It’s that Spooky Time of Year Again

Halloween Citrus Label
Barr Packing Company, Sanger, California


The Jack-o’-Lantern — folklore

There are lots of legends connected to Halloween and the carved pumpkin or Jack-o’-Lantern has its fair share. One Irish legend is about a shrewd but lazy farmer, Jack, who is said to have trapped the Devil up a tree by carving a cross on the trunk. Jack then made a deal to release the Devil if he promised to never tempt Jack again. When he died, Jack’s lazy, evil ways denied him Heaven, and the Devil wouldn't let him into Hell. The Devil gave Jack a single ember to light his way through eternal darkness. Jack carved out one of his turnips, put the ember inside, and began endlessly wandering the Earth. He was known as "Jack of the Lantern," or Jack-o'-Lantern.

According to Wikipedia there are a multitude of variations on this legend:
• The Devil mockingly tossed a coal from the fires of Hell at Jack, which Jack then placed in the turnip.
• Jack tricked/trapped the Devil a variety of ways, including placing a key or other item in the Devil's pocket when the Devil was suspended in the air or plucking an apple from a tree. Some versions include a "wise and good man." helping Jack to prevail over the Devil.
• In some variations, Jack's bargain with the Devil is only a temporary bargain, but the Devil, embarrassed and vengeful, refuses Jack entry into Hell after Jack dies.
• Jack is considered a greedy man and is not allowed into either Heaven or Hell, without anything having to do with the Devil.

In the earliest uses of the term jack-o'-lantern in the mid-17th century, it meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern. In America, carved pumpkins are closely associated with the harvest season in general.

The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote in
The Pumpkin (1850):

Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!