Carved Turnips, Drunkenness and Jack O'Lanterns on Thanksgiving: The History and Folklore behind the Legend of Stingy Jack

 During the 15th or 16th century, in Dublin, Ireland, there lived a drunkard whom everyone knew by the name of “Stingy” Jack.  Now, Jack was a well known alcoholic and a conman and many people in town flat out called him a liar.  It’s believed that his state of dissipation and dishonesty is what caused Jack to earn the nickname “Stingy” because if anyone either out of pity, or trickery, chose to trust Jack he would only let them down and thereby “sting” them either out of drink or simple negligence.

Well, as the story goes, none other than the Devil himself found out about Stingy Jack’s reputation throughout Ireland.  Satan couldn’t believe that there could possibly be a drunken Irish Hell-raiser who was  worse than himself.  And so, one day it is reported, the Devil himself went down to Dublin to have a conversation with “Stingy” Jack.

The night that the Devil came to talk with Jack, he was drunkenly stumbling around in the fields outside the city limits as usual, when in front of “Stingy” Jack a well paved cobblestone path suddenly appeared as if by magic.  And laying in front of him on the cobblestone path was an apparently dead body.  Ole’ “Stingy” Jack must have thought he was hallucinating in his drunkenness, but suddenly, the body sprang to life and it was none other than Satan himself!

The Devil said to Jack, “I’ve come to collect your evil soul.  It is worthy of the fires of Hell.”

When Jack heard that the Devil had come to take him away to Hell he fell to his knees and begged, “Please, Satan, don’t take me til I’ve had one more drink at the tavern!”

Keep in mind that Stingy Jack, who always liked to play both sides of the fence and hedge all of his bets, and whom I’m sure thought he could even trick the Devil himself, always kept a silver crucifix in his pocket, and showed duplicitous piety whenever it suited his needs, so that he hung out with Satan in confidence that he could Sting even him!

The Devil thought on this for a moment, and seeing nothing wrong with Jack’s request, he promptly agreed and followed “Stingy” Jack for a drink at the local pub.

It is said that it was Satan who ordered round after round of drinks for himself and for Jack at the bar.  After his thirst had been thoroughly quenched with ale and whiskey, the always broke and cheap Stingy Jack, requested that the Devil himself pay the large tab that the two had run up.

Satan was impressed by the nerve of Stingy Jack and agreed to his request to pay the bill but there was only one problem--the Devil didn’t carry any cash.

Well, Jack pointed out that Satan was capable of magic and he suggested that the Devil turn himself into a silver coin to pay the tab, before turning himself back into Satan while no one was looking.  Thinking that this was a devilishly good trick, the Devil made himself into a silver coin.

Just then, Jack snatched up the silver coin on the bar and slid the Devil into his pocket, right next to the crucifix that he always carried.  This negated Satan’s black magic.  In order to free himself from Stingy Jack, or forever remain being carried around as a coin in his pocket, Satan had to agree to Jack’s request for ten years of freedom in return for his soul.

Ten years passed and sure enough the Devil came back and confronted Jack in the exact same spot he had a decade earlier.

This time the Devil said, “I’ve come back to take your soul to Hell like you promised and this time no drinking.”

Well, the ever slick and tricky “Stingy” Jack said to Satan, “Devil, my belly is starving.  I drank up all the money I had to eat.  Can you just get me one more apple from this tree before I go?”

And being the fool that he is, Satan once again agreed to Jack’s request.  As Satan climbed up the tree to grab an apple, Stingy Jack took a dozen crucifixes from his pocket and surrounded the tree with them, trapping Satan once again.

This time Stingy Jack made a deal with the Devil that he would never return to take Jack’s soul to Hell in return for his freedom, and given the power of the Holy Cross, Satan was forced to agree.

Before another decade passed, so the story goes, it was drinking and not the Devil that killed “Stingy” Jack.  And Jack died sometime before his fiftieth birthday, and when he got to the Gates of Heaven, he was met there by Saint Peter.

He was stopped at the Gates of Heaven and Jack was told by God that because of his drinking and his dishonest lifestyle that he would not be allowed into Heaven.

After not being allowed into Heaven “Stingy” Jack went down to the Gates of Hell and begged Satan for permission to enter the burning underworld, but Satan only laughed at Jack, and reminded him of the deal that they had made years before.

Forever caught in-between good and evil, a restless soul unable to enter the afterlife, the Devil gave Jack a hollowed out turnip in the form of a toothless, drunken smiling face, and the Legend of “Stingy” Jack history’s ghoulish first Jack O’Lantern that haunted the Irish countryside with no final resting place for its soul was born.

Carved Turnip of Traditional Irish Origin

Yes, that’s right, the first Jack O’Lantern was a turnip and not a pumpkin.  If history had been true to legend, perhaps today we would be carving turnips or rutabagas into ghoulish faces on the night before Halloween and eating turnip instead of pumpkin pie at our Thanksgiving tables in November.

Dating back to the late Middle Ages, or almost back to the exact time at which the legendary tale of Stingy Jack is said to have taken place, carved turnips and other gourds that were lit up at night began to be a part of Fall harvest celebrations in Ireland, Wales and other parts of the British Isles, specifically in connection with the date of All Hallows Eve, today’s October 31st.

            But it was in the United States of America during the 19th century when pumpkins began to gain favor as the preferred gourd for the carving of Jack O’Lanterns.  Interestingly enough, during the late 1860’s after the end of the American Civil War, once Thanksgiving Day in late November had taken hold as a national holiday, and not just a uniquely New England custom, it became customary and fashionable to associate the Thanksgiving Holiday in America  with Jack O’Lanterns as demonstrated below by the Thanksgiving postcard from the year 1909, which juxtaposes the images of a turkey and a pipe smoking Jack O’Lantern.

Thanksgiving Card from 1909

Many books on Holiday traditions in the United States from over a century ago make reference to giving gifts of lit Jack O’Lanterns to children on Thanksgiving Day prior to dinner.

In fact, during the early 19th century, when today’s American Holiday of Thanksgiving first took root in the New England states as a celebration of the Fall harvest and of the Pilgrims founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1620, contemporary sources mention pumpkins and Jack-O’Lanterns only in connection with Thanksgiving and not with Halloween.

Famed New England poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem called The Pumpkin in 1850 which reminisces about the Thanksgiving celebrations of his boyhood near the turn of the 19th century, and references Jack O’Lanterns but does not mention Halloween at all.  Whittier writes in that poem about Thanksgiving, “Oh--fruit loved of boyhood--the old days recalling.  When wood grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!  When wild ugly faces we carved in its skin, glaring out through the dark with a candle within!”

Clearly, John Greenleaf Whittier was one poet who loved his pumpkins!  Though it should also be kept in mind that for John Greenleaf Whittier and for anyone else born in the 18th or early 19th centuries in New England, their puritanical background and upbringing would have made any type of Halloween celebration sacrilege.  

John Greenleaf Whittier

 As for old “Stingy” Jack, who gave his name to Jack O’Lanterns, whether you choose to use them for Thanksgiving or Halloween, his first verifiable historical reference in print appears on January 16, 1836 in a sort of Irish magazine of the time called The Dublin Penny Journal, which published the tale of Stingy Jack in much the same fashion that I related it at the beginning of this article.

So, although Stingy Jack does not technically appear in print until the 1830’s, his story was undoubtedly passed down orally for generations and there are many variations on the tale of Stingy Jack including many that involve tricking angels and not the devil, but all retellings warn against the dangers of drunkenness and alcoholism.

Whether you have already long since put out your Jack O’Lantern for Halloween, or whether you only think of pumpkins at Thanksgiving white stuffing your face with pie in late November, this Autumn we would all do best to remember the moral behind the legendary story and folklore of ole’ Stingy Jack--the man of dissipation and drunkenness who has been forever immortalized by today’s Fall holiday traditions.