LEGEND: Why Carve Pumpkins

1. America is a land of many traditions, but we generally don’t know how these traditions started. One of the country’s most enjoyable pastimes is carving pumpkins in the fall. Every October, unpleasant and frightening pumpkins peer out from doorsteps across the country but what urges the Americans to break out the carving knives? A time to welcome the coming winter, October is full of superstition as well as celebration. Although a jack-o’-lantern is the norm for every doorway, most people don’t know the reason why they hang on the season’s most ubiquitous decoration.

Why do they carve pumpkins?

2. Do you think Americans were the first to carve the orange fruit into freaky figures? Like most American folklore, this spooky ritual comes from their European ancestors. The USA is a country of mostly European immigrants, so most of their traditions originate from outside the United States, and jack-o’-lanterns are no different. The practice dates back to a centuries-old Irish myth about a man named Stingy Jack. The twisted tale of Stingy Jack

3. According to folklore, one day Jack, who was a dishonest fellow, met the devil and invited him to join him for a drink. Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for the drinks, so he convinced the devil to morph into a coin. As soon as he did, Jack put the coin in his pocket next to a silver cross. The devil was unable to change back into his original form, and Jack held him that way until the devil agreed not to take his soul. Later, Jack convinced the devil to climb up a tree to steal a fruit. Then he quickly carved the sign of the cross into the tree bark. Again, the devil couldn’t come down until he agreed not to bother Jack for another 10 years.

4. Shortly after his meeting with the devil, Jack died. As legend goes, God would not accept Jack into heaven and sent him down to visit the devil in hell. But the devil kept his promise. He wouldn’t let Jack into hell either, and imprisoned him to an even darker fate. The devil sent Jack into the dark night to travel around the world, with only a coal to light his way. Jack lit the coal, put it in a hollowed out turnip and has been drifting through the world ever since. Townsfolk began to refer to this figure as ‘Jack of the Lantern’ and then ‘Jack-o’-lantern’. People began to carve their own lanterns out of turnips, beets, potatoes and eventually pumpkins in hopes of warding away any ghostly spirits.

The tradition today

5. Over time, the tradition reached American shores by way of mouth, and immigrants from various countries took their own approach to the ancient tradition. A chiefly American fruit, the pumpkin became their own adaptation of this European tradition, and it became a symbol of Halloween. As years went by, the spooky history behind this family tradition has been lost. So now carving pumpkins is synonymous with family and fun instead of spooky spirits.

Adapted from the Reader’s Digest website