Halloween falls on Thursday, October 31, and in the weeks leading up to the annual celebration of all things spooky and scary as well as the day of, there are plenty of long-held traditions to enjoy. These range from decorating one’s house or even yard, to buying or making a costume for parties, contests, or trick-or-treating, to going to a pumpkin patch (or, if no actual patches are close by, picking a suitable gourd out from the grocery store) to find the perfect pumpkin with which to carve a jack o’lantern.
But where does that last custom come from, and when did it start? Jack o’lanterns have their roots in Irish and other Celtic folklore, specifically the legend of Stingy Jack.
In this story, a man named Jack is a notorious trickster his whole life, even managing to con the devil at one point, in ways that vary from story to story. When he dies, he isn’t allowed into heaven after the shady way he lived his life, but as a result of the earlier trick, the devil is sworn not to claim Jack’s soul either, and honestly doesn’t want Jack around in hell after what he did to him anyway. So Jack’s ghost is doomed to wander the earth for all eternity, given only a coal from the fires of hell to light his way, which he carries by hollowing out a turnip and placing it inside. He and his glowing light come to be known as “Jack of the Lantern” — hence, jack o’lantern.
When Irish immigrants began to come to America in droves, they brought with them several traditions that became part of the Halloween celebration as we know it today, such as trick-or-treating being inspired by the aspect of the Samhain festival in which participants wear costumes and go door to door in search of tasty food. Jack o’lanterns are one of these traditions, with pumpkins replacing the once-traditional turnip, onion, or other such vegetable because they were native to the Americas and more readily available (and, arguably, much easier and better-smelling to hollow out and carve).
A grinning face is the most common thing to carve into the front of a jack o’lantern, but everyone is free to get creative with their designs; there are even competitions around the country awarding the best of the best in the art of pumpkin carving. In lieu of an ember of hellfire, people traditionally put a lit candle or, more commonly in recent years, an electric light inside the hollowed-out pumpkin, making its face glow eerily at night.
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