The tradition of cutting faces into pumpkins did originate
in America, probably around Boston or New York.
But the first carving was actually in Ireland and it was a large turnip,
not a pumpkin that was hollowed out, had a face cut into it, and was supplied
with a candle to give it a scary glow.
According to the legend a mean, disorderly fellow, named
Jack who lived in a shack in Dublin, loved to play tricks on unsuspecting
people. His foul antics affected
everyone from his own family to the town’s upper class.
He took great delight in tripping old ladies, suspending wires
across pathways to injure human and horse alike, and tying a thread around a
gold piece that he tossed on the ground and then snatching it away from a
person who spotted it and went to pick it up.
Though a rogue and a no-good, mean Jack was very skilled in
the art of doing bad things and always managed to escape harm from his foul
tricks, even when he pulled one on the Devil himself!
By means of his extraordinary cunning he managed to convince
Satan to climb up a full grown apple tree.
When the Lord of Hell was halfway up, nimble Jack tacked crosses all
around the trunk of the tree.
“I can’t get down,” moaned the Devil. “I’ll suffer eternally
if I even so much as brush across one of those terrible crosses. Take them away
Jack,” begged old Satan.
“I might remove those crosses for you if you are in a
bargaining mood.”
“Name your price you scallywag.”
Jack smiled and thrust out his chest, puffing himself up as
big as he could get and told the Devil…..
“The price for me to do it is one soul – my own. You must promise me that when I die you will
not claim my soul.”
“Take away those dreaded crosses and it’s done. I shall never lay claim your dark soul, no
matter what.”
Keeping his end of the bargain, Jack removed the crosses and
the Devil climbed down the apple tree and went to Hell, while Jack went to the
pub to celebrate his big victory over the Lord of Darkness.
About 20 years later after a life of deceit and drunken
debauchery Jack died and applied for a small apartment in Heaven. At the Pearly Gates, St. Pete took one look
at the old reprobate and said “Not a chance. No way! There’s no place for the
likes of you in Heaven Jack. Go to
Hell!”
So Jack did. He
knocked on the door of the gates to the inferno and was met by Satan himself
who demanded to know…
“What the Hell do you want Jack?”
“I’d like a little spot in Hell. It doesn’t have to be very big. Really, even a little closet will do.”
“We made a bargain Jack.
I promised that I would never claim your soul no matter what. I’m keeping my end of the deal. Get lost Jack!”
“Yes, it’s lost I’ll be,” said the miserable old sinner, "for
now I’m stuck forever in the dark netherworld between Heaven and Hell and I
can’t even see where I’m wandering.”
“I’ll do one thing for you Jack. Here….” said the Devil as
he tossed him a flaming ember from the furnace of Hell. “That ember will glow
forever and guide you on your endless walk between the gates of Heaven and
Hell.”
Jack had a turnip with him, a plentiful and favored food in
Ireland at the time. It was a large
turnip and Jack felt that it would make a good holder for his flaming ember
which was too hot to hold in his hand.
Jack hollowed out the turnip and cut holes in the side. When he placed the ember inside, the light
from it shined through the holes and lit the way for him in his perpetual
walk.
The
last thing new souls arriving at the Gates of Heaven and Hell saw before they
were admitted to one place or the other was a mean spirited man carrying a
brightly lit “Jack O’Lantern”.
And so it was that during the first great waves of
immigration, the Irish brought the tradition of turnip carving to America –
though once they got here and discovered pumpkins, they stopped using turnips
because pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve.
The End
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