while spending my morning engrossed in hootsuite, i had a complete brain freeze and could not remember the name for a carved pumpkin. thankfully, miss jamie came to my rescue and chimed in “jack~o~lantern” and then some soft giggling.

image courtesy of hubpages.com

what did i do next? googled it of course. i found this fabulous photo that put me in the spooky holiday spirit and learned about the history of the jack~o~lantern. the thought of there being a history behind it, and it being such a deep history, never even crossed my mind.

Courtesy of HubPages ~

The name, “Jack o lantern”, which originally meant “night watchman”, is at least 300 years old. “Jack o lantern” was also associated with “will o the wisp”, which was a term used for lights seen flickering in the dark over swamps.The first known written use of “Jack o lantern” is from 1663. It wasn’t until the mid 1800′s that it became associated with carved vegetables carrying a light.

During the 1800′s a myth originated in Ireland. The story goes that there was a mean, old drunkard named Jack, who loved to play tricks on people. He even managed to play tricks on the devil. Jack once tricked the devil into climbing a tree. Jack drew a cross on the trunk and the devil was trapped in the tree. Jack made the devil promise that Jack would never be allowed into hell.When Jack finally died, he was too bad to get into Heaven, and the devil wouldn’t let him into Hell. Jack was made to wander for all eternity. To mock him, the devil tossed Jack a glowing ember from hell. Jack hollowed out a turnip and placed the ember inside of it.

The tradition of hollowing out vegetables and putting candles inside them is a long one. It originated in Ireland or the British Isles. The vegetable of choice was a turnip or potato. They were carved and filled with a candle. These were placed outside of people’s doorways to ward off evil spirits. This was especially done on All Hallow’s Eve, or halloween, to ward off evil spirits. It was believed that the spirits of the dead, as well as witches and goblins, came out to cavort with the living on halloween. Supposedly the hallowed turnips would scare away the evil spirits.

The tradition of using a pumpkin to make the jack o lantern is an American tradition. Pumpkins originated in Central America. When the Irish migrated to North America in the 1800′s, they brought the tradition of carving jack o lanterns with them. Apparently one of those immigrants realized that the pumpkin would make a great jack o lantern. Therefore, the use of pumpkins as jack o lanterns…is an American tradition.

tonight we are carving our pumpkins and turning them into jack~o~lanterns with a twist. we are adding a linnea’s lights pumpkin candle to fill the house with true halloween spirit.
happy halloween!

~natalie