ANST - Jack-O-Lanterns, Samhain, and heads oh my!

[Aline Swynbrook]

> ..happy new year to all the keltoi out there. 
> wonder if jack-o-lanterns are 
> symbolic memory of the days around samhain when ones
> treasured collection of 
> heads would be taken out and exhibited ????

Actually, that might have been a very early begining,
but the Jack-O-Lantern (caps for my reverence of the
season...) is an Irish folktale.  There was a man
named Jack, who was wicked and sly.  When the devil
came to take him, Jack said, "Well now, Lucifer, I
would be sure enough glad to go with ye, but I crave
one last apple before I die. Could ye climb up the
tree and get me one?"
So the devil climbs the tree and when he gets good and
high, Jack whips out a dagger and etches a cross in
the tree, trapping old Scratch up there.  The devil is
furious, and he scream, and threatens and hollers
until he is red(der) in the face.  Finally, Jack
strikes a deal with him.  If the devil will never
again come for Jack's soul, Jack would let him down. 
The devil agrees and Jack scraps the Cross off the
tree.  The devil disappears in a rage.

10 years later, Jack dies of natural causes.  Heaven
wants nothing to do with him, nor purgatory, she he is
sent down to hell.  At the gates of hell, the devil
meets him and says, "I'm sorry Jack but you cannae
come in."

"But, Lucifer, what am I to do?  I can't get to
heaven, and purgatory won't have me."

"I am sorry Jack, but a deals a deal.  i can't take
your soul.  But, to show you I am not such a bad guy,
here is an ember to light your way."  The devil put
the ember in a hollow turnip for Jack, to protect it,
and sent him to roam earth for all eternity.

Now, in Eire, they used turnips to make
Jack-O-Lanterns, but when my English ancestors forced
my Irish ancestors out of Eire (we are a dysfuctional
family tree), they came to America and
discovered...the pumpkin.  So today, American
childeren carve pumpkins in what they don't know to be
an Irish tradition.

Aline, thankful for a day off school tomorrow so she
can get here homework finished before her Samhain festivities.
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