![]() Some believe the jack o’ lantern warded off the undead, their light used to identify vampires. I’d be surprised if people carved turnips to represent souls in purgatory once the belief became less common in later centuries. The Church of England dispensed with the concept of purgatory, seeing souls go straight to heaven or hell. By Mary Mapes Dodge (Life time: 1905), via Wikimedia Commons At Halloween, they’d be given soul cakes, creating the prototype for trick-or-treating. The poor often offered to say prayers for the dearly departed of wealthy families, in exchange for food. Saying prayers for the soul helped speed them through the process. Before the Reformation in England, people believed the soul lingered in purgatory after death. They only appeared in relation to Halloween in the 1880s, when the lanterns were first called jack o’lanterns (Soniak 2018).Īccording to Movies and Mania, other theories suggest jack o’ lanterns represented souls in purgatory (2014). Carving pumpkins first pops up in American records in 1837 as part of regular harvest celebrations. Thus the link between pumpkin lanterns and pranks was born. Kids would take their lanterns out into boggy ground to frighten people into thinking Stingy Jack was abroad. The Irish took the carved lanterns to America, where pumpkins were far easier to come by. I can’t find any definitive link but I wonder if people believed Stingy Jack and his lantern caused the eerie marsh lights. Its earliest usage places it in East Anglia. The will-o’-the-wisp dates to the 17th century. These are the strange lights that flicker over marshes and bogs. Later, people associated the jack o’ lantern with the will-o’-the-wisp. Matt Soniak claims the term originally referred to a night watchman, as far back as 1663. Other interpretations of the Jack o’ Lantern They only appeared in relation to Halloween in the late 19th century. Where they got the idea from is unclear, but who knows if someone heard the original Irish folklore and liked the idea?Ĭarving pumpkins first pops up in American records in 1837 as part of regular harvest celebrations. This was called a “Hoberdy’s Lantern”, and these turnips had carved faces with a candle stump inside (Hertz 2021). Hertz also points out that turnip lanterns do pop up in English accounts, where 18th-century people in Worcestershire carved similar lanterns from turnips to ward off undesirable visitors. Patti Wigington makes the point that our Celtic ancestors wouldn’t be likely to give up vegetables for carving, preferring to eat them instead. Kayla Hertz notes that ” Although the idea that the myth of the Jack-o-Lanterns is Irish is widely held, there is no scholarly research into Irish customs and mythology that proves it so” (2021). As a substitute, they found pumpkins made an excellent choice for jack o’ lanterns. When the Irish and Scottish took the tradition to America, turnips seemed hard to come by. Placing them in doorways or windows seemed to do the trick. People started carving faces into turnips and potatoes to frighten away Stingy Jack (or other wandering spirits). ![]() By Rannpháirtí anaithnid at English Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons ![]() The ghostly figure became “Jack of the Lantern”.Ī traditional early 20th-century turnip Jack o’Lantern. Doomed to wander the earth for eternity, Jack popped his burning coal into a turnip to light his way. He gave him a burning coal to mark Jack as a figure of the netherworld. True to his word, the Devil couldn’t take his soul either and banned him from entering hell. When Jack finally died, God wouldn’t let him into heaven following his scheming ways. Jack carved a cross into the bark and only helped him down if the Devil promised to leave him alone for ten years. The following year, the Devil fell for another trick after Jack got him to climb a tree. He couldn’t claim Jack’s soul if he died during that time. This forced the Devil to do Jack’s bidding and he couldn’t change back into his normal form until he promised he would leave Jack alone for a year. Instead of using it to buy another round, Jack put it in his pocket next to a silver cross. Satan agreed, enjoying a good knees-up as much as the next man until Jack convinced him to transform himself into a coin for pay for the drinks. After he’d driven away most of his acquaintances with his deceitful behaviour, he asked the Devil to drink with him. According to legend, Jack was a bit of a trickster and enjoyed getting the better of people. The name ‘jack o’ lantern’ is widely believed to come from Stingy Jack, a figure in Irish folklore.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |