Week 1 Storytelling: Jack and Jill

“Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown,

And Jill came tumbling after.”

The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897). Web source: Project Gutenberg.

Jack and Jill had been neighbors since they were born. Their parents were the best of friends, yet the two had never really been that close.

Jack was seventeen. He was known as a very hard-working young man. He was always focused on his work and deeds for others. He was most famous for being the town handyman. If anything broke, he was there to fix it. He was never afraid to get his hands dirty. In fact, some would say he actually enjoyed it. Jack was very outgoing and always up for a challenge. It seemed he was a lady’s man too. Jack was the typical hard-working and handsome man every woman dreams of.

With Jack focusing so much on his work, he never had time to pay attention to the lovely young lady next door, Jill.

Jill was also seventeen. She was very shy and not very outgoing. She seemed to lack self-confidence, which was the main factor in keeping her from Jack. Jill had been watching Jack from afar for many years. In fact, they had every class together since they were four years old. Even though her parents were best friends with Jack’s parents, she just never found the guts to strike up a conversation with him. She know how devoted he was to his work and how much he enjoyed helping others when he was needed, so the last thing she wanted was to distract him or interrupt his lifestyle.

One day, an older woman in the town told Jack to climb the tallest hill in the town to fetch a bucket of the cleanest and purest water for her. Jill saw this as her chance to talk to Jack. She thought she could offer him a helping hand.

“Jack, I heard you have to go all the way to the top of the tallest hill,” said Jill, with a shaky voice.

“Yes, I do. It will not be hard to get up the hill, but traveling back down with the full bucket of water will be difficult,” said Jack.

“Well, I bet it would be easier if you had an extra set of hands to help you carry that full bucket all the way back down,” said Jill.

“I think you are right. Would you like to help me?” asked Jack.

“I would love to! I mean, I think I could help you, yeah, I can try,” said Jill.

The next day, Jack and Jill ventured up the hill to fetch a pail of water. They made it to the top with no problems at all. After they filled the pail and started to head down the hill, Jack lost his balance and went tumbling down. His fall startled Jill, which caused her to go tumbling down the hill as well.

After dusting themselves off at the bottom of the hill, they realized they had lost their pail full of water. As disappointed as they were for losing the water, they laughed it off and continued their day together. From that day forward, Jack and Jill worked together to help the town they grew up in and lived happily ever after.

The End.

Jack and Jill by Sue Clark.Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note:

This nursery rhyme is about two people, Jack and Jill, who go up a hill to get some water and then fall down the hill. Like most nursery rhymes, it is very self-explanatory. However, while being self-explanatory overall, it is also very vague when it comes to the characters in the story.

I enjoyed writing for this one because it has very little detail so I was able to use a lot of imagination. I have always been a fan of love stories and such, so my imagination of course wanted to write something cute and love-related. Most people assume Jack and Jill are brother and sister, or something along those lines. I thought shaking it up and making them potential lovers would be more interesting. It is rare in nursery rhymes and riddles that we get any background on the characters, so being able to make that part up and use my imagination to create these characters from scratch is very fun.

After doing a little bit of outside research on this nursery rhyme, I found out that “Jack and Jill” could possibly have a romantic connotation to it already! A proverb says “A good Jack makes a good Jill.” Reading this made me happy, but at the same time, I felt like it took away from my creativity.