The Jack O’Lantern is named after which of these legendary Jacks?

In Irish folklore, Stingy Jack was a drunk, con man, and scoundrel. He tricked Satan into becoming a coin, to pay for the drinks two of them had at a pub. Jack put the coin in his pocket, which already held a cross. The devil could not regain his true form. When Lucifer promised not to take Jack’s soul to Hell, Jack released him.

When Jack died, God would not let him enter Heaven because of his sins. Jack went to Hell seeking a position on Satan’s staff, but the Lord of Hell kept his word. He gave Jack a lump of burning coal, to roam the night in search of his own Hell.

Jack carved a rutabaga for the ember and was thereafter seen roaming swamps and bogs, which is how people explained swamp gas from decomposition, glowing by moonlight. Jack was then also called Jack of the Lantern, which morphed into “Jack O’Lantern.”

Carved vegetables were used all over Europe as small lanterns particularly in Autumn, as the days shortened. When immigrants from Ireland and the British Isles reached America, they found pumpkins, and a Halloween tradition developed.