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Word of the Day: Jack o’ lantern
In North America, hollowed-out pumpkins or jack o’ lanterns with gruesome faces and evil smiles lighted by burning candles are a common sight in windows and on doorsteps.
Where did this custom come from, and why do they use pumpkins?
You may have asked yourself this question many times.
If you continue reading, you’ll learn the story of the Jack o’ Lantern.
Hundreds of years ago, in Ireland, there was a cheapass drunk named Stingy Jack who was a very bad man.
The devil heard about him and wanted to know if he was as bad as his reputation.
One night, while stumbling through the darkness, of course, while he was drunk, Jack came upon a body.
It was the devil.
Jack didn’t want to go to hell, so he asked the devil if he could have one last drink for the road before taking the highway to hell.
The devil is not as bad as you may think, so he said yes.
It wouldn’t be right to deny a condemned man his last drink.
After drinking, Jack asked the devil to pay.
He was S-T-I-N-G-Y Jack, after all.
The devil turned himself into a silver coin to play a trick on the bartender.
Instead of using the coin to pay for the beer, Jack put it in his pocket with a Christian cross.
The devil was stuck.
Jack made a deal for ten more years of life.
After ten years, the devil came back, but Jack tricked him once again.
Eventually, Jack’s drinking habit killed him.
He tried to get into heaven, but God said, ‘Go to hell.’
When Jack went to hell, the devil refused to let him in.
Jack was now dead and homeless.
To this day, Jack is doomed to roam the earth carrying a turnip (カブ) with holes carved in it as a lantern. A Jack o’ lantern.
There were no pumpkins in Ireland, but when the Irish made it to North America, they brought the story with them.
However, they soon discovered pumpkins were easier to carve, so they used them instead.
If you ever see a mysterious light in the night moving slowly, think about Jack, his drinking and the devil.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 82.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.