29/10/2020
The tale of Jack-O-Lantern. . .
The term "jack-o'-lantern" was first applied to the mysterious lights sometimes seen at night over bogs, swamps, and marshes. These ghost lights—variously called jack-o’-lanterns, co**se candles, fairy lights, will-o'-the-wisps, and fool's fire—are created when gases from decomposing plant matter ignite. However, for centuries before this phenomenon was understood, Irish people had a different reason to explain these mysterious lights.
Long ago in Ireland, there lived a young blacksmith called ‘Stingy Jack’ who invited the Devil into a tavern to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his round so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. However, Jack left the tavern without paying for the drinks and put the coin in a pocket that had a silver cross in it, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form.
Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he wouldn’t seek revenge and wouldn’t claim Jack’s soul when he died. As the legend goes, when Stingy Jack eventually died, God would not allow him into heaven, and the Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell either. Instead, the devil gave Jack a single lump of burning coal to light his way and sent him off into the night. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the land with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”
In Ireland, people have been making jack-o’-lanterns at Halloween for centuries. However, as the legend suggests, the original lanterns were made from turnips not pumpkins. It wasn’t until Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America in the mid-1800s, that pumpkins began to be used instead.