Writing Your Family Name

 

Writing Your Family Name

 

“What’s in a name?

That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

William Shakespeare

 

When I tell people that I’m planning a new career choice of writing, they invariability ask if I’m going to use a ‘Pen’ name. “What ‘Jinks’ isn’t a name you can remember?

 

But the most important question…Why would any saddled their family with the name Jinks?

 

Somewhere along the line, I decided to place these thoughts in writing. The female members of our clan took it upon themselves to research all things Jinks. The results can back quickly. We were related to one U. S. President. We once ran a plantation in Macon, Georgia. After the Civil War the family moved, others might say ran, to Oklahoma. The slaves took on the Jinks name and now live on the East Coast. The clan believes that we are not as famous as another slave owner, Thomas Jefferson. From England, the name Jinks shown up as a marriage on record at Westminster Abbey, with the same spelling.

 

About twenty years ago, my parents traveled to England. My dad was there before, under the American Plan, U. S. Army 1944. During the more recent visit, they discovered while driving through Wales a link between our name and a local favorite vegetable, the leek.

 

To those uninitiated, the garden leek is a mild member of the onion family. Leek is an ingredient to a wonderful cold soup, vichyssoise. Not as strong in favor as onion. And well, nothing is as strong as garlic.

 

According to Ancient Celtic Welsh the family name of Jinks means “grower of leeks.”

 

In the far distance past, Romans invaded Briton. As you know the Romans, the ancestors to modern Italians, were impeccable dressers. With their fine leather and metal plating, clanking as they march and eating garlic, they were a force to be reckoned with. But after stinking up Briton for hundreds of years, the Romans unceremoniously escaped, probably with the insistence of King Arthur.

 

Generations later, the peaceful pagan paradise was disturbed by the invading Saxons. Sacking and pillaging were the Saxon’s stock and trade. As these plunders ravaged the Briton’s countryside, they were met up with an opposing force.  

 

If we are to believe legend, on this day, the First of March, 640 AD, on St. David Day, the King of Briton and Wales, Cad-wal-lader meet up with the invading Saxons armies. Peasants from around the countryside came to their King’s support. One, a sometime monk and relation to King Arthur brought his share, a cart of freshly harvested spring leeks.

 

Thunder, rumbling, and yelling, the Saxons chased the peasants and farmers from the field and then met up with the just mobilized Welsh army. Armed with swords, clubs, and farming tools, the cornered army turned and faced the Saxons.

  

As the battle was coming together, women, children, as well as the too old to fight and the monk ran for shelter upon a nearby look out. And to his astonishment, through the gray and brown storm, the monk saw the battle in which huge mistakes were made.

 

     The monk came down off the hill as the men were returning from the first rush of battle.  He found the battered King Cad-wal-lader to tell him that he could not distinguish each side during the battle, and wondered if his men could either. 

 

The King stared at the monk who was then munching on some leeks. The bright green and white leaves which shone to the warrior like the moon in the night time sky. The King summoned his officers and commanded that they marked and braided their helmets and caps with leeks.

 

At the next battle rush, the Welsh defeated the Saxon.

At the end, Saxon changed the meaning of the word jinks to bad luck or misfortune.

To this day, the Welsh men wear a slip of Leek in their hats as a sign of the great victory over the Saxons.