Get ready: ‘Stingy Jack’ day observance is Oct. 31

Children in America celebrate Halloween every year on Oct. 31 because of an old Irishman known only as “Stingy Jack.”

 

Meghan Jones of Reader’s Digest posed the question: “Every October, ghoulish gourds peer out from doorsteps across the country. What is it about the crisp air, changing leaves and end of summer that urges us to break out the carving knives and carve jack-o’-lanterns?” 

Jones sought advice from Cerridwen Fallingstar (born Cheri Lesh), a witch, priestess and author of a book titled “Broth from the Cauldron.”

 

“In every ancient pagan tradition worldwide, people honor their dead ancestors,” Fallingstar said. 

“In Celtic countries, notably Scotland and Ireland, on ‘the day of the dead’ that we now call Halloween, people would enter the old burial mounds and light candles inside the skulls” that were mounted there on shelves. 

“As the holiday evolved, celebrants took to carving ‘skulls’ out of large turnips or rutabagas and setting a candle to burn inside.”

 

Fallingstar said: “Stingy Jack was a devious fellow who met the devil one fateful night. The duo shared a drink and, too cheap to pay for his booze, Jack convinced Satan to morph into a coin that he could use to pay for their beverages.” 

Instead of paying the bar tab, “Jack put the coin in his pocket next to a silver cross. The devil was unable to change back into his original form, and Jack held him that way until Satan agreed not to take his soul,” Fallingstar told Jones. 

Shortly after his encounter with the devil, Jack died, but he was “denied access” either to heaven or hell, Jones wrote. 

Instead, Jack was sentenced to roam above the world for eternity, with only a piece of coal to light his way. 

Jack lit the coal and put it in a hollowed-out turnip to serve as his lantern. He carved “a face” to allow the light to pass through.

 

Jack has been drifting aimlessly…ever since, according to Fallingstar. The floating figure was called “Jack of the lantern,” shortened to “jack-o’-lantern.” 

Stingy Jack’s existence was memorialized in a poem written in 1851 by Hercules Ellis of Cork, a major city located on Ireland’s River Lee. 

Cydney Grannan of Encyclopedia Brittanica said the Irish people believed that demonic faces carved on turnips would “frighten away Jack’s wandering soul.”

 

She said that when Irish immigrants moved to the United States, they began carving jack-o’-lanterns from pumpkins.” 

Fallingstar added: “Though the pumpkins were not skull-white like turnips, they were large and easy to carve and cast a benevolent golden light.”

 

Writing for History Hit TV, Kyle Hoekstra of Sussex County, England, dives deeper into the significance of the pumpkin. 

He said: “The pumpkin is a plant native to North America and one of the world’s oldest domesticated plants. Typically orange, with ribbed skin and sweet, fibrous flesh, the pumpkin formed an important part of pre-Columbian diets (before explorer Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492).” 

“Yet, when this particular winter squash is hollowed out, a pair of eyes and a twisted grin are cut into its thick shell, and a lit candle is placed inside, it transforms into a glowering jack-o’-lantern,” Hoekstra said. 

He credits the Irish immigrants for their ingenuity. “Instead of using small, tricky-to-carve vegetables (like turnips), they used more visually appealing, much bigger and more readily available pumpkins.” 

The ideal 2022 Halloween costume may be that of “Stingy Jack” himself, a somewhat unkempt and deranged village blacksmith. He was the ultimate trickster.