Week 1 Storytelling: Jack and Jill

Once upon a time there was a little boy named Jack who had a little sister named Jill. You may have heard of them before but I bet you never heard this version of the story. Jack and Jill lived in a little cabin in the woods with their parents (as little boys and girls tend to do) and had to go to the well every day (sometimes more than once a day) to gather water for their mother as part of their daily chores. On this particular day, it was rather drizzly and dreary and Jack and Jill really did not want to go to fetch the water, but their mother insisted that they bundle up and do their duty so that she could fix the meals and clean the house and other chores that mothers like to do. Later, of course, she very much regretted sending the children to do the chore, as it ended so tragically.

So Jack and Jill got all bundled up nice and warm and each had their own cute little umbrella that they took with them along with their water pails. They started the long trek to the well out of the woods and up the hill from their house and were in quite good spirits all things considered as they had decided to make the best of the situation and have an adventure. They took the long route, to add to the adventure-ness of it all, and took longer than their mother expected. They also played little games along the way, including sword-fighting with their tiny little child-sized umbrellas. The ground was by this time quite slippery and muddy and the sky was still pouring rain. Worried about them, their mother walked to the edge of the woods and looked up the hill to see what was taking so long.

Well, what was taking so long was that Jack and Jill, after their long out-of-the-way journey through the woods had stopped halfway up the hill to have a vigorous sword fight. This irritated their mother, as she was trying to get on with her own chores and needed the pails of water to continue, so she shouted up to them to hurry along. This distracted the children at just the wrong moment, however, and ended horribly. At just the time when her shout distracted them, Jack slipped on a wet rock and might have caught his balance but his other foot slipped in a puddle of mud. At the same time, the two umbrellas somehow became entangled so that when Jack fell, Jill fell too. They both tumbled down the hill and poor Jack’s head was never quite the same again, much to his family’s dismay.


Author’s Note: I used the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill, which if you’re not familiar with it goes like this:

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.

I didn’t like that it had no details, so I made up a reason for everything that happened.


Bibliography: Jack and Jill, The Nursery Rhyme Book, edited by Andrew Lang and illustrated by L. Leslie Brooke (1897).

Image Information: "Jack and Jill" by William Wallace Denslow taken from Wikipedia.