The Jack-O’-Lantern

By Ray Lenarcic

When I was a very little boy, I recall having the bejeezus scared out of me upon laying eyes on a carved pumpkin. Illuminated by a lit candle, it resembled a monster. Welcome to Halloween. Years later, when recalling the experience to family, my mother stated that one could hear my screams all the way to Finks Basin (from Little Falls). Despite that beginning, I developed a fascination for Halloween and jack-o’-lanterns, finding the origins of each fascinating.

Halloween, as we know it, derives from an ancient Celtic holiday called Samhain. It marked summer’s end and was a time to honor the deceased. This tradition held that from dusk on October 31 until dusk on November 1, the souls of people who died that year would pass on, thus making it also the time when ghosts were most likely to be around. To frighten away the evil spirits, people placed on porches or windowsills carved turnips, beets, or potatoes lit by burning lumps of coal inside them. Variations of Samhain later surfaced throughout Europe.

Over time, the jack-o’-lantern became a part of the Halloween mythology. One of its more popular origin stories involves an Irish myth featuring Stingy Jack, a trickster who, after dying, was denied entry into heaven and hell, doomed to roam the planet in search of a final resting place. To help him find his way, it was said that Satan gave him an ember from the fires of Hades, an eternal flame, placed in a carved-out turnip, which he carried everywhere, hence the term Jack of the Lantern.

Halloween was introduced to America by Irish immigrants in the 19th century. Upon their arrival, they discovered that pumpkins made perfect jack-o’-lanterns to be placed on windowsills to ward off evil spirits. Other reasons accounting for their display included representation as Christian souls in purgatory (October 31st being the eve of All Saints Day) or as spirits or supernatural beings.

From its humble beginnings, Halloween has developed, especially with the addition of trick or treating in the 1930s, into one of our favorite “holidays.” The pumpkin is its centerpiece. The fruit is popularized in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” sold to the tune of over a billion pounds each year at this time, carved in countless ways, and made into one of our most sumptuous pies. It’s also the subject of some memorable children’s stories.

One of my grandchildren’s favorites takes place in a village controlled by one family, the Jujubees. The patriarch, Grampy Jack, ran the show. He rented land to all the farmers, made and enforced the laws, owned all the stores, and treated the people like dirt. In addition to being downright mean, the Jujubee family shared a common trait: they never smiled.

For the villagers, the only break in their otherwise miserable lives came on Halloween, the one occasion Grampy Jack gave adults the day off along with free food and drink. The children could participate in a costume contest and were showered with candy. But there was a catch. If anyone played a trick on him or a family member, there’d be no Halloween. That particular year, someone placed on the Jujubee mansion’s porch a large pumpkin with a huge frown and beady eyes carved on it. It resembled Grampy Jack. His response was swift and predictable. Calling the townspeople to the village square, he announced that henceforth Halloween was banned. Then he picked up the pumpkin and smashed it to pieces.

Later that night, a purple-pink light appeared in the sky, shining down on the broken pumpkin. Slowly, the pieces began to come together until there, standing in the square, was a huge person with a pumpkin head. Pumpkin Man! He turned and ran toward the Jujubee mansion, making loud, screeching sounds that woke the entire village. As the people gathered in the square, Pumpkin Man emerged from the mansion, dragging Grampy by the nape of his neck. Addressing the villagers, he announced that the old man had no right to cancel Halloween, didn’t deserve to be rich, and that from now on, the family would live and work like everyone else. Then, turning to Grampy, he said that since he spent his whole life making people miserable, he’d spend eternity making them happy. With a wave of his arm, he changed him into a smiley-faced pumpkin. The townspeople went wild with delight.

“Meet Jack-O’-Lantern, my friends.” He admonished the people to place a jack-o’-lantern in their windows each year a week prior to Halloween as a reminder of how important it is to be nice to others. If they forgot to do so, Grampy Jack and misery would return. Lastly, he told the children that if they remembered why jack-o’-lanterns appeared in windows, they’d always enjoy the happiness Halloween brings. With that, Pumpkin Man disappeared in a cloud of purple-pink dust.

In closing, every time you see a jack-o’-lantern in the future, keep the moral of this story in mind and strive to live it. Think what a wonderful world it would be if everyone did so. Finally, I think it fitting
to share with you four lines from the great John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem written in 1850-“The Pumpkin.”

Oh!-fruit loved of boyhood!-the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

Happy Halloween!