The other day my French class learned about the legend of the jack-o-lantern. It is an Irish legend in which a mean spirited drunkard named Jack tricked the devil into a deal in which the devil could not take his soul when Jack died. However, the devil tricked him right back because when Jack died, he was shut out of heaven for being so mean spirited and the devil wouldn’t let him into hell. So, he was forced to wander in the darkness forever with only the ember from hell that the devil had given him placed inside a turnip. So every Halloween the Irish put out turnips with lights in them to ward off evil spirits and Jack.
It’s funny how we get from a turnip to pumpkin. I’m sure the Irish brought the legend over with the great immigration of Irish people to the United States in the eighteen hundreds. I wonder if someone just decided that a pumpkin looked cooler than a radish… However, today it is such a prevalent tradition. It’s interesting how Americans like to put their own stamp on things.
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