Amy Ruttan

Hello and velcome to another Spooky Thursday Thirteen. In my celebration of my first release an Ellora’s Cave Tricks or Treat titled MASQUE OF DESIRE I have dedicated and will continue to dedicate my Thursday Thirteens to all things Spooky … that is until Halloween or Samhain is over.

You can pick up my book right here.

As for Thursday Thirteen. Thirteen interesting facts about the Jack O’Lantern.

1. Pumpkins are indigenous to North America. North Americans have been enjoying the orange squash fruit for 5000 years.

2. The French explorer Jacques Cartier first reported seeing the pumpkin in 1584. He reported them to be “gros melons” roughly translated into English as “pompions” now Pumpkin.

3. Here’s one variation of the folklore of the Jack O’Lantern. From an Irish folktale called “Stingy Jack”, I love the History Channel: Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”

4. In Europe people would carve scary faces into potatoes and turnips, lighting them and placing them in their window to frighten Stingy Jack and other evil spirits away.

5. I think #5 says it all.

6. Of course there was this disturbing version of “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” from Robot Chicken. The Non-Believers were DESTROYED!!!!

7. Sometimes the phenomenon known as a Will-o-Wisp is referred to as a Jacky Lantern or Jack O’Lantern. This is still a tradition in the province of Newfoundland. You can read more about a Will-O-Wisp here.

8. In the City of London, after every Halloween there are several environmentally friendly depots where you can drop off your discarded Jack O’Lantern and it is recycled into the City’s compost. We are the Forest City after all. Plus, it removes them from the curb and those who like to smash them at night.

9. A great recipe, sometimes I usually garlic salt or chili powder instead of just plain salt. Yummers:

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups raw whole pumpkin seeds
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. Spread the pumpkin seeds on a medium baking sheet. Drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with salt.
3. Bake 45 minutes in the preheated oven, stirring occasionally, until lightly toasted.

10. John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1850 poem “The Pumpkin”

“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! ”

11.

Above is a picture of a Jack O’Lantern made out of a Turnip. Hmmmm. I think I like the traditional version better.

12. The largest pumpkin ever grown was 1,689 pounds. It was grown by Joe Jutras of North Scituate, Rhode Island.

13. The Sexiest Pumpkin. LOL!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 11:52 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.