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According to an oft-repeated tale (though surely one invented after the fact), the jack-o'-lantern actually took its name from a roguish Irishman known as Stingy Jack, who tricked the Devil into promising him that he wouldn't go to hell for his many, many sins. When Jack died, however, he found to his dismay that he had also been barred from heaven, so he went down below, banged on the gates of hell, and demanded his due from the Devil. Wouldn't you know it, though the latter did keep his promise to save Jack from going to hell, he did so by dooming him to wander the earth for all eternity with only an ember of hellfire to light his way. Thenceforth, according to the legend, Stingy Jack was known by the name of Jack O'Lantern. It wasn't until Irish immigrants brought the custom of carving jack-o'-lanterns to North America that the more commonly available pumpkin came to be used for that purpose, and not until the mid-to-late 19th century that pumpkin carving became a Halloween staple all across the United States. This tidy instructional narrative comes from Victoire and Perdue's The New Century First Reader, published in 1899: Will and Fred went to the barn. They got a pumpkin. The pumpkin was large. The pumpkin was yellow. The boys cut the top off. They cut the seeds out. They cut four holes in the pumpkin. They put a candle in the pumpkin. The light shone out. The boys said, "See our Jack-o'-Lantern."
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AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
October 2020
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