Who knew that legends of pumpkins have their beginnings as far back as Colonial times?

Naturally the settlers stole the idea of pumpkin eating from the Native Americans, who had made it a tradition in their culture for many years before Colonial arrival.

Yet you may be even more shocked to learn that pumpkins go back further than the Colonial era—much farther in fact. Try 2,000 years, when the Celts ruled Ireland. These folks celebrated what was then known as All Hallows Eve, when the dead were celebrated by carving out gourds and placing candles in the scooped out vegetables, in an effort to ward off the dead. They even celebrated it on October 31st.

The tradition changed, of course, when European settlers arrived on our shores and realized that pumpkins were simpler to carve out than the traditional gourd from their ancestors.

The legend of the jack o’ lantern begins in 1837. And while there are several versions of this legend, all of them involve an Irishman named Jack. This Irishman has a bit of a problem: he’s stuck somewhere between heaven and hell; we don’t know why he wasn’t allowed into Heaven but we know he also struck a deal with the devil, so as to keep his soul. Jack wandered the darkness until the devil tossed Jack an ember; Jack promptly placed this ember into a carved gourd.

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