In a sense, jack-o'-lanterns existed before the first scary face was ever carved into a vegetable. So ubiquitous has the tradition become that in 2021, by one estimate, Americans were expected to spend at least $700 million on Halloween pumpkins to carve. Today, of course, carving jack-o'-lanterns is for everyone, not just lads. "Any lad skillful with a penknife can carve the eyes, nose, and wide mouth with huge teeth that seem like those of a veritable goblin when they appear suddenly at a window or adorning a gate post." Photo credit: Rannpháirtí anaithnid, English Wikipedia.īy the mid-1800s, making jack-o'-lanterns was associated with Halloween, specifically, in parts of the British Isles, by which time the practice was also making its way with emigrants from Ireland and Great Britain to North America, where pumpkins took the place of turnips.Īn article in an 1885 issue of Harper's Young People magazine speaks of American boys taking delight in fashioning " funny grinning jack-o'-lanterns made of huge yellow pumpkins with a candle inside" to celebrate Halloween. This withered turnip jack-o'-lantern at the Museum of Country Life in Ireland dates from the early 1900s. The chief end (and that a very bad one) is to take some younger boy than the rest, and who is not in the secret, to show it to him, with a view to frighten him. In Hampshire, boys, of a dark night, get a large turnip and scooping out the inside, make two holes in it to resemble eyes and one for a mouth, when they place a lighted candle within side, and put it on a wall or a post so that it may appear like the head of a man. The use of jack-o'-lanterns in after-dark pranks and tomfoolery was presumably widespread even before Howell's time and still in evidence 200 years later when William Holloway wrote this entry for his 1839 " General Dictionary of Provincialisms": One of the earliest mentions of a turnip lantern in print occurs in a letter penned in 1640 by English author James Howell, in which we find "a Turnip cut like a Death's-head with a Candle in't" credited with terrifying "Boys and Women" (though apparently no one else). In the British Isles of the 17th century, jack-o'-lanterns were made out of turnips. The custom itself is centuries old, though carving jack-o'-lanterns wasn't always linked specifically to Halloween, nor was the raw material always a pumpkin. It carries with it a rich legacy of history and folklore. The humble jack-o'-lantern, a pumpkin shell with a macabre face carved into it, lit from inside with a candle, is one of the most recognizable symbols of Halloween.
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