How did Jack-O’-Lantern become a popular figure during Halloween?
Jack-O’-Lantern is among the staple figures that you can see during Halloween and this is how this became part of the annual celebration.
During Halloween, it is common to see “creepy” decorations everywhere. People are also fond of wearing different costumes during Halloween parties. This celebration also features sweet treats for “trick or treat” which is so popular among kids.
One of the most common items you can see during the holiday is the jack-o’-lantern. Based on the article in Mental Floss, this term was first applied to people and not pumpkins.
Up until 1663, the term meant a man with a lantern or a night watchman. Ten years or so after that, people started to use the term to refer to the mysterious lights sometimes seen at night over bogs, swamps, and marshes.
Aside from being called jack-o’-lanterns, these mysterious lights were also called hinkypunks, hobby lanterns, corpse candles, fairy lights, will-o’-the-wisps, and fool’s fire. These lights are created when gases from decomposing plant matter luminesce.
Before the scientific explanation was known by the people, stories circulated about the mysterious lights. In the 1500s, in Ireland, these kinds of stories often revolved around a guy named Jack.
The story was talked about Stingy Jack who was often described as a blacksmith. He invited the devil to join him for a drink but Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for the drinks so, he convinced the devil to turn himself into a coin that could be used to settle the tab.
The devil did what Jack said but he did not pay the bill but kept the devil-coin in his pocket with a silver cross so the devil couldn’t shift back to his original form. Eventually, Jack freed the devil but made him promise that he wouldn’t seek revenge and wouldn’t claim his soul when he died.
Jack had another tricky encounter with the devil. He convinced the devil to climb up a tree to pick some fruit, then carved a cross in the trunk so that the devil couldn’t climb back down. Then, Jack freed the devil again, on the condition that the devil once again not take revenge and not claim his soul.
When Stingy Jack, it was said that God would not allow him to enter heaven. The devil, keeping his word, rejected Jack’s soul at the gates of hell. What the devil did was give him a single burning coal to light his way and send him off into the night to “find his own hell.”
Then, Jack put the coal inside a carved-out turnip. Supposedly, he has been roaming Earth with that lantern ever since. The mysterious lights seen in the swamps in Ireland were said to be Jack’s improvised lantern moving about as his restless soul wandered the countryside. From that, people started calling him and his lights Jack of the Lantern, or Jack O’Lantern.