10/04/2026
Did you know?
The pumpkin on your porch is an Irish turnip that emigrated, and it is named after a man who tricked the devil twice and got locked out of everywhere. 🎃 Stingy Jack.
The story is old and it is properly Irish. Jack was a mean, drunken, clever man, and one night he met the devil, who had come for his soul. Jack asked for one last drink first. The devil agreed, and when it came time to pay, Jack persuaded him to turn himself into a coin to settle the bill. The moment he did, Jack put the coin in his pocket beside a silver cross, which trapped him. He only let him go on the promise that the devil would leave him alone for ten years. Ten years later the devil came back, and Jack asked him to climb a tree to fetch an apple. While he was up there, Jack carved a cross into the trunk, and the devil was stuck again. This time Jack made him swear never to take his soul at all. When Jack eventually died, heaven would not have him, because he had lived a thoroughly bad life. And hell would not take him either, because the devil had given his word. So the devil, in a final act of spite, threw him a single burning coal from the fire, and Jack put it inside a hollowed-out turnip he was carrying, and he has been wandering the dark with it ever since. Jack of the Lantern. People in Ireland and Scotland carved turnips and mangel-wurzels into frightening faces at Halloween, partly in memory of Jack and partly to keep wandering spirits away from the door. The emigrants took the custom to America, found pumpkins growing everywhere, far bigger and far softer to carve, and never looked back. Anyone who has tried to hollow out a raw turnip with a kitchen knife will understand that decision completely.
Heaven wouldn't have him and hell wouldn't take him. 💚 The Irish origin of the jack-o'-lantern, the tale of Stingy Jack who tricked the devil twice and was left to wander with a coal in a hollowed turnip, a custom the emigrants carried to America where pumpkins proved far easier to carve.