7/23/2023 0 Comments Turnip jack o lantern clipartIn America, pumpkins were easy enough to come by and good for carving, and got absorbed both into the carved lantern tradition and the associated prank. Over time, kids refined the prank and began carving crude faces into the pumpkins to kick up the fright factor and make the lanterns look like disembodied heads. As a prank, kids would sometimes wander off the road with a glowing veggie to trick their friends and travelers into thinking they were Stingy Jack or another lost soul. Making vegetable lanterns was a tradition of the British Isles, and carved-out turnips, beets, and potatoes were stuffed with coal, wood embers, or candles as impromptu lanterns to celebrate the fall harvest. The legend immigrated to the new world with the Irish, and it collided with another old world tradition and a new world crop. He and the lights were dubbed "Jack of the Lantern," or "Jack O'Lantern." OLD TALE, NEW TRADITIONS In Ireland, the ghost lights seen in the swamps were said to be Jack’s improvised lantern moving about as his restless soul wandered the countryside. Instead, the devil gave him a single burning coal to light his way and sent him off into the night to “find his own hell.” Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has supposedly been roaming the earth with it ever since. When Stingy Jack eventually died, God would not allow him into heaven, and the devil, keeping his word, rejected Jack’s soul at the gates of hell. Jack freed him again, on the condition that the devil once again not take revenge and not claim Jack’s soul. Later, Jack irked the devil again by convincing him to climb up a tree to pick some fruit, then carved a cross in the trunk so that the devil couldn’t climb back down (apparently, the devil is a sucker). Jack eventually let the devil loose, but made him promise that he wouldn’t seek revenge on Jack, and wouldn’t claim his soul when he died. The devil did so, but Jack skipped out on the bill and kept the devil-coin in his pocket with a silver cross so that the devil couldn’t shift back to his original form. Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for the drinks from his own pocket, and convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin that could be used to settle the tab. LEGEND HAS ITĪs the story goes, Stingy Jack-often described as a blacksmith-invited the devil to join him for a drink. In Ireland, dating as far back as the 1500s, those stories often revolved around a guy named Jack. For centuries before this scientific explanation was known, people told stories to explain the mysterious lights. These ghost lights-variously called jack-o’-lanterns, hinkypunks, hobby lanterns, corpse candles, fairy lights, will-o'-the-wisps, and fool's fire-are created when gases from decomposing plant matter ignite as they come into contact with electricity or heat or as they oxidize. Just a decade or so later, it began to be used to refer to the mysterious lights sometimes seen at night over bogs, swamps, and marshes. As far back as 1663, the term meant a man with a lantern, or a night watchman. The term "jack-o'-lantern" was first applied to people, not pumpkins.
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