Stingy Jack
“Dear Great Pumpkin, I look forward to your arrival on Halloween night.”
~Linus van Pelt
I must confess that Halloween, despite being the second largest commercial “holiday”, is not my favorite holiday. I could say honestly that Halloween doesn’t even make the top five as far as a “holiday” goes in my book and I will do you the courtesy of keeping those thoughts locked away to myself. The only redeeming things about Halloween in my mind are the joy I get from carving pumpkins with my kids and helping my kids fabricate their costumes (like the goddess Athena and a junior veterinarian…this year’s costumes). We don’t do gore in our household, no blood, disembowelment or dark creatures of horror to give my kids (or myself) nightmares for weeks on end and I’m ok with that but I do love pumpkin carving. Pumpkin carving is a great opportunity for us to sit as a family and let our collective creativity run amuck on those glorious orange (and sometimes white) winter squash of various shapes and sizes.
The history of carving pumpkins or Jack O’ Lanterns hails back to the time well before the Great Potato Famine struck our good friends from Ireland. Sometime in the seventeenth century, as the story goes, there was an Irish folktale about a man named Jack who was so tight with his money he was known as Stingy Jack. The tale recounts the details of Stingy Jack inviting the devil to have a drink with him at the local tavern but Jack didn’t want to pay for the drinks (hence the name Stingy Jack) and Jack played a trick on the imp and the devil had to leave Jack alone for a year. The following year the devil returned and once again, Stingy Jack was able to trick the devil into leaving him and his soul alone but this time for a ten year period. Soon after Jack passed away and God refused to allow him into heaven for the games he was played with the devil and the devil refused him to enter into hell because of the trick Jack had played on him and he was bound not to take his soul so Stingy Jack could only roam the realm of this world with only a lump of burning coal to light his way. As the folk tale goes, Jack placed the lump of burning coal into a carved out turnip and wandered the land being forever more known as Jack of the Lantern or simply Jack O’ Lantern.
When the massive Irish influx of the American shores happened due to the Great Hunger (the Irish Potato Famine) between 1845 and 1852, over a million Irish immigrants came to the shores of the United States bringing with them the story and the tradition of carving large turnips, potatoes and beets into Jack O’ Lanterns. The Irish discovered that a native winter squash that grew so abundantly in North America provided a better platform to carve Jack O’ Lanterns and thus carving images into pumpkins was born. This tradition of carving pumpkins has been elevated to new heights as an art form in recent years and the ever increasing skills used to create incredible sculptures from a squash can be seen throughout the land (and the internet!).
I hope everyone has a happy and safe Halloween, don’t eat too much candy and be careful when carving you own pumpkin. Who knows, if the weather is right and you’re feeling really sincere, maybe the Great Pumpkin will come to visit you at your favorite pumpkin patch. Take care of yourself and each other, remember, we’re all in this together.
Wm Reid
Best Home Care Services
325 N Eastern Ave
Connersville, IN 47331
765-827-9833
wmreid@bhcshealth.com