Samhain

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Rituals Masks

Jack'o Lanterns

A jack-o'-lantern, sometimes also spelled Jack O'Lantern, is a carved vegetable, usually a pumpkin, but alternately a turnip, associated chiefly with the holiday all-Hallows eve. Typically the top is cut off, and the inside flesh then scooped out; an image, usually a monstrous face, is carved onto the outside surface, and the lid replaced. During the night, a candle is placed inside to illuminate the effect,This was believed to guide the woundering souls of the dead on this night. The term is not particularly common outside North America, although the practice of carving lanterns for all-Hallows eve is.

In America, the carved pumpkin was associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote in "The Pumpkin" (1850):

"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!"

On the night of samhain or halloween it was once also called "punkie night", which children use to go around the village or town with there jack' o Lanterns, singing:

Its punkie night tonight. Give me a candle, Give me a light, If you don't, you'll get a fright. Its punkie night tonight. Adam and eve, they'd never believe Its punkie night tonight

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