Jack Frost
Jack Frost is a sprite-like character with roots in Viking lore. There, he is known as Jokul Frosti ("icicle frost"). In Britain and United States, Jack is a variant of Old Man Winter and is held responsible for frosty weather, for nipping the nose and toes in such weather, coloring the foliage in autumn, and leaving fernlike patterns on cold windows in winter. He sometimes appears in literature, film, television, song, and video games as a sinister mischief maker.
Lore
Jack Frost is a sprite and the personification of crisp, cold, winter weather, a variant of Old Man Winter. His roots may be in Anglo-Saxon and Norse winter customs. In Viking lore, he is known as Jokul Frosti ("icicle frost"). He is traditionally thought to leave the frosty, fernlike crystal patterns on windows on cold mornings (window frost or fern frost), and nipping the extremities in cold weather. He is sometimes described or depicted with paint brush and bucket coloring the autumnal foliage red, yellow, purple, and orange.[1][2] Jack Frost is friendly but if provoked, he will kill his victims by covering them with snow.
Literature
In L. Frank Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), Jack Frost is the son of the otherwise unnamed Frost King. He takes pleasure in nipping "scores of noses and ears and toes," but Santa Claus, who likes Jack (who he sees as a "jolly rogue") though he mistrusts him, asks him to spare the children. Jack says he will, if he can resist the temptation.[3] The same Jack appears in The Runaway Shadows, a short story by Baum. In this story, he has the power to freeze shadows, separating them from their owners, making them their own living entities.[4]
In Laurell K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series, a character emerges as the original Jack Frost. Jack Frost has appeared as a minor character in the Rupert Bear stories, and in Jack of Fables the titular character became Jack Frost for a period of time. A second Jack Frost appears as the son of Jack Horner and The Snow Queen.
In Rainbow Magic books by Daisy Meadows, Jack Frost is an antagonist who wants to freeze Fairyland. He is accompanied by pesky goblins who steal fairies.
Jack Frost also appears in "First Death in Nova Scotia", a poem by Elizabeth Bishop.
Jack appears in the novels Reaper Man and Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, and The Veil trilogy of novels by Christopher Golden.
In comic books, Jack Frost appears as a superhero in works published by Timely Comics (now[update] Marvel Comics) in the 1940s. A man covered in ice, he could project ice and cold.
Films, radio, television
Jack Frost, a Russian film from 1964, has the Russian title Morozko — the Russian equivalent of Jack Frost. The character of Jack Frost appears in three American films, two of them named simply Jack Frost. In one Jack Frost, a serial killer turns into a snowman and continues his rampage. This movie spawned a sequel: Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman, also starring this version of Jack Frost. In the other Jack Frost film, Michael Keaton plays a human by the name of Jack Frost, who gets killed in a car-crash on Christmas Eve. A year later he returns as a snowman to spend time with his son. Jack Frost appears as the title character in a 1934 release of Ub Iwerks's ComiColor Cartoons, and Martin Short plays "Jack Frost" in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. In this film, Jack is jealous of the attention that Santa Claus receives and schemes to replace him.
Prior to the popularity of television, Jack Frost appeared in the children's radio serial The Cinnamon Bear. In television, Jack Frost (voiced by Paul Frees) makes an appearance in Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July where after Winterbolt grows jealous of Frosty the Snowman because of the attention the children lavish upon him, He tries to render Frosty lifeless by stealing his magic hat but eventually Jack Frost appears at the end and brings him back to life, chosen as the best man at Milton and Lane's wedding. He reappears in Frosty's Winter Wonderland. In a Rankin-Bass Christmas TV special of 1979, Jack Frost, the title character (voiced by Robert Morse) falls in love with a human girl and seeks to become human. Father Winter grants his wish, but tells him that if he does not have a house, a horse, a bag of gold, and a wife by "the first sign of spring" he will become a sprite again. He will appear in the 2012 film Rise of the Guardians as one of the main characters being voiced by Chris Pine.
Pop culture
Video Games
Jack Frost is a character in video games including AdventureQuest, Killing Floor, City of Villains, Guild Wars, Granado Espada, and RuneScape. Frost also functions as a trademark character for the game-developer Atlus and as a mascot of the Megami Tensei series, in which it learns mainly Ice skills; in the games Persona 3 and Persona 4, he appears as a Persona of the Magician Arcana.
Music
Jethro Tull and Saint Vitus both have songs alluding to Jack Frost. The radio station WRHS-FM 89.7 in Norridge, Illinois brands its holiday music format "Jack Frost". The name has been employed as a pseudonym by musicians Bob Dylan and Jack Dempsey. Jack Rosenberg (later known as "Werner Erhard") used it as a nickname while selling cars in Philadelphia in the 1950s.[5]
Animation
Jack Frost is one of the main characters (voiced by Chris Pine) in the Dreamworks animation Rise of the Guardians where he and his fellow fantasy figures; Sandman, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus take on the Boogieman [Pitch] who wants to engulf the entire world in nightmares. Unlike the Lore, Frost is portrayed as a teenage hellion who has no interest in being bound by rules or obligations and just wants to use his staff to spread his winter magic for the sake of personal amusement.
See also
References
- ^ Bartholomew F. Bland, Laura L. Vookles, William H. Gerdts, Laura L. Vookles. (2010) Paintbox Leaves: Autumnal Inspiration from Cole to Wyeth. Hudson River Museum. p. 41. ISBN 0943651301.
- ^ Tveten, John L. and Gloria Tveten. (2008). Nature at Your Doorstep: A Nature Trails Book. Texas A&M University Press. p. 47. ISBN 1603440364.
- ^ The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, Part 2, Chapter 2: How Claus Made The First Toy
- ^ The Runaway Shadows or A Trick of Jack Frost by L. Frank Baum
- ^ Pressman, Steven, Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993, page 6. ISBN 0-312-09296-2
