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 lim...