Jack Frost and the Dalton Minimum
Children's stories and poems are often meant to carry messages and knowledge into the future.
Hannah Flagg Gould's poem, The Frost, was the first I believe to turn the frost into a character, Jack frost. Or at least the earliest I have found written. Someone who would warn the children to get prepared before the winter, to store food and stay indoors.
Old Man Winter was written about before then, but Hannah lived in Lancaster MA during the Dalton Minimum, and she had experienced the Year Without a Summer.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_That_Every_Child_Should_Know/The_Frost
There was a Jack Frost cartoon made in 1934 as well...
Source - AnimationStation, youtube
The stories, cartoons and poems were created to share knowledge with us, today, as we head into a new solar minimum cycle.
It has been warm for so many years now, with amazing crops and warm pleasant summers, it has all been forgotten. Most kids these days don't even know who Jack Frost is. If they do it is only because they saw him in Frosty the Snowman's movie. Or worse, he's been villainized into a serial killer or a character who wants to take over Christmas, to the point where he becomes taboo for smaller children to know or talk about.
Jack Frost is an important character, who was created and written about to teach us and all the future generations of children, to get prepared. To store food and know that the deep freeze of the solar minimums will return.
It was no accident that he emerged just at the end of the Dalton Minimum.
So true -- from folk characters, to sun worship, to symbology in cultures worldwide, references are everywhere. Great historical context here on the genesis of this story, thank you for sharing!
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Yes, exactly...Thanks for reading :) Another interesting tidbit, is that her nephew was Benjamin Apthorp Gould...
So many things try to tell us information, long ago
memories, how it was and what might cycle back
again after generations forget. Game of thrones
movie - winter is coming, the long winter.
Was just thinking of Jack & Jill the other day.
I often think of old nursery rhymes, songs, sayings
and such. Many have astronomical connections,
ancient kept good tract of above and below, left
use messages in stone and stories. Many fight
over what history was at a time we need to see
what is the message not the messenger!?
There is much!!
I'm glad you posted this @elew! ❤
Yes exactly! I tend to listen to the old children's stories and rhymes, because somehow they get left out of the history manipulations. (except what they are doing to Jack these days)
And you are right...now we need to remember.
There were stories from Russia too around the same time, more focused on Old Man Winter from what I have heard, and some from India about the cold giant.
And yes, they are pretty clear in Game of Thrones, some winters are longer than others, but the winter can last for many years...though the children of summer don't remember. It doesn't get much clearer than that ;)
Check out my blog. BOOM!
Followed not to long ago :-))
So many very interesting and informative stories
we should all listen and look at in more depth.
There have been a few cross my mind.
Just what are they doing to Jack these days? Then was
thinking a lot of them named Jack eh.
I seen a post the other day and left your name :-)
link to Jack, this one was about the Dancing Plague.
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