Here's one version of Jack-In-The-Green [Now winter is over I'm happy to say And we've all met again in our ribbons so gay And we've all met again on the first day of spring To go about dancing with Jack-In-The-Green Jack in the green (2X) repeat last line] [Now jack in the green is a very strange thing Though he dies every autum he's born every spring And each year on his birthday wewill dance in the streets And in return Jack he will ripen our wheat] [With his mantle he'll cover the trees that are bare Our gardens he'll trim with his jacket so fair But our fields he will sow with the hair of his head And our grain it will ripen till ol Jack is dead] [Now the sun is half up & betokens the hour That the children arrine with their garlands of flowers So now let the music & the dancing begin And touch the good heart of young Jack in the Green] I've tried to find a sexual connection to Jack, but with no luck. I've checked him out from his disapperence at the turn of this century back to his apperence around the late 18th century. His origins some how are connected to May Pole celebrations where there are fertility connections but there again I found a lack of sexual rites, even as far back as the Romans & their worship of the Goddess Flora, who'd be the reciepent of a cut tree adorned with ribbons & flowers. I only found Jack to be bound inside a wicker frame covered with holly & ivy & then crowned with ribbons & flowers & paraded about, begging in wren or mummer fashion . I did find connections between fertility rites & sexual activity, some including many of the virgins of both sexs from the villages, going out & fertilizing the barren ground, but none had to do with Jack or the May pole. Barry
Note: Jack IN the Green was written & copyrighted by Martin Graebe in 1972. These lyrics are very similar to those posted by Graebe on his Website, http://www.btinternet.com/~greenjack/Jack.PDF. -Joe Offer-^^^
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