These spooky carvings are the original Jack-o'-lantern carved from turnips, not pumpkins.
Carving of pumpkins is a popular Halloween activity these days and it has its roots in ancient Irish tradition.
The ancients believed that at Samhain/Halloween/Last day of October, that the veil separating the world of the living from the world of the dead (Otherworld) became very thin, allowing Otherworld spirits to mingle with the living.
There were two kinds of spirits, the good and bad.
Good spirits were welcomed into homes and were honored through celebrating and feasting.
Evil spirits also made the crossing and it was believed would roam the earth searching for souls to take back to the Otherworld. Consequently the ancients came up with a plan to fool the evil spirits.
Stingy Jack was one of the more famous evil spirits and his soul roams the earth at Samhain.
After dark, the best way to scare an evil spirit is to have evil looking faces shining through the darkness. This hopefully was enough to frighten Stingy Jack and the other bad spirits away.
According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him.
True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks.
Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form.
Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul.
The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit.
While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died.
As the myth goes, God would not allow such an unsavoury figure into heaven.
The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell.
He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way.
Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since.
The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”
Irish immigrants in the US carried on the traditions of their homeland but used pumpkins instead of turnips which are much easier to carve.
For this very reason the American tradition has travelled back across the Atlantic and nowadays it is mostly pumpkins which are carved into Jack O’Lanterns in Ireland.
