Advent Calendar December 18th

Brrr! It’s cold outside.

Jack Frost is the personification of winter weather and is responsible for nipping toes and noses and the beautiful fern-like patterns that appeared on the inside of windows on cold winter mornings before double glazing and central heating.

Similar characters appear in the folklore of other countries. In Russia, there was Grandfather Frost and in Germany Frau Holle covered the earth with a winter blanket which sounds almost toasty. Two frost giants appear in Norse legend called Jockul and Frosti. It’s possible that these two names were the origin of the British Jack Frost, but since the 16th century Jack was the popular word for any lad or fellow (especially a cheeky one) which is why we have such phrases such as jack o’lantern, jack-a-napes and jack tar.

It is thought that the first literary mention of Jack Frost was in the 1734 book Round About Our Coal Fire: Or, Christmas Entertainments, which had the sub-title: Together with some curious Memoirs of Old Father Christmas; Shewing what Hospitality was in former Times, and how little there remains of it at present. As the anonymous author clearly expected readers to recognise who s/he was referring to we can be certain that Jack is more than 300 years old.

Image credit: Jack Frost by Arthur Rackman