Marshall Ward: Master Teller of Jack Tales

Abstract

Marshall Ward: Master Teller of Jack Tales by Jane Baucom Stephenson The year was 1944 and I had just entered first grade at the Banner Elk, North Carolina elementary school. One of my earliest memories of that year is being ushered into the school auditorium for a chapel program being presented by Marshall Ward and his fifth grade students. We had been told that the teacher would tell a Jack Tale after the class finished their part of the program. Mr. Ward walked onto the stage, radiating enthusiasm and excitement. "Now, boys and girls," he began, "I'm going to tell you a story about old Jack." As he talked, he changed his voice for the different characters he portrayed. He made himself seem taller and his voice boomed when he was the giant; he spoke in a high squeaky voice and hunched over when he was Jack's mother. During ex52 citing parts of the story he talked faster and faster and made sound effects like dogs, wolves, thunder, knees knocking together— whatever he needed to illustrate his story. He also filled in details of the setting of each story. For example, he might describe a farm where the action took place by telling how many acres there were, describing the good buildings, the different crops, how many adults and children lived there and for what length of time. After the setting had been established he would tell the time of day in which the events happened. It would be early morning, or late at night, or "long about midnight " when certain events occurred. Sometimes the characters would have breakfast before the adventure started and the audience might learn what was eaten. If a character had just been frightened, "he couldn't eat a bite." Lively dialogue between Jack and his brothers, or the giant, or the fiery dragon kept the story moving. As a child I enjoyed the Jack Tales as pure entertainment, not realizing their importance in my mountain heritage. In my adult years, I heard other people tell Jack Tales and realized how fortunate I had been to hear Marshall Ward tell them. During the summer of 1979, my family and I were visiting my mother in Banner Elk. I telephoned Mr. Ward to see if my two daughters and son, my husband, mother, and I could visit with him and tape some of his Jack Tales. He agreed, and we spent a wonderful afternoon with him and Mrs. Ward. Recently, as I listened to that tape again, I asked myself, what made Marshall Ward's way of telling Jack Tales so special? Aside from his dramatic ability and sense of timing, he was always the teacher never losing an opportunity to tell facts along with the make-believe of Jack and his cohorts. Rather than just say the dogs were panting, he would continue: ...their tongues were just a-hanging out about that far and they was a-going pant, pant, pant. Now a dog don't sweat like you do—they don't sweat from their pores, they sweat from their tongues and that saliva, or perspiration, was just a-pouring off their tongues. Now you watch a dog when he runs real hard and sweats real hard, the perspiration runs off his tongue cause they don't sweat through pores. They was so tired they was just staggering, hitting every bush they come to. (All quotes used in this article are taken from the tape made in 1979.) In telling a tale, vivid descriptions of how people felt would enhance the story. Rather than say Jack or Will or Tom was scared to death, Mr. Ward would say: It scared the daylights out of Tom. He run under the bed. He was so scared his knees was a popping together about like a dog digging fleas: bump, bump, bump. He was really scared. He was a-sweating. Law me, the perspiration was a-pouring off that man, just a-streaming off. From that description, there was little doubt that, indeed, Tom was frightened—and so were we! Throughout his stories listeners could form visual images of the characters. When a character was mad...