Spring-Heeled Jack

 

"...Spring-heeled Jack became one of the most popular characters of the period. His alleged exploits were reported in the newspapers and became the subject of several Penny Dreadfuls and plays performed in the cheap theatres that abounded at the time. The devil was even renamed "Spring-heeled Jack" in some Punch and Judy shows..." 

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring-heeled_Jack)

"There is no one definitive "story" of Punch and Judy. As expressed by Peter Fraser in Punch & Judy (1970), "the drama developed as a succession of incidents which the audience could join or leave at any time, and much of the show was impromptu." This was elaborated by George Speaight in his Punch & Judy: A History (1970), who explained that the plotline "is like a story compiled in a parlour game of Consequences ... the show should, indeed, not be regarded as a story at all but a succession of encounters." The most recent academic work, Punch & Judy: History, Tradition and Meaning by Robert Leach (1985), makes it clear that "the story is a conceptual entity, not a set text: the means of telling it, therefore, are always variable." The story was intentionally episodic so that passers by on the street could easily join the audience during a performance (Crone 1058)."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_and_Judy)

A Fool's Journey

"the Joker as the perfect Fool"

"scene from Trinity #37 by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza; art by Scott McDaniel[:] D-level villains (and that’s being generous) Punch and Jewelee are used as the focus of Morgaine’s machine to find a new Fool for her villain’s Tarot. The machine identifies the Joker as the perfect Fool — which really isn’t a surprise — but unfortunately neither Punch nor Jewelee survive the process." (http://www.politedissent.com/index.php?s=punch&submit=search)

http://comicbookbrain.com/large-trinity-37-page-scott-mcdaniel.php

"three-parts learned, one part crazy"

"The 'Great Fool' ... Reason is an impasse, reason is damnation; only madness, divine madness, offers an issue. ...three-parts learned, one part crazy... they are all mad, that is, inspired. ...the general solution is to represent the saviour as the fool. (Attempts to attain this condition appear in the Bible. Note the 'coat of many colours' of Joseph and of Jesus; it is the man in motley[note] who brings his people out of bondage.)
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"[Note:] Call him 'Harlequin', and a Tetragrammaton evidently burlesquing the Sacred Family springs into sight: Pantaloon, the aged 'antique-antic'; Clown and Harlequin, two aspects of the Fool; and Columbine, the Virgin. But being burlesque, the tradition is confused and the deep meaning lost; just as the mediaeval Mystery-Play of Pontius and Judas became the farce, with opportunist topical variants, 'Punch and Judy'."
(Source: Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth, pp. 57-8 and footnote #1.)

(Edgar Degas - "Harlequin & Colombine")

Now playing:

http://www.muny.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=864&Itemid=100476

"The night is darkest just before the [aurora]. And I promise you, the [aurora] is coming." ~ Harvey "Two Face" Dent, "The Dark Knight," 2008 (quotation with substitution of a co-referring expression; "aurora" = "dawn"). The Aurora of the Dark [K]night.

"In the British Isles, the Northern Lights were known as the "nimble men" or the "merry dancers," names belying the fact that auroras were seen as clans at war, and the red light as blood spilt in violent battle. ... Scandinavian popular belief linked the aurora to dead women, especially to dead virgins."
http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/4C.html

The Victims in Pictures

"EOS (Êôs), in Latin Aurora, the goddess of the morning red... Eos [Aurora]] had an unquenchable desire for handsome young men, some say as the result of a curse laid upon her by the goddess Aphrodite. ... By Astraeus Eos became the mother of ... Boreas..."
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/Eos.html