Pumpkin - King of Halloween

 


These days the pumpkin, which in my younger days was mainly a staple part of autumn soups and stews and the occasional pie, is the supreme symbol of Halloween, mainly in the form of the "Jack-o-lantern".  I buy and carve at least one if not more pumpkins every Halloween, and lit a candle to put in it, and then put it by a window or just outside  my door.  So I was interested in finding out how and why this tradition came to exist.

Traditional Irish turnip lantern, picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Halloween is generally thought to have  originated with the beliefs and tradition of the Celts and therefore traditions from Ireland and Scotland, as well as Wales and western areas of England have tended to have survived in some form to modern days.  The Jack-o-lantern is thought to have originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland and Scotland with the practice of carving grotesque faces out of turnips or beets and then placing a lighted candle inside these to create lanterns which were used to guide the way home in the dark for both travellers, and for the spirits of dead ancestors, or to light the way to church in later Christian times.  The grotesque faces represented spirits or fairies, otherworldly creatures and may have been part of the celebrations of Samhain, where the spirits of the ancestors were invited to visit.  In Christian times, some thought that the grotesque faces represented the souls of the tormented in purgatory.

The Jack-o-lantern myth is closely linked to the Will-o'the-Wisp stories which is told across Western Europe.  Some stories say Jack was a lazy blacksmith, others that he was a thief.  In all the stories, Jack is certainly shown as shrewd.  He tricks the Devil, whom he meets along the road at night and who was after collecting Jack's soul.  Jack persuades the Devil to climb an apple tree and traps him there by carving a cross into the lower part of the trunk.  

A variant of the story tells of Jack persuading the Devil to gather instead the souls of the villagers, victims of his thieving and who are chasing him along the road.  He suggests the Devil turns himself into a silver coin, which Jack will toss in front of the villagers who he claims are sure to scramble to catch it giving the Devil the chance to trap them.  But as soon as the Devil turns into a coin, Jack tucks it into his wallet next to a silver cross and this takes the Devil's powers away.  When he did eventually die, Jack was turned away from both heaven and hell, and he carried a lantern to frighten away other lost souls in his journeys through purgatory.  Either way, Jack, who was associated with the light that is brought into the darkness by fighting away the Devil, is "resurrected" every year in the form of hollowed out turnips - or these days - pumpkins, in which lighted candles are placed to dispel the dark and frighten away any evil spirits that might be wandering about on Halloween night.

Pumpkim carving seems to be turning into an art form!

"Our man Jack is the King of Pumpkin Patch, everyone hail to the Pumpkin King", says the opening song of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and with pumpkins grown specifically to decorate homes for Halloween, the humble pumpkin is, for a few weeks, the king of autumn.