' she said just like she knew him, 'how about helping me with this wood? Being your daddy's boy, you ought to help me. Neither one of your brothers would.'

Jack couldn't figure out what all of this talking was about, but he also couldn't just walk away from somebody who was asking for help. He decided he would just have to get to work late and talk his way out of it the best way he could.

He went over to the old woman and took the load off her back. Just as he swung it up onto his back something him on the head and knocked him out cold. When he woke up, he was strapped to the back of that old, bent woman, and carried him as fast as she could walk down a dark passageway and into the very inside of the earth.

She seemed to be plenty strong now, and as Jack struggled he realized that he was tied so tightly that he would never get loose in a thousand years unless she untied him. Down, down, down they went until they finally came out in a huge cavern that was pretty bright from torches and fires. It wall all set up to live down there, and Jack saw that she had everything she needed, the same as anybody else right up on top of the earth.

She carried Jack over to where she had a kind of a camp set up. There was a great old black pot ñ the kind that you would boil clothes in ñ and it was sitting on three legs over a wood fire.

Behind the pot and beside a big woodpile Jack saw an old man. He kept throwing wood on the fire and stoking it up while it seemed like there was something cooking in the big black pot.

Jack knew that if she put him down, there was not use in running. He didn't have any idea in the world how they had come to get to the place where they were, and, even if he knew the way, they had come so far that Jack would never have the strength to get back home.

It seemed like the old woman knew this too, because she set Jack down on the ground like she expected him to stay there.

Then she started talking and telling Jack why he was here: 'I've been needing some help, Jack, and you're it'

'I started out on the first day of the year, Jack, to gather all of the wisdom in the world. You see, if I can gather every herb and plant that has magic in it over the world and get them all in one year, I can cook the wisdom out and drink it down. Then I will have all of the wisdom in the world for myself.'

Jack thought, 'She is crazy and she is also some kind of witch. But I can't get away until I figure out something more than I know now, I'll just have to stay.'

Jack looked over at the old man whose job it was to keep the wood split and the fire stoked up. The old man kind of looked familiar to Jack, but beyond that he just couldn't place where he had seen him before. Anyway, the fellow looked terrible from staying down here and working for who knows how long on this fire without a chance to get in the sun or the fresh air either one.

Jack thought that he would probably look just as bad if he had to stay down here very long.

The old witch explained that the black pot was where she was cooking down all the wisdom in the world. She was going up to the earth each day to gather plants and herbs and bringing them back to the black pot. Jack's job would be to sir the pot without stoppping so tat the wisdom wouldn't stick and burn. This was going to go on until all of the wisdom was cooked out of the whole world.

It was just awful being down there and working so hard day and night. Jack never got to stop stirring that pot. If he ate anything, he had to grab it with one hand and eat while he kept stirring with the other. He and the old man would take turns trying to get something to eat while the old witch was gone. Of course she wouldn't let them completely starve because she did need to keep them alive to stir and put wood on the fire.

The year went on, and each day the old witch would go up to the surface of the earth to gather plants and herbs. At the end of the day she brought them back and added them to the pot. Through the course of the night the pot cooked down until it was empty enough for the next day's batch. One day ran into another, and it seemed like the year would just last forever.

During the last week of the year, the old witch was getting awful frantic. This was the last chance she had to get all of the wisdom of the world and cook it all down. She was running back and forth like mad and was working day and night to try to finish.

What she didn't know is that she had already gathered every plant in the world that ad magic or wisdom in it and that the power of all the world's wisdom was already in the pot that Jack was stirring. What she was getting now was just plain old plants and weeds not worth anything.

On one of her trips up to the earth she stayed for a long time, and the pot full of the liquid boiled almost down to nothing. Just as she came back the pot boiled just almost dry, and the last three drops of liquid popped out of the pot and landed on the back of Jack's hand.

Quick as a wink, without even thinking about what he was doing, Jack licked the hot liquid from the back of this burned hand. When he did, the whole world seemed to change.

All of a sudden, he knew exactly which way he would have to go to get back to the surface of the earth. He also suddenly recognized the old man he had been working with as his own long-gone father.

What had happened was that Jack had consumed all of the wisdom of the world in those three drops that he licked from his hand, and there was not wisdom left for the old witch.

Here the witch came, as mad as fire. She had figured out what Jack had done. She picked up the pot and licked the bottom, but there was nothing left there at all for her to take in. She shrieked at Jack and grabbed a piece of firewood. Then she started screaming and swinging that piece of firewood at everything in sight.

The witch knocked the black pot over; she knocked fire all over the place. She was screaming at Jack's daddy, and she hit him on the back of the head with the firewood until his eyeballs rolled right down his cheeks.

Then she started after Jack. He ran as fast as he could. Since he had all of the wisdom of the world, he ran exactly the right way to get up to the surface of the earth. The old witch followed him every step of the way, and he couldn't get a lead on her a bit, no attar how hard he ran.

Once they got to the surface of the earth, Jack ran as fast as he could. Still the witch came on as fast Jack could run away from her.

All of a sudden, Jack figured out that with all of the wisdom of the world he knew all the secrets of shape changing. This, he thought, might be the very thing to save him from the witch.

So Jack changed himself into a rabbit and outran the witch by a mile.

He only trouble was that the old witch was a shape-changer from way back. As soon as she saw that Jack had changed himself into the rabbit, she changed herself into a fast rabbit dog. In no time she had almost caught up with Jack and was right on the edge of grabbing him in her jaws.

Jack called up all of his new wisdom and figured out how to change himself into a sparrow. Off he flew into the sky, up and away from the old rabbit-dog witch.

As soon as she saw what he had done, she changed herself into a hawk and took off after the sparrow. The hawk circled above the sparrow and took a dive to grasp him in her talons and rip him with her sharp beak.

When Jack saw the hawk diving for him he again called up he new wisdom he had gained. He thought as fast as he could about what he could turn into that wouldn't hurt him as he fell to the ground.

Suddenly Jack figured it out and turned himself into a grain of corn. He fell right out of the air, too small for the haw to catch, and lit in the middle of a big cornfield right out of sight.

Jack thought, 'Now, this the thing. Here I am in the middle of a whole field of corn. This is the safest place I could ever be. I'll just lie right here as a grain of corn, and the old hawk witch would never even be able to spot me.'

It was a good plan. The hawk landed right close to where Jack was as a grain of corn. The hawk looked around and didn't know what had happened to Jack.

Then the old witch turned herself from a hawk into a chicken. As a chicken, she started right around and around in that field, eating every grain of corn that she could see. Before Jack had a chance even to figure out what to do next, the chicken witch had gobbled him up and swallowed him whole, right down out of sight.

Jack never did know how the old witch knew that she had eaten him but somehow she did. As soon as Jack was swallowed, she turned herself back into her own natural shape as an old woman, sure that she had done way with Jack and also that she now had all of the wisdom of The world inside herself.

The old witch had, however, turned herself back into a woman before the corn had digested inside the chicken she was when she had eaten it. Instead of being full of all the wisdom in the world, she turned out to be pregnant with Jack!

When she realize what had happened, she was absolutely mad as fire. But she couldn't do anything to Jack without hurting herself, and she was too selfish to hurt herself.

So poor Jack was trapped inside her as a baby waiting to be born. Being a baby not yet born, he didn't have any idea about who or where he was. He just didn't know anything at this time ñ and wouldn't know anything until he was born.

The old witch vowed and declared that as soon as the baby was born she was going to kill him right on the spot. She just wanted now to get Jack out of her and get it over with. Most of the time she spentjust waiting for the day to come when she could get rid of Jack.

However, as time passed, she was not sure that she could kill her own baby with her own hands, and she tried to figure out some other way to get rid of it.

Just about a week before Jack was to be born, the old witch was thinking about what to do with him, when she passed by a place where two men were killing hogs. One of the men was blowing up a hog's bladder to make a ball for his children. This gave the old witch an idea.

She went over to the men and begged them for the biggest hog's bladder. She took the bladder home, blew it up, and hung it in the lean-to behind her house to dry.

A few days later Jack was born.

Without ever even nursing him, the old witch took Jack ad cut an opening in that dried hog's bladder. She put the baby inside, sewed up the hole, and sealed the bladder all over with pitch.

Then she threw the bladder into the river, turned her back, and walked away. 'I just don't know what happened to that baby,' she told herself. 'He was crying and alive the last time I saw him.' As far as she was concerned, that was that.

The hog's bladder washed down the river with Jack inside. In a few days it ended up floating in the ocean.

Somehow, with all of the wisdom of the world within him, Jack did not die. He lived even without food or air or water and floated in the ocean in that bladder as the currents carried him on and on.

He grew inside that hog's bladder and kept floating there for seven years.

At the end of that time, the bladder washed up on the shore of what Jack thought was a distant land. It turned out that he had floated all the way to America.

When Jack felt the bladder hit the land, he broke out of it and stepped, mostly grown up, right into

the sunshine of a new world.

Jack looked around and didn't see anything he knew, or anybody at all. He started to sit down and cry, but then, with all the world's wisdom, he remembered something him mama had told him before he left home on his big adventure to begin with.

He heard her words again: 'Unless you can make it on your own, Jack, you can't make it at all. And so Jack made it. And that is the story of how he came to get to America to begin with, and he's been making it on his own ever since.