Fact 25: Why do people do pumpkin carving at Halloween?
Fact 25: Why do people do pumpkin carving at Halloween?
The reason people started carving vegetables by making them into jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween time began in Ireland interestingly they didn't carve pumpkins until later when the tradition moved to America this is the shortened version.
The longer version is that In the 19th century, turnips or mangel wurzels, these were hollowed out to act as lanterns and often carved with grotesque (means ugly or distorted) faces. This is because of an Irish myth about a person called Stingy Jack.
The story basically goes, he tricked the Devil to basically to gain drink and food by getting the Devil to turn into money. When Jack died, God didn’t allow him into heaven, and the Devil didn’t let him into hell, so Jack was forced to roam the earth for eternity. Because of this Irish people started to carve demon like faces out of turnips to frighten away Jack’s wandering soul. When Irish immigrants moved to the America, they began carving jack-o’-lanterns from pumpkins, because pumpkins are native to parts of America and weren't native to Ireland.
