th<\/sup> century as another name for the ignis fatuus (also known as \u201cWill O\u2019 the Wisps”), the strange light sometimes seen over marshland, possibly caused by the combustion of gases as organic matter decomposes. The name Jack may have been used\u00a0 simply because it was a generic name commonly given to a lower class man when his name was not known. Curiously enough, if this is the origin, the Will from the Will O\u2019 the Wisps story, h![\"scary](\"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/pumpkin-1743356_1920.jpg\")
as a similar story to that of Stingy Jack, though the man in question was an evil blacksmith, named Will Smith.<\/p>\nAs to how these lanterns came to be associated with Halloween, we need only to look at the origins of the holiday. The name Halloween comes from All Hallow\u2019s Eve, which is the night before the religious holiday, All Saints Day. This is a day to remember all saints and martyrs. As is true with many religious holidays, the date coincides with a pagan one, in this case Samhain. The rituals surrounding Samhain were based in the belief that the dead came back as ghosts during the night prior to the holiday. To scare them off, people wore costumes and masks and left food and wine on their doorsteps to keep the spirits out of the home. Songs and jokes (tricks) were also thought to keep evil spirits away and became common occurrences on that night.<\/p>\n
In Ireland and Scotland, people carved their own \u201clanterns\u201d by carving scary faces in to potatoes and turnips to frighten away Stingy Jack and other evil spirits. In England, they used large beets. Immigrants to the United States soon discovered that pumpkins were an ideal substitute, and thus the pumpkin Jack O\u2019 Lantern was born.<\/p>\n
Today Jack O\u2019 Lanterns can be spooky or silly, simple or intricate. While many stick with the simple eyes, nose and mouth (with or without teeth), others spend time creating works of art with elaborate images including faces and even landscapes. Some are lit using the traditional candle, while other use a flashlight or flameless candle instead. While it won\u2019t serve as a lantern if it hasn\u2019t been carved, some people paint faces on their pumpkins instead.<\/p>\n
Are you carving a Jack O\u2019 Lantern this year? What does yours look like?<\/p>\n
![\"pumpkin-facts\"](\"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/pumpkin-facts.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Save<\/span><\/p>\nSave<\/span><\/p>\nSave<\/span><\/p>\nSave<\/span><\/p>\nSave<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is believed that the idea of the Jack O\u2019 Lantern comes from an Irish folktale about Stingy Jack, a man who invited the Devil to have a drink with him. Not wanting to pay for the drinks, Jack convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin so that the drinks could be paidRead more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[46,45],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-of-things","tag-jack-o-lanterns","tag-pumpkins"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/10\/halloween-pumpkin-carving-face.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7mVKP-3s","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kimberlyyavorski.com\/whatwhyhowcome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}