I have waited most of my life for the time with my children would be here and old enough to listen to my stories… that’s right, I’m the type of Dad that tells the story of the fairy that lives underneath that bush in the backyard— she had too after being orphaned as a sprite on account of not playing a trick on an old man.

Last bedtime, after rehearsing my repertoire of stories (two year olds like to hear the same stories over and over again), I needed another story. I thought about telling her the story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” but got to thinking of what she’d pick up from it… breaking and entering, stealing, destruction of property with the intent to kill. Hmm…

But if the story was just to demonstrate prurient behavior to minors, then we wouldn’t be retelling the story for generations. So, after putting on my mythologist’s hat, I started to warm up to the story…

Let’s start with the beanstalk… like Yggdrasil and Jacob’s Ladder, it is clearly a reference to the “navel” or “north pole” that connects the heavens with the earth. In most of the stories, the magic beans are to be planted “by the light of the moon.” If you see something by the “light of the sun,” you are seeing it with the physical reality eyes that usually don’t count, but to see with the “light of the moon,” you are seeing it with your spiritually, with your third eye.

This is a story about planting seeds of truth, similar to Jesus’ mustard seed. So here we have an innocent fool going to get some bread, but running into a shady character (prophets, shamans and charlatans always have trouble concealing their troublesome visage) who offers him beans that will bring him heavenly riches.

This bean stalk or pole that he ascends, it reiterated time and again is just about every culture. I remember looking at some Anasasi rock art where there was a rainbow and a pole (or rope). On the bottom was normal looking animals, but above (in the spirit world) were all sorts of monsters. The idea being that the shaman would climb the rope into the spirit world, fight off the monsters that were on guard, and bring back the riches (truth, knowledge, a sick soul, etc.).

This is also a “coming of age” story, as every story that has the phrase, “go and seek my fortune.” Jack gives away a cow that has no milk (a weaning process?) and leaves his mother behind to climb the stalk that represents his destiny. Also, Jack, while inside the giant’s castle, is hidden in an oven, which, like Hansel and Gretel’s is symbolic for rebirth and transformation.

So the moral of this story is a command to grow up, go to Heaven, do the work, and take its riches. Not a bad story… no wonder it is so popular.

Footnote: There are many versions of this story, and some even try to clean up the story by having the giant be quite evil and deserving of death. Also, see this version.