The History of Jack-O'-Lantern
The History of Jack-O'-Lantern
It’s that time of year again when you are seeing pumpkins and gourds all around, and perhaps you even have carved some yourself. But do you know where this custom comes from? Because it ain't as simple as cute as a fun face with a light in it for decor.
Most people think of them as nothing more than a fun Halloween decoration, but there’s a lot more history behind that ugly or cute little face than you might think.
We know them as jack-o'-lanterns; you see them all over people's homes, outside, in the form of a pumpkin carved to resemble a face, usually lit from within by a candle, tea light, or otherwise, and flickering through the night. The eyes, the nose, the mouth. It's usually this grotesque-looking fucking face. But did you know these particular customs originated in the British Isles, where turnips and other root vegetables were originally used, not pumpkins? There are other similar customs in Switzerland where turnips are carved into lanterns for St. Martin's Day in November. However, it is the jack-o'-lanterns we will be discussing today.
So Why Do We Call It Jack-O’-Lantern?
One theory from Irish folklore goes like this. There are multiple variations to the story, but this seems to be the most common. There is a tale about a man named Stingy Jack, and let’s just say he was a real piece of work. Jack was a schemer who thought he could outsmart the Devil himself, and on more than one occasion, he actually managed to pull it off…..
The first time, Jack invited the Devil out for a drink. When it came time to pay the bill, Jack convinced the Devil to transform into a coin so the bill could be settled. The Devil agreed, but Jack had a little trick up his sleeve. Instead of handing over the money, he slipped the transformed Devil into his pocket, right beside a silver cross. Being trapped next to the cross prevented the Devil from changing back, leaving him at Jack’s mercy. Jack eventually agreed to let him out, but not before making him promise to leave Jack alone for a year and never claim his soul when he died.
Any “normal” bugger would say, “I tempted fate once; let's leave it be”…but not good ol boy Jack. He had other plans. When the Devil returned the following year, Jack found another way to get the upper hand. He persuaded the Devil to climb a tree to fetch some fruit, then carved a cross into the trunk, leaving the Devil stuck up there with no easy way down. Jack once again negotiated his release, this time demanding that the Devil leave him alone for ten years.
Unfortunately for Jack, being clever enough to outwit the Devil not once but twice didn't exactly earn him any favors in the afterlife. When he finally died, Heaven wanted nothing to do with him because of the life he'd led, and the Devil kept his word and refused to let him into Hell, either. So there Jack was, stuck between the two with nowhere to go.
According to the legend, the Devil sent him off into the darkness with a burning coal to light his way. Jack placed the glowing ember inside a hollowed-out turnip and wandered through the darkness with his makeshift lantern. Over time, he became known as Jack of the Lantern, which eventually shortened to jack-o’-lantern.
And that, according to Irish folklore, is how a man who thought he could outsmart everyone ended up wandering around in the dark with a damn turnip for a flashlight.
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Stingy Jack makes for a hell of a story, but the history of the jack-o’-lantern isn't quite that simple. As much as I love the image of some poor bastard wandering around with a turnip because he pissed off the Devil, there's more to the history than that. The name was being used in other ways, too, and some of those connections have just as much to do with mysterious lights in the darkness as they do with a man and his unfortunate afterlife.
The word Jack was commonly used in Britain as a name for an ordinary man, including someone whose actual name was unknown. So a man walking around carrying a lantern could be described as Jack with the lantern, or Jack of the Lantern. The term was also used in connection with night watchmen who carried lights. Think of it as the historical equivalent of calling some random guy “Lantern Jack” because nobody knows who the hell he is. Or like the generic Jane/ John Doe.
But there was another meaning attached to the term as well, and this one gets a little stranger. Jack-o’-lantern was also used to describe ignis fatuus, sometimes called will-o’-the-wisp. These mysterious, flickering lights were reported over marshes and other damp areas and were historically attributed to supernatural causes. Modern science associates some such phenomena with gases and chemical processes, although the precise explanation for every reported sighting is not established.
The terminology developed over time. By the late sixteenth century, the name will-o’-the-wisp was being used for these strange lights. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Jack with the lanthorn was also being used to describe them. The name eventually appeared in shortened forms, including jack-o’-lantern, and by the early nineteenth century, the term was being used in American English for a lantern made from a carved pumpkin.
So we have a term that was once associated with mysterious lights and figures wandering in the darkness, and one that eventually became associated with a carved lantern. It's not quite as strange a connection as one may think when you consider how people once understood the world around them.
Imagine seeing a strange light dancing in the distance on a dark night, with no obvious person holding it and no clear explanation for where it came from. Before electricity, streetlights, and scientific explanations became commonplace, something like that could easily find its way into local folklore. It isn't difficult to see how people might connect a mysterious light in a bog with a wandering figure carrying a lantern.
There is even an early printed account worth mentioning. In January 1836, the Dublin Penny Journal published a piece titled “Jack o' the Lantern,” signed E. W. The account describes flickering lights over an Irish bog, with one character explaining them as a natural phenomenon while another interprets them through the folklore of a wandering Jack. What's particularly interesting is that the story focuses on mysterious lights over the bog, rather than a carved turnip. The familiar tale of Stingy Jack carrying a burning coal inside a hollowed-out vegetable is a separate part of the folklore, and the two should not automatically be treated as one original story.
Tales about people going against the Devil or even trying to outwit him are older and much more widespread than Stingy Jack. Folklorists classify one group of these tales as ‘The Smith and the Devil,’ in which a clever person makes a bargain with a supernatural figure and then finds a way to cheat the deal. Hell, we even have something similar with Johnny down here in the South, taking on the Devil in a fiddle contest. Research published in 2016 by Sara Graça da Silva and Jamshid Tehrani used methods borrowed from evolutionary biology to estimate that this particular type of tale could date back around 6,000 years. That's an estimate about the age of a story pattern, not proof that people were carving lanterns during the Bronze Age.
So, while Stingy Jack makes for one hell of an explanation for why we have a turnip-wielding wanderer associated with Halloween, the actual history of the term appears to involve several overlapping traditions: ordinary men carrying lanterns, mysterious lights in the darkness of a bog, folklore about wandering spirits, and eventually the carved vegetables we recognize today. Exactly how all those threads came together isn't entirely clear, but that's what makes the history kind of fascinating.
From Samhain to Halloween
Halloween's history is a tangle of seasonal traditions, supernatural folklore, Christian influence, and customs that changed as people moved between countries. To understand where the jack-o'-lantern fits into all of this, we need to look at the beliefs surrounding the time of year, particularly Samhain, and how those beliefs became part of the Halloween traditions we recognize today.
Samhain marked the transition from autumn into winter in the Gaelic seasonal calendar. Rooted in the pastoral year, it marked the end of one pastoral year and the beginning of the next. Historical accounts describe Samhain as a major seasonal festival lasting about three days, with communal gatherings and ceremonial fires playing an important role. The seventeenth-century Irish historian Geoffrey Keating described traditions in which fires were extinguished before a communal fire was lit, with people carrying flames back to their homes to relight their hearths.
Observed at sunset on October 3st and continuing through November 1st. However, October 31 wasn't the original, fixed date of Samhain. The ancient Celtic calendar followed lunar cycles and made adjustments to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons, meaning the timing of seasonal observances didn't always match the dates we use today.
Samhain wasn't simply the end of the harvest; it was also a time associated with the supernatural and spirits. Irish and Scottish folklore described this period as one when the boundary between the living world and the Otherworld was less secure, allowing spirits and supernatural beings to cross between realms more easily. The dead, fairies, and other beings were part of these traditions, although not all were viewed in the same way.
The roots of Samhain may reach back much further than the surviving Irish records suggest. The second-century CE Coligny calendar, discovered in Gaul, includes a month called Samonios, which some scholars believe may be where the Irish got the word Samhain. This suggests possible links between the seasonal traditions of Ireland and those of the ancient continental Celts, although the exact origins and timeline remain debated.
Samhain became a major seasonal observance throughout the Gaelic world, including Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. Related festivals marking the beginning of winter were also observed in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, under names such as Calan Gaeaf, Kalan Gwav, and Kalan Goañv. Galicia, in northwestern Spain, also observes Samaín, though the precise relationships between these regional traditions are complex. Across these customs, the transition into winter was associated with darkness, death, and the uncertainty of the coming season—a backdrop that helps explain the longstanding connection between this time of year, supernatural folklore, and the things said to wander in the dark.
Deceased relatives might be welcomed home with food and drink, with places set for them at the table. Other encounters were considered considerably less pleasant. Folklore warned of fairies emerging from their dwellings in mounds and forts, leading people astray, playing tricks, or even carrying unsuspecting humans into the Otherworld. Certain places were approached with caution, and some traditions advised against travelling alone after dark. Protective measures varied, but stories of iron objects being carried for protection appear in some accounts. Samhain was also associated with divination, particularly concerning marriage, health, and death, while bonfires featured in some Samhain celebrations.
One I have always found interesting, though the lore is scarce, is that the frightening carved faces were intended to ward off or confuse supernatural beings; however, we cannot say with 100% certainty that every lantern served this purpose.
We do have evidence that the turnip lantern was an established tradition in Ireland. In 1943, the National Museum of Ireland received a lantern from Rois Ní Braonáin, a schoolteacher near Fintown in County Donegal. She explained that this type of lantern had regularly been made in the locality around 1900. The museum's artist, Eileen Barnes, created a painted plaster cast of it. Candles placed inside hollowed-out turnips provided the light, while the carved faces suited the frightening and mischievous customs associated with October 31.
And y'all know the fucking Christians couldn't leave well enough alone, so they have a part in this history as well. Pope Gregory III moved the observance of All Saints' Day to November 1 during the eighth century. To line up with Samhain. Before that, it had been observed in May. All Saints' Day was also known as All Hallows' Day, Hallowmas, the Feast of All Saints, and several other variations.
All Souls' Day followed on November 2, becoming a day associated with remembering the faithful departed. The evening before All Saints' Day became known as All Hallows' Eve, which eventually gave us the name Halloween. As Christianity spread through the British Isles, Christian observances existed alongside older seasonal customs and local folklore. Over time, these traditions overlapped and influenced one another, helping shape the Halloween celebrations we recognize today.
Christians did what they do best. Stolen a pagan holiday and rebranded it.
Roman traditions are another part of the wider historical picture, although they were distinct from Samhain. The Romans observed Feralia, a festival associated with honoring the dead, while Pomona was a Roman goddess connected with fruit trees, orchards, and fruit. Some accounts suggest Roman customs may have influenced later autumn traditions in parts of Europe, but the extent of their influence on Halloween remains debated. Feralia, Pomona's associated traditions, and Samhain had different origins and meanings. Similar themes involving death, seasonal change, and the harvest do not make them the same festival, nor do they prove that one directly created the other.
Here is the important part, in my opinion. Lanterns carved with faces may not have started out as some ancient Samhain ritual, as people often assume. They may have begun as practical lanterns that, over time, became intertwined with local folklore, beliefs about wandering spirits, and the seasonal traditions associated with Samhain and Halloween.
Many people in Ireland and Scotland continued seasonal traditions associated with Samhain, and beliefs about wandering spirits became part of the wider folklore surrounding this time of year. The practice of carrying lanterns through the darkness fits into that historical and cultural setting, although we cannot say with certainty that every carved vegetable was intended to serve the same purpose or that the custom originated thousands of years ago.
Enter the Pumpkin: Why Carved Pumpkins?
Pumpkins weren't the original choice for these lanterns. As you have read the original item was root veggies. In Ireland and Britain, people used what they fucking had, which would have been vegetables such as turnips and other root crops, hollowing them out and carving faces into their skins, then placing a candle or burning ember inside. The result was a crude, flickering lantern, often made deliberately ugly or frightening. Can you imagine how much of a pain in the ass hollowing and carving a fucking turnip would be!
The custom of carving veggies became associated with Halloween traditions by at least the nineteenth century, where turnips and other vegetables were hollowed out and transformed into makeshift lights. But why were people carving faces into vegetables in the first place?
These customs became associated with Halloween, but the precise origins and purposes of the carved faces are not entirely clear. Folklore connects them with frightening away harmful supernatural beings, while other traditions involve spirits, protective customs, and the wider seasonal beliefs surrounding the dead. It's tempting to attribute the whole practice directly to ancient Celtic religion, but evidence for the specific lantern custom does not take us neatly back thousands of years. Could it have been realistic and then a fun holiday festivity? We may never know with complete certainty.
So how did we go from carving turnips to sticking a candle inside a giant orange pumpkin?
Immigration played a major role. During the nineteenth century, Irish immigrants brought their Halloween customs and folklore to North America, including during the mass migration associated with the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Here, they encountered a crop that was particularly well suited to the job: the pumpkin.
Pumpkins had been cultivated by Indigenous peoples of the Americas long before European colonization, and they were already a familiar part of the agricultural landscape. By autumn, pumpkins were plentiful, large, and considerably easier to hollow out and carve than the smaller, tougher root vegetables traditionally used in Ireland and Scotland. They were practically made for the job, and the pumpkin eventually became the signature material for the American jack-o’-lantern.
Interestingly enough, a pumpkin wouldn’t be as realistic for the job of light, or to carry around, even though it is easier to carve and hollow out. Though I doubt they were ever so worried about that at this time.
But the pumpkin's association with spooky stories and Halloween didn't happen overnight. Literature helped build that connection, even before carved pumpkins became a familiar Halloween sight. In 1820, Washington Irving published The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, in which Ichabod Crane's hat is discovered near a smashed pumpkin. The pumpkin in Irving's story wasn't carved into a lantern, but its connection to the tale's eerie ending helped cement its place in American spooky folklore.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, carving faces into pumpkins was already a known pastime. In his poem The Pumpkin, John Greenleaf Whittier recalled the childhood fun of carving grotesque faces into pumpkins and illuminating them from within. Interestingly, the poem celebrates the pumpkin as part of the autumn harvest and Thanksgiving traditions rather than focusing on Halloween. That distinction matters because it suggests that carving pumpkins wasn't necessarily an activity invented specifically for Halloween. People were already enjoying the practice, and it could be adapted to different seasonal celebrations.
One of the earliest known published illustrations of a carved pumpkin lantern appeared in Harper's Weekly on November 23, 1867. Titled The Pumpkin Effigy and attributed to L. W. Atwater, the image provides an important visual record of the carved pumpkin tradition. Historian Cindy Ott has identified it as a likely contender for the earliest published image of one.
By this point, the pumpkin lantern was becoming more than an idea in a story or a childhood pastime; it was something people could recognize as a distinct object in American culture.
Written accounts from the same period also show carved pumpkins becoming associated with Halloween celebrations. A newspaper report from Kingston, Ontario, describes people making illuminated faces from pumpkins, although the date of the account is disputed: some references place it in 1866, while others identify 1886. The description makes clear that the pumpkins were hollowed out and lit with candles. By 1892, a report in the Atlanta Constitution described a Halloween gathering decorated with carved pumpkins displaying cheerful faces. The details varied, but the connection between pumpkins, illuminated faces, and Halloween was becoming increasingly recognizable.
These developments happened alongside the arrival of Irish immigrants, many of whom carried Halloween customs and folklore into their new communities. As those traditions encountered American harvest celebrations, local festivities, and Victorian-era parties, they continued to change. We cannot point to one single moment when the pumpkin officially replaced the turnip, nor can we say that one group or one event created the modern jack-o’-lantern. What we can see is a gradual shift as familiar customs took on new forms in a different country.
And the pumpkin's transformation didn't stop there. Halloween itself continued to change through the twentieth century. After World War II, as suburban neighborhoods expanded and trick-or-treating became increasingly established as a children's activity, the jack-o’-lantern settled into its familiar role on front porches and doorsteps. The pumpkin became a way to decorate for the holiday, welcome trick-or-treaters, and give the neighborhood a suitably spooky atmosphere. Think Halloween town.
Pumpkins have their own history, and while that history eventually crosses paths with the jack-o’-lantern, the two didn't start out together. The term jack-o’-lantern had already been around, tied to mysterious lights and figures said to wander in the darkness. A tradition with roots in older folklore and carved root vegetables had become an unmistakable part of American Halloween. How that transition happened isn't entirely clear.
As Halloween customs developed, stories about wandering spirits and Stingy Jack helped give the jack-o'-lantern its supernatural character, while carved vegetables provided a practical way to carry or display a light. Literature, immigration, harvest celebrations, parties, and eventually the rise of suburban trick-or-treating all helped shape the modern holiday. The turnip gave way to the pumpkin in many American communities, and a carved vegetable lantern became one of Halloween's most recognizable symbols.
So, is the jack-o'-lantern connected to Samhain? The honest answer.. Maybe..It definitely belongs to the broader history of seasonal folklore and Halloween customs associated with this time of year, but we cannot prove that ancient Celts carved turnips into frightening faces as part of a specific Samhain ritual. The surviving evidence doesn't give us one neat, unbroken line stretching thousands of years into the past.
What it does give us is a fascinating collection of traditions involving the changing seasons, the dead, supernatural beings, frightening folklore, and the lights people carried into the darkness. Those traditions evolved, crossed borders, and took on new meanings as different communities adopted and adapted them.
So the next time you see a row of smiling, snarling, or downright demonic-looking pumpkins sitting on someone's porch, remember that you're looking at more than a cute autumn decoration. You're seeing the modern form of a tradition shaped by folklore, migration, religious observances, and centuries of people trying to make sense of the darkness outside their doors. The pumpkin may be American, but the story behind that glowing, ugly little face is considerably older and a hell of a lot more complicated than a simple Halloween decoration.
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