Every Halloween, the jack-o'-lantern on the doorstep takes center stage — big and orange, with a carved face and a light inside, carrying the whole Halloween mood

But have you ever stopped to ask a pointed question: why pumpkins, of all things?

Not carrots, not beets, and not turnips either — why is it that when the whole world mentions a "carved-face lantern," a pumpkin pops into mind? The answer is more interesting than you think: originally, the carved-face lantern really wasn't a pumpkin, and it even had nothing to do with pumpkins

At first, the jack-o'-lantern wasn't a pumpkin

Believe it or not: the earliest "jack-o'-lantern" was actually a turnip lantern

The jack-o'-lantern tradition has its true roots in Ireland, but the first thing the Irish carved faces into wasn't a pumpkin — pumpkins weren't a major crop there, so they used turnips (the common European root vegetable), rutabagas, beets, and even potatoes

Turnips were small, hard-skinned, round and flat. The Irish hollowed them out, carved a face, and put a little light inside, making the most primitive "lantern" So strictly speaking, the first carved-face lantern in the world was a turnip lantern, not a jack-o'-lantern

The lantern in the legend: Stingy Jack hollowed out a turnip

And "why a carved-face lantern" is backed by an Irish legend — the one about Stingy Jack we shared in the previous article

Jack was too cunning, tricking the devil twice and forcing him to swear never to claim his soul. When Jack died, Heaven refused him because he was too wicked, and Hell wouldn't take him due to the oath — he could go neither up nor down, only wander the world forever

A lonely ghost needs some light. In the legend, the devil tossed Jack a burning coal from hell. Jack put that coal into a hollowed-out turnip and carried it as a lantern. Thus, "a man named Jack carrying a lantern" — that's the real origin of the name Jack-o'-lantern

You see, the container for that lantern in the legend was a turnip. So what the Irish first carved was naturally a turnip — because the original version of the legend used a turnip

The Irish carved turnips to scare away wandering spirits

After Jack's story spread, the Irish did one thing on Halloween night: hollowed out turnips, carved a scary face, put a little light inside, and placed them at doorways and windowsills

This had two meanings. One was to "represent Jack" — that lantern commemorated Jack roaming with his turnip lantern. The other was to "scare away wandering spirits" — on Halloween night the dead come back, and people carved fierce faces to frighten off lonely ghosts like Jack and keep them out of the house

So the tradition of "carving a frightening lantern and placing it at the door" took hold in Ireland. But at that time, everyone used turnips, radishes, and beets — nothing to do with pumpkins at all

In America: Why Turnips Became Pumpkins

So how did the turnip lantern become a jack-o'-lantern?

The answer thanks the 19th-century Irish immigrants who crossed the ocean

The Irish brought the lantern-carving tradition to America; once there, their eyes lit up: pumpkins here were just so easy to carve

Native American pumpkins are big, round, and soft; compared with the small, hard turnips of Ireland, pumpkins are practically made for carving—one cut obediently opens a hole, hollow them out to hold a light, and the carved face is big and striking; the Irish almost without hesitation swapped their turnip lanterns for jack-o'-lanterns on the spot

This change was natural: the tradition was to carve a scary lantern, and in America the handiest, easiest, and most eye-catching material was the pumpkin; turnips stepped down, pumpkins took the job, and they've been at it for two hundred years

The Pumpkin's Built-in Advantages

Pumpkins beat out turnips, beets, and potatoes to claim Halloween's top seat thanks to some very real built-in advantages:

Big enough to hold things; pumpkins are large, and hollowed out they can hold a candle or a small light, stand steadily, and won't tip over

Soft enough to carve easily; pumpkin flesh is soft, easy for adults and kids alike, and a blade can cut all kinds of shapes with ease, unlike turnips which are stubbornly hard

Striking orange; the pumpkin's orange is especially visible in autumn twilight and on Halloween night, so the grinning face at the door can be seen from far away; that visual impact is something the dull gray turnip can't match

Everything can be used; the pulp and seeds scooped out of a pumpkin aren't wasted—seeds can be roasted and pulp makes a thick soup; after carving a lantern, you get a pumpkin-seed snack on the side, a good deal

A pumpkin that's big, easy to carve, eye-catching, able to hold a light, and with edible seeds simply crushes its rivals

The Name Stayed the Same, and So Did the Legend

One thing is especially worth noting: although the lantern material changed from turnips to pumpkins, the name Jack-o'-lantern didn't change at all

It's still called Jack-o'-lantern, still that stingy Jack, still that poor soul turned away by heaven and refused by hell, wandering around with a lantern; only the shell of the lantern changed—from Irish turnips to American pumpkins

It's like this: the story is the same story, but the prop used to tell it was replaced with one better suited to telling it in America; the name, the legend, and the phrase about a man named Jack carrying a lantern all remain exactly as they were

One Last Note

So, the answer to why a jack-o'-lantern is made from a pumpkin actually has two layers

The first layer is coincidence and practicality: the earliest carved-face lantern wasn't a pumpkin at all, but an Irish turnip; it was 19th-century America that replaced turnips with big, easy-to-carve pumpkins; with easy carving, large size, visibility, and the ability to hold a light, pumpkins won the top spot in Halloween carving

The second layer is the unchanging legend: whether the shell is a turnip or a pumpkin, behind that lantern there always stands Jack, wandering with his lantern, along with the old saying that heaven wouldn't take him and hell wouldn't have him. The container changes, but the lantern remains the same.

So the next time you carve a jack-o'-lantern, think as you carve: the big orange pumpkin in your hands is actually standing in for an Irish turnip. And that turnip, in turn, was standing in for the lantern-carrying man. With every cut, you're carving a lantern, and also a person's longing to go home.

Further Reading:Halloween costume、Halloween decoration、Pumpkin carving and DIY、Halloween party。