‘Look out! Look out! Jack Frost is about!’ (Deborah Nicholls-Lee, December 21, 2024, Country Life)
Depictions of Jack Frost might vary, but all evoke the wonder of the mysterious crystalline carpet that appears overnight on our lawns and sugarcoats our trees and shrubs. This glittery covering is simply ice crystals formed by water vapour coming into contact with a surface that’s below freezing, but its sudden arrival can feel otherworldly and curious legends have been attached to it.
Some believe that Jack Frost may originate from a character, also called Father Frost, in the Russian fairy tale Morozko. He rescues a young girl abandoned by her wicked stepmother and cuts a benign, elderly figure with a cloak and a long, soft beard. Others look to Norse mythology, where fantastical frost giants roam an icy realm and Kari, a wind god, sires sons named Jokul and Frosti.
In other folklore, Frost is closely connected with autumn. In a 1922 drawing by American cartoonist John T. McCutcheon, he perches on a maple branch painting autumn leaves with a palette of warm shades. It’s a depiction that echoes Birdie and his Fairy Friends (1889), by Margaret Canby. In ‘The Frost Fairies’ chapter, set in ‘a cold country far to the North’, the clumsy fairies spill colourful jewels belonging to the king, Jack Frost, all over the trees. An initially angry Frost is soon taken with the effect and determines, once a year, to paint the trees ‘with the brightest layer of gold and rubies’.