Irish immigrants brought their traditions to America in the 19 th and 20 th centuries and discovered that our native pumpkins were much easier to carve than the turnips or taters from the Old Country.Įnter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Stingy Jack tricked the devil and was fated to spend eternity traveling between heaven and hell with only an ember of coal in a turnip lantern to light his way. The Stingy Jack 18 th century Irish folktale also colors the tradition. Stingy Jack invited the Devil for drinks one day, and Jack didn. Through the years, secular and sacred traditions overlapped and All Hallows Eve became Halloween with its scary connotations including our buddy, Jack.īut who put the Jack in jack-o’-lantern? In 17 th century Britain, it was commonplace to call any man you didn’t know “Jack.” A night watchman became “Jack of the lantern.” The jack-o’-lantern itself originated from a myth about a man named Stingy Jack. The Celts believed the worlds of the living and dead blurred on October 31, the night before their new year began and the start of a long, hard cold winter. So they lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. The link between jack-o’-lanterns and Halloween started with – you guessed it – another Celtic tradition. To illuminate them, they placed a burning ember or candle inside. A glowing cast of an early carved turnip lantern greets visitors to the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life with blazing eyes and a crooked grin.Ī more macabre theory is that Jack-o’-lanterns allude to pagan customs of severed heads as war trophies. Northern Europeans carved frightening faces into beets, potatoes and turnips to fend off restless evil souls. Have you ever wondered how the tradition got started?Īs with much folklore, it started with the Celts. Whether you go for fun or fright, jack-o’-lantern carving is a family-friendly way to mark the season. Spooky or silly? How do you carve your jack-o’-lantern?
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