The Real Jack of Kent

Many thanks to all of you who have visited this Blog over the last couple of weeks.

This is just a quick post to tell you more about the real Jack of Kent, after whom this Blog is named.

Jack of Kent is a wonderful but minor figure of the folklore of the English midlands and Welsh borderlands. He was not actually from Kent (as I am not, though I lived in Kent when I started this Blog), but possibly Kentchurch in Herefordshire.

In essence, Jack of Kent was a wizard of whom tales were told as to how he cleverly outwitted the Devil, a sort of John Constantine in medieval costume.

A good article on this intriguing figure is here (though the painting - which is not my avatar - is not on that page), and his Wikipedia entry also gives a fair summary, though one day I will write a fuller account of him on this site.

For me, minor folklore figures like Jack of Kent are far more interesting than, say, Robin Hood, King Arthur, or Dick Turpin. These more famous figures invariably owe a great deal to Victorian re-invention.

However, I am not sure how the original Jack of Kent would feel about being appropriated for this skeptical Blog.

The wizard side of him would I suspect want me to be fairer to modern magical thinking, such as homeopathy and other forms of alternative medicine. He would also surely shudder at being reincarnated as a lawyer. So I really do hope his ghost does not think too badly of me.

But I expect he would like the thrill of engagement with those who still wish to bedevil us.

If so, he would undoubtedly prefer to be associated with a site such as Gimpy (and that is a fascinating choice of name).

But Jack of Kent is stuck here on this Blog instead...