Near the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York, the annual Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze illuminates the grounds of the historic Van Cortlandt Manor with more than 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins. “The minute the lights came on, a lot of the stories lost their potency, and people’s imaginations weren’t running as wild,” Mannion says. People thought it was Jack of the Lantern, a lost soul, or a ghost.”Īs Ireland began the process of nationwide electrification in the 1930s, the tale of Stingy Jack started to fade. “If you were to try to follow the light, you could go into a sinkhole or bog, or drown. Also known as fool’s fire, fairy lights, will-o’-the-wisp, and eventually, jack-o’-lantern, it often seemed like “a floating flame that would move away from travelers,” Mannion says. The story also helped explain ignis fatuus, a natural phenomenon that occurs in marshlands and bogs-such as those in Ireland’s countryside-producing flickering lights as gases from decomposing organic matter combust. “It was also used as a cautionary tale, a morality tale, that Jack was a soul trapped between two worlds, and if you behaved like he did you could end up like that, too,” Mannion says. But the devil took some pity on Jack, giving him an ember of coal to light his turnip lantern as he wandered between both places for eternity-again inspiring the nickname Jack-of-the-Lantern, or jack-o’-lantern. When Jack died, he found himself barred from heaven-and from hell. Dozens of versions abound, but one recurring storyline is that Stingy Jack tricked the devil twice. Then there’s the 18th-century Irish folktale of Stingy Jack, an unsavory fellow often said to be a blacksmith who had a fondness for mischief and booze. According to Merriam-Webster, in 17th-century Britain it was common to call a man whose name you didn’t know “Jack.” A night watchman, for example, became known as “Jack-of-the-Lantern,” or jack-o’-lantern. The origins of jack-o’-lanterns aren’t limited to produce the term also referred to people. A plaster cast of a carved turnip lantern common during the early 1900s-called a “ghost turnip” and complete with craggy teeth and sinister eye slits-haunts the museum’s permanent exhibitions. Visitors to the National Museum of Ireland-Country Life, in County Mayo, can see firsthand how terrifying those turnips could look. “Over time people started to carve faces and designs to allow light to shine through the holes without extinguishing the ember.” “Metal lanterns were quite expensive, so people would hollow out root vegetables,” he says. ( Related: These paper crafts bring the party on Day of the Dead.)Ī practical purpose also evolved, says Mannion. To ward off restless souls, people donned costumes and carved frightening faces into root vegetables such as beets, potatoes, and turnips-usually plentiful after the recent harvest. On Samhain eve, October 31, spirits of the dead were thought to mingle with the living.
The idea took deeper hold during the Celtic festival of Samhain, which was originally celebrated on November 1 and inspired many traditions of modern-day Halloween. “It’s quite macabre, but it may have symbolized the severed heads of your enemies.” “It may even have had pre-Christian origins that evolved from the custom of head veneration, or potentially even represented war trophies taken from your foes,” says Nathan Mannion, senior curator for EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin. The concept of using a round fruit or vegetable to depict a human face goes back thousands of years in some northern European Celtic cultures. Although the legendary Headless Horseman and his hurled pumpkin have been scaring Americans for generations, jack-o’-lanterns actually trace their origins back centuries to Old World traditions in countries including Ireland, England, and Scotland.Īlong the way, pagan rituals, freaky folktales, and natural phenomena have interwoven to create a fascinating history that’s part fact, part fiction, and all frightfully fun. The backstory of jack-o’-lanterns, including how they came to star in Halloween decor and why they’re carved in the first place, is a tale worth telling. For decades, carving a pumpkin has been a beloved fall tradition in America, celebrated with parties, festivals, and televised competitions.
There’s no more classic Halloween image than a glowing jack-o’-lantern perched in a window or on a porch, setting a merrily macabre mood.
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