Jack Frost

Origin

The iconographic origin is the fusion of (1) the Norse-mythological frost-giant canon of Chapter 1 of the Halfdanar saga svarta of the Heimskringla of the early-thirteenth-century Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) and (2) the Morozko canon of Russian Slavic folklore. In Chapter 1 of the Halfdanar saga svarta of Snorri's Heimskringla (c. 1230), the Norse-mythological frost-giant Jokull ('glacier') is the son of his father Kari ('wind') and mother, and along with the grandson Snaer ('snow'), the decisive Norse frost-giant family canon is recorded. The view of the nineteenth-century British folklorist Edward Clodd (1840-1930) is that this Norse-mythological frost-giant canon settled in English folklore as the frost-personification canon through Viking invasions and settlements in Britain in the eighth to eleventh centuries. The Morozko ('Little Frost') tale 95 of the Russian Folk Tales (eight volumes) of the Russian folklorist Alexander Afanasyev (1826-1871) of 1855-1863 — the fairy tale of the stepmother who abandons her stepdaughter in the winter forest and the stepdaughter who, treating Morozko warmly, receives gems — is the decisive text of the Slavic frost canon, and Ded Moroz ('Grandfather Frost') developed from Morozko became the decisive canon of nineteenth-century Russian Santa Claus. The first decisive textual record of English Jack Frost is the 1734 poem A Mountain of Frost in the British London Magazine, and the poem The Frost of 1826 by the American poet Hannah Flagg Gould (1789-1865) — in which Jack Frost comes at night and draws ice patterns on windows — established the decisive English-literary Jack Frost canon of the nineteenth century.

Features

• Form of a young boy or mischievous old man
• Creates frost, ice, and cold
• Draws ice-flower patterns (frost ferns) on windows
• Makes people's noses and fingertips red
• Begins activity when winter comes
• Disappears in the warmth of spring

Stories

The Norse frost-giants Jokull and Frosti canon of Snorri's early-thirteenth-century Heimskringla and the Morozko canon of Afanasyev's 1855-1863 Russian Folk Tales are the decisive origins of the Jack Frost canon, and the 1734 poem A Mountain of Frost in the British London Magazine is the first decisive textual record of English Jack Frost. The 1826 poem The Frost of the American poet Hannah Flagg Gould decisively established the nineteenth-century English-literary Jack Frost canon, and the decisive modern canon is the 1944 song The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) of the American composer Mel Torme (1925-1999) and lyricist Robert Wells (1922-1998) — with the line 'Jack Frost nipping at your nose' — which settled the twentieth-century global Jack Frost canon. The first recording of this song by the American singer Nat King Cole (1919-1965) in July 1946 — number one on the Billboard chart for eight weeks — became the twentieth-century American Christmas-carol canon. The stop-motion animated TV film Jack Frost (directed by Paul Fris, voiced by Robert Morse, 49 minutes), broadcast on NBC in the USA on 13 December 1979 by Rankin/Bass Productions, established the twentieth-century American children's Jack Frost canon. The 1998 Warner Brothers film Jack Frost (released 11 December 1998 in the USA, directed by Troy Miller, starring Michael Keaton) is the late-twentieth-century Jack Frost cinematic canon, and the decisive twenty-first-century canon is the Jack Frost (real name Jackson Overland Frost) of the children's book series The Guardians of Childhood by the American author William Joyce (b. 1957) of 2005-2012 and the DreamWorks animated film Rise of the Guardians (released 21 November 2012 in the USA, directed by Peter Ramsey, voiced by Chris Pine as Jack Frost), which became the twenty-first-century global Jack Frost cinematic canon.

Weakness

Jack Frost's weaknesses are: (1) the warmth of spring — the decisive canon in English and Scandinavian folklore that Jack Frost melts and vanishes in the warmth when spring comes — the decisive canon of natural cycle; (2) fire and warm tea — the English folk canon that Jack Frost is weakened by human hearth fire and warm tea; (3) human kindness — the canonical weakness in the Morozko canon of Afanasyev's 1855-1863 Russian Folk Tales that when the stepdaughter treats the cold Morozko warmly, Morozko gives her gems — the canon of melting before kindness; (4) the decisive weakness in Hannah Flagg Gould's 1826 The Frost that Jack Frost vanishes before the warm hearth fire of the human home; (5) the decisive weakness of the night hearth fire and the warmth of family in Mel Torme's 1944 The Christmas Song; (6) the tragic canonical finale of the 1979 Rankin/Bass Jack Frost — that Jack Frost falls in love with the human woman Elisa and wishes to become human but ultimately disappears in spring; (7) the twenty-first-century canonical weakness in the 2012 DreamWorks Rise of the Guardians that Jack Frost is weakened if children do not believe in him; (8) pinch — the decisive iconography in the English-speaking world since the 1944 Christmas Song canon that Jack Frost 'nips' people's noses and toes. The English proverb 'Jack Frost nips with light fingers' is the nineteenth-century English-literary canon.

Cultural Significance

Jack Frost is not merely a frost-spirit icon but the canonical iconographic figure of the Western winter-spirit canon, traversing the Norse-mythological frost-giants Jokull and Frosti of Snorri's thirteenth-century Heimskringla, the first English appearance of Jack Frost in a 1734 British magazine, the 1826 American poem of Hannah Flagg Gould, Afanasyev's 1855 Russian Folk Tales, the 1944 American Christmas Song of Mel Torme, the 1979 Rankin/Bass animation, and the 2012 DreamWorks film. The early-thirteenth-century Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) — as the decisive canon of Norse mythology — was written at the Reykholt monastery in Iceland and became the decisive canon of the Norse-mythological frost-giant family (Kari, Frosti, Jokull, Snaer). The Russian Folk Tales (eight volumes, about 600 tales) of Alexander Afanasyev (1826-1871) of 1855-1863 — as the decisive canon of nineteenth-century Russian folklore — is the decisive Slavic folklore canon comparable to the Grimm Brothers' Kinder- und Hausmaerchen (1812-1815), and Ded Moroz settled as the canon of the New Year celebration of the Soviet Union in 1937. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) of Mel Torme (1925-1999) and Robert Wells (1922-1998) of July 1944 — with Nat King Cole's first recording of July 1946 — settled as the most-licensed Christmas song of all time according to the American Recording Industry Association (RIAA), decisively establishing the twentieth-century global Jack Frost canon. The 1998 Warner Brothers film Jack Frost (starring Michael Keaton, worldwide box office about 35 million dollars) and the 2012 DreamWorks Rise of the Guardians (worldwide box office about 306 million dollars) — based on William Joyce — settled the twenty-first-century global Jack Frost cinematic canon, and drew about 300,000 spectators in South Korea the same year.

In Popular Culture

Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Halfdanar saga svarta (c. 1230) — Norse frost-giants Jokull and Frosti canonBritish London Magazine, poem A Mountain of Frost (1734) — first English appearance of Jack FrostHannah Flagg Gould, The Frost (1826) — American poetic Jack Frost canonAfanasyev, Russian Folk Tales, Morozko (1855-1863) — Slavic frost-spirit canonMel Torme and Robert Wells, The Christmas Song (1944) — decisive American Christmas-carol canonNat King Cole, first recording of The Christmas Song (1946) — American record canonRankin/Bass TV film Jack Frost (1979) — American children's canonWarner Brothers film Jack Frost, Michael Keaton (1998) — late-twentieth-century cinematic canonWilliam Joyce, The Guardians of Childhood book series (2005-2012) — twenty-first-century children's-book canonDreamWorks film Rise of the Guardians (2012) — decisive twenty-first-century global cinematic canon