JENNY GREEN TEETH

[jennean]

Has anyone ever heard of a childrens story with a character called Jenny Green Teeth in it?

[jjf2003]

I've heard of it, it's a very old folk story, though I don't know how the story goes. All I know is she was a horrible witch who ate children who misbehaved or didn't go to sleep (what kid could sleep after a bedtime story like that?). In Scotland she was called 'Jeannie wi' the ern teeth' (ern=iron).

[jjf2003]

New Zealand writer Joel Hayward has a new book published called 'Jenny Green Teeth and other short stories'. (Published by Totem Press). No idea what it's about though, or whether it's related in any way to the folk tale.

[woofgang]

She is also in The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

[jennean]

When i was a child my mum told me she lived in a coal bunker in our back garden and she thought she made the story up until just a few years a ago she saw a book in a shop with it in but never purchased it. Incidently my mums name is jenny but luckily enough for me she is alot sweeter although i had many of bad dreams and sometimes used to be scared to be in tne garden if no one was out there with me.thanks for ur replys

[pamnez]

When I was a kid, my mum used to threaten me and my brothers that if we didn't clean our teeth, they would end up like jenny green teeth's teeth.

[jennyxno2]

From what I've heard, she was a lady who lived in the lakes and parents told their children of her to keep them from playing by the lakes. Any child that fell in the lake or drowned they said was because Jenny Green Teeth ate them. Basically like a wive's tale to keep kids from getting into trouble.

[callum]

Prominent New Zealand poet, fiction writer and university scholar Joel Hayward has revived the myth of JENNY GREEN TEETH in a book called "Jenny Green Teeth and Other Short Stories" (isbn 0-9582446-3-4) and in a book of poetry called "Lifeblood: A Book of Poems" (isbn 0-9582446-1-8). Both books are outstanding, and have revived the mythical Welsh/English figure of Jenny Green Teeth, the seducutress who entices people to their deaths in rivers, ponds and lakes. Hayward's books are truly excellent, and widely praised in NZ, and his characterisation of Jenny Green Teeth is powerfully haunting. Joel Hayward is himself a haunted and hunted soul, by all accounts, and I'd like to know, and book reviewers have asked, why Jenny Green Teeth has such a hold over his imagination.

[AngelaGJ]

Came across this discussion by chance. Don't know anything about this Jenny Green Teeth, but I do know about the author Dr Joel Hayward. He was my Massey University lecturer for three years in a row. If anyone fits the term 'genius' then that guy does. Joel Hayward was very free thinking, really inspiring and enormously intelligent and talented. And he was really popular with students. I wish him the best wherever he is now. -Angie.

[psmiles]

I also had Dr Joel Hayward at Massey Uni and agree that he's an amazingly original scholar and a very nice man too. He was unjustly and publicly persecuted for a thesis he wrote a decade or two ago, but, as far as I can tell, he hasn't let other peoples' narrow-mindedness harden or embitter him. And yes I agree he's as near to being a genius as anyone I've ever met. I also wish him good luck in whatever he's doing and wherever he is.

[garylynch]

I remember Joel Hayward the lecturer too. I liked him.