Please forgive the post-Halloween Halloween post, but I only learned the legend of Stingy Jack last night.

Stingy Jack was a trickster who lived in Ireland.  No one was safe from Jack’s pranks, even the Devil himself…

Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Sadly, Jack died soon after that.  He tried to go up to Heaven, but God wasn’t interested in hosting such a notorious stingy prankster.  So he had no choice but to go to Hell.

But there was a problem.  The Devil had already agreed not to claim Jack’s soul.  Plus, Jack was too much for even the Devil to handle.  So the Devil sent Jack back from whence he came.  But there was another problem.  It was too dark for Jack to see.

So he asked the Devil for a light.  The Devil, being an obliging fellow, tossed Jack an ember from the fires of Hell.  Jack stored the ember in a hollowed out turnip, which he of course had on him.

Jack has since been doomed to wander in the darkness alone.  In an effort to ward off the evil wandering spirits, the Irish townsfolk began carving their own turnips.

When Irish immigrants made it to America in the 1800′s they discovered the pumpkin, which was much better for carving than a turnip.

And that, my friends, is how we got the Jack of the Lantern, or Jack-o-Lantern.

Happy belated Halloween.

Source: History Channel Website, here, and here.  But originally on the National Geographic Channel.