![]() Jack eventually, and surprisingly soberly, realized that the corpse was, in fact, the Devil, come to collect his evil soul. At one point he came across a body on the cobblestone path, its face contorted in an eerie grimace. One night Jack was stumbling through the countryside, typically drunk. Jack’s bad reputation became the envy of the Devil himself, who subsequently went out to see for himself if Jack was as bad as he had heard. ![]() The legend behind the jack-o-lantern tells the story of an Irishman called Stingy Jack, a drunk, deceiving and manipulating all-round dreg of society. This is similar to the idea behind the jack-o-lantern which acts as the reverse of the Japanese tradition, it is used to ward away the evil spirits. Often a candle is put outside the front door so that your forebears can find their way home. In Japan the day of the dead occurs on the 15th of August (or July), the bon festival where the spirits of the ancestors return to the world of the living. This kind of festival is done all over the world. In the liturgical calendar Halloween is a time to remember the dead, in particular the saints (the hallowed) and martyrs. This is the time of year when the weather has started getting progressively worse, when the first of salvos the annual bombardment of Christmas adverts begin, and of course when people dress up as miscellaneous undead and carve Jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Traditional Irish jack-o-lantern, Museum of Country Life, Ireland
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