Jack O'Lantern

I set myself a challenge to grow my own Pumpkins for Halloween this year. 

So back in February I planted some pumpkin seeds which eventually became these seedlings! 

From the seedlings I picked two strong plants which by June were flowering! 

Then 2 female flowers developed lovely pumpkins. They needed a bit of help from me transplanting male pollen on to the female flower but it worked and that's the main thing! I had to get a huge pot to grow the pumpkins in and transfer it to the flower border to give them room! 

But it was worth it as from the tiny seeds we got 2 big pumpkins which today we carved! Jase had got me a pumpkin carving knife last year and we made quick work of it!  We had one each. 

Jase went for a cat design I went for a more traditional Jack O'Lantern. 

So why do we have Jack O'Lanterns at Halloween? It appears from reading around that carving root vegetables and veg like turnips, potatoes and beets has been popular for some time. Though the carved turnips of Olden days Ireland are really quite scary as this picture from the Museum of Ireland shows: 

Carving turnips at Halloween seems to have been popular in the British Isles from at least the 18th Century though it may well have gone on before that. Written records of carved Jack O'Lanterns start in the late 18th and early 19th century when there was a real craze for recording folk lore and traditions. 

The pumpkin being native to America was adopted by European settlers who realised carving a pumpkin was a whole lot more fun and colourful than carving a turnip. (Though Baldrick from Blackadder would disagree.) Then pumpkin carving got introduced to the UK via America. But it's clear that although pumpkins aren't native to the British Isles the tradition of Jack O'Lanterns certainly started here. 

Why are they called Jack O'Lanterns though? Well like a Will O'The Wisp the name was used for flames of marsh gas seen above peat bogs or marshes particularly in places like East Anglia and Ireland. But why Jack? Well they're named after a character who appears in many folk tales as Stingy Jack and although there are many versions of his story the key theme is that Jack, a drunkard and trouble maker, out of some petty meanness or gambling trouble, ends up tricking the devil and imprisons him. He eventually lets the devil go with a promise that the devil will not take his soul. So when naughty Jack dies he is too bad to go to heaven but the devil keeps his word and won't let him into hell either. So Jack's soul wanders lost and in darkness until the devil gives him an ember in a turnip head with a carved out face on it, to light his way. Jack is doomed to wander like this for eternity!

It was thought that making a Jack O'Lantern would ward off evil or they could be used to scare folk into thinking Stingy Jack's lost soul was abroad. 

Photo of pumpkins at Kings Cross last year

Finally a poem I wrote last year: 

Heavy 

Curved belly fruit.

I knock 

And you answer 

A hollow echo, 

That means you are ripe,

For the carving,

For the scooping,

For the slashing of facial features,  

Burning you from the inside

To illuminate these grinning holes.

Halloween pumpkin 

You do not deserve this!