As Halloween is at the back of the corner, let's talk about the most popular Halloween symbol ever: THE JACK O'LANTERN
1.DO YOU REALLY KNOW WHERE THIS TRADITION COMES FROM??
It comes from an old celtic legend "Stingy Jack", Stingy Jack or Jack of the Lantern is a mythical character whose story started several centuries ago in Ireland , there lived a drunkard known as "Jack the Smith". Jack was
known as a deceiver, manipulator. On a fateful night, the devil overheard the tale of Jack's bad actions. Unconvinced (and envious) of the rumors, the devil went to
find out for himself whether the story was true or not.
Typical of Jack, he was drunk and wandering through the countryside at night and he found a body with a strange face, it was the Devil, Jack realised it was his end, so he begged the devil to let him drink beer before departing to hell, the Devil accepted and took Jack to the local pub and they drank together.
Jackdid not want to pay, so asked the devil to transform himself into a silver coin and the devil did so. Jack put the coin into his pocket where he also had a cricifix which prevented the devil from scaping.
The devil was forced to leave Jack's soul free for ten years in exchange of his freedom.
Ten years later they met again, as the devil prepared to take him to the underworld, Jack asked if he could have
one apple because he was hungry. Foolishly the devil once again agreed to
this request. As the devil climbed up the branches of a nearby apple tree, Jack
surrounded its base with crucifixes, so the devil could not go down from the tree.
As Jack did before, he demanded that his soul never be taken by the devil into
hell. The devil agreed and refused to take Jack's soul to hell.
Some years later Jack died, he was not allowed in heaven because he had been a bad person all his life long, and as the devil promised his soul could never be taken into hell.
From that day on until eternity's end, Jack is doomed to roam the world between
the planes of good and evil, with only an ember inside a hollowed turnip.
This story was brought to America by irish inmigrants who believed that ghosts and souls abandoned their tombs in order to visit the earth in Halloween, they used turnips in order to frighten ghosts. When they arrived to America they found that pumkins were common there and easier to use than turnips, so they substituted the turnips and began to use pumpkins as the symbol of the condemned soul of Jack who wanders until the end of timje the earth,.....
Here you have the tale of Stingy Jack on video:
2.THE ART OF PUMPKIN CARVING:
Carving a pumkin has become an art for so many people, watch the following videos and see what can you do with a pumkin!!!
Go to this link and you will see other incredible Jack o'lanterns creations :
