How pumpkin carving became a Halloween tradition
MINNEAPOLIS — With glowing eyes and a crooked smile, jack-o-lanterns crop up every Halloween, but where did the tradition come from?
"Pumpkins derive from an old folktale that's found in hundreds of variants around the world and it's centered around a character named Jack, or Stingy Jack or Jack the Trickster," Lisa Morton, author and Halloween expert, said.
The story goes that after Jack dies, he is rejected from heaven and hell. The devil gives him a single ember which he puts in a carved-out gourd to light his way as he roams the earth forever.
"In Ireland in particular, they loved pranks on Halloween," Morton said. "On Halloween night, they'd set that out somewhere dark and someone stumbling along would come across that, they would get a little fright from it and they might think, 'Oh my goodness it's Jack.'"
The Irish first carved out turnips. When they brought the tradition to America in the mid-1800s, they discovered pumpkins and it has stuck ever since.
"It has become quite an art at this point," Morton said. "I not only carve a pumpkin every year, I grow them."
From growing to painting and carving with stencils, jack-o-lanterns take on many forms nowadays.
What has remained is a tradition still being passed down through generations.