The tradition of carving jack 0′lanterns has its roots in an Irish legend:
Stingy Jack was a cheap, lazy drunk. One night, he invited the Devil to have a drink with him. Not wanting to pay for the drinks, he told the Devil to turn himself into a coin. The devil agreed but instead of paying for the drinks, Jack kept the coin in his pocket next to a silver cross, making it impossible for the Devil to change back to his old self. Jack made the Devil promise to leave him alone for a year and then removed the silver cross, allowing the Devil to return to Hell.
A year later, the Devil came looking for Stingy Jack. Jack outsmarted the Devil once again, tricking him into climbing a tree and then drawing a cross on the trunk, trapping him up in the branches. This time, Jack made the Devil promise to leave him alone for ten years. The Devil agreed and then went on his way.
A few days later, Jack died.
He floated up to Heaven, but God didn’t have room in paradise for a drunk trickster, so he sent Jack down to Hell.
Once in Hell, the Devil, still pissed about Jack’s tricks, told Jack he was not welcome. Instead, Jack’s punishment would be to wander the earth forever as a ghost.
Jack, back on Earth, carved a lantern out of a turnip to light his way through the long, dark nights.
The living often saw the ghost of Stingy Jack wandering the roads and fields, especially in October when the veil was thin. They called him Jack of the Lantern and began carving fearsome faces into turnips to scare him away from their homes on spooky October nights, when ghosts can contact the living.
XOXO
