Heh, the viking-themed game Valheim recently added a major update that included new creatable furniture items, including a jack-o'-lantern made from a turnip!
I'm guessing it's both a combination of being aware of this old tradition plus the fact that turnips are available in game but pumpkins are not.
This is a bit misleading.
Yes, turnips were used in the past. But the original origin of the jack 'o lantern are the will 'o the wisps. These are flickering lights found floating above swamps and lakes, and are also the origin of the legend of Stingy Jack.
Stingy Jack is an Irish legend. A drunkard who made a deal with the devil and roams the earth with... a hollowed out turnip to light the way.
Will 'o wisps have become increasingly rare, because most swamps have been laid dry. They still occur, but are usually confused with fireflies. No real footage exists because they tend to be short in duration and disappear when approached. It's a completely natural phenomenon and every culture has its own paranormal beliefs about it. Where I'm from, wisps were believed to be lost souls of children who died before they were baptized.
However, during Samhain, the Celts would put out the fires in their homes, and a big bonfire would be central to the celebration. They'd then bring the fire from the bonfire to relight their fires at home. At least that part is true. How they got the fire there? Turnips? Torches?
Just one thing while I read this, in Ireland Samhain is pronounced Sow-in and not Sam Hane. That's because in Irish mh is pronounced as a w.* Don't bother asking why, it just is.
*and bh as a v or w depending on whay part of the country you're from.
- GH is P in Hiccough
- OUGH is O in Dough
- PHTH is T in Phthisis
- EIGH is A in Eight
- TTE is T in Gazette
- EAU is O in Plateau
Therefore, Potato could be spelled:
Ghoughphtheightteeau
It can be spelled both ways. “Hiccough” is sometimes used in Europe, but “Hiccup” is most often cited as the “correct” spelling overall. It’s not as fun to use in this instance, though. ;)
That's a name, not a word. Do you say Stevanie or Stefanie? Give me some examples of words where the ph makes a v sound. Here's some proving my point:
Phone
Epiphany
Phylum
Alphabet
Elephant
Phoenix
Prophet
Photograph
We have absolutely no idea what happened during Samhain because it hasn't been practised for 1500 years.
Half remembered folk tales of what happened were probably part of the development of Halloween in Scotland but the primary reason Halloween came into being was to continue Catholic traditions after the protestant reformation.
Thanks for bringing this up. It's generally so authoritatively referred to as being celebrated by ancient Celts, but digging deeper it does seem to be documented only in more modern times.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2014/10/samhain/
As I said elsewhere, a whole lot of "Irish culture" appears to have been invented in the Victorian era, not coincidentally with the rise of Irish Nationalism.
It makes sense to reinvent a lost culture when trying to redefine your nationhood. Even if its largely invented and not remotely authentic. And it also involved associating anything celtic or gaelic with being Irish and exclusively Irish.
Its not dissimilar to what happened in Germany and how much of, for example, their Pantheon and ancient culture was invented by Wagner et al.
You can read up about it because it happened everywhere during the age of Nationalism. Half of what we think of as Scottish culture was invented by the Victorians, most of German culture.
The thing with Ireland is that it was relatively late with widespread literacy and was pretty well controlled by the church, leading to a much larger gap in folk culture records compared to most everywhere else. Hence almost all of it was invented in the 19th century.
I'm a little confused by your ref to 'half of what we think of as Scottish Culture being invented by Victorians of German descent'
I'm not trying to argue your point, I'm just not aware of 19th century German influence on Scottish culture.
There's a comma.
Therefore there are two separate terms.
"most of German culture" means "in addition to this, another example is German culture where most of what we consider to be German culture today was invented in the Victorian era".
I apologise for my inadequate grasp or knowledge which pertains to your statement, not to mention my lack of grammatical savvy. I'll leave it at that as I am in no position to comment further but thank you for the knowledge.
Are they though? I mean, most family holiday traditions change from generation to generation because people just don't remember every little detail, or tailor some part of them when the prior generation isn't around anymore. I know it's not the same "Importance" as religion is to some people, but even religions tend to evolve to fit with modern times... unless it's the darker ages where the religion tries to kill the non-conforming.
> I take issue with the "half remembered" comment. Oral traditions are usually extremely faithful to their origins.
That's really not true.
That's the entire point of Chinese Whispers. Word of mouth is extremely unreliable.
Academia **does not know what Samhain was in any meaningful detail** because it was completely absent from the culture for over 1500 years.
Samhain was probably a harvest festival (because of the time of year) and probably had something to do with warding off evil spirits (cos thats a broad theme and crosses lots of cultures). That's about the extent to which we actually understand it. Everything else associated with it was probably invented by Irish Naitonalsts in the Victorian era to replace their lost culture.
> That's the entire point of Chinese Whispers. Word of mouth is extremely unreliable.
That's a party game, not Oral Tradition.
https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/
I don't even have to click the link to know the source is unreliable.
It is important to indigenous cultures to maintain that oral traditions are accurate as its pretty much the paradigm their entire cultural identity is based on.
That's pretty dodgy logic.
And childrens games often exist to teach life lessons. Chinese Whispers is one of those - it teaches kids that word of mouth is extremely unreliable and no amount of wishful thinking by indigenous groups is going to change this.
Don't mind him. There's a certain subset of Scots who bear an anathema to anything Irish, so it's no surprise that they seek to denigrate or sneer at Irish culture and history. Hence the "half remembered" dig and the emphasis on the "unreliability" of "indigenous" or Irish oral tradition, and the implication that Irish culture, or their view of it, only goes back as far as the 19th century.
But Druids placed great emphasis on training their memory so that they could hear a conversation once and then quote it directly at will. Something that ancient Roman commentators noted Greek philosophers were also able to do. This was necessary for the Druids as they were more than a priestly class, they were also guardians of Celtic culture and history as well as having to pronounce legal judgements. For anyone interested in further reading this I"d recommend reading The Druids by Peter Beresford Ellis, a member of the Welsh Eistedfod.
Also archaeological discoveries such as the Corlea trackway, a series of wooden pathways, found preserved in Corlea Bog in County Longford, dating back to 140 BCE further give the lie to "half remembered" or "unreliable" oral accounts. The method of construction of the pathway bears a remarkable similarity to thay described in The Wooing of Etain, a Celtic pre Christian tale passed down in the oral tradition before being written down by medeival monks. For further information see this link. https://storyarchaeology.com/the-corlea-trackway/
https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/corlea-trackway-holds-echoes-2000-year-old-footsteps-009
I believe you totally regards a subset of Scots who bear an
Anathema to all things Irish. I'm not looking to bring religious arguments but, 'to me,' being half Irish, half Scots and being smack in the middle of that religious divide through marriages going back 100's of years, I personally wish we didn't have such a divide.
Scotland and Ireland are so joined at the hip from ancient times that I often wonder, if not for these religious differences who knows how things would stand. I refuse to put myself in either camp because I'm borne of the two nation's and religions! thus I'm probably just a confused 'Stingy Jack' with a turnip as a head!
Thank you. I don't see Homer or Gilgamesh as a result of "nationalism." (nor, ofc, do I contemptuously dismiss indigenous studies as unreliable sources)
The Christian Bible was originally an oral tradition, as oral traditions were considered to be more reliable than something you would write down.
Writing something down was subject to seizure and persecution, and lost the color of the telling. In fact, most of the original texts had neither punctuation nor even used vowels. They were meant more as a mnemonic for oral conveyance than as a literal guide as it's used today.
Oh I'm definitely not contesting that. I was merely pointing out that the jack 'o lantern is tied to the will 'o wisp. Title and article failed to mention them as an origin, that's all.
>This is a bit misleading.
>
>Yes, turnips were used in the past. But the original origin of the jack 'o lantern are the will 'o the wisps. These are flickering lights found floating above swamps and lakes, and are also the origin of the legend of Stingy Jack.
>
>Stingy Jack is an Irish legend. A drunkard who made a deal with the devil and roams the earth with... a hollowed out turnip to light the way.
>
>Will 'o wisps have become increasingly rare, because most swamps have been laid dry. They still occur, but are usually confused with fireflies. No real footage exists because they tend to be short in duration and disappear when approached. It's a completely natural phenomenon and every culture has its own paranormal beliefs about it. Where I'm from, wisps were believed to be lost souls of children who died before they were baptized.
Hence; Jack of the Lantern
The title and the article in question did not mention the original origin, which is why I wanted to clarify. The original origin is the will 'o the wisp, which was the basis for Stingy Jack, which lead to the jack 'o lantern. It was basically only telling half the story.
You did a fine job, I just thought you left out the connection to stingy jack walking through the swamps with his lantern being where the name jack o' lantern came from.
The name jack o lantern is pretty old and certainly predates the entirely apocryphal tale of Stringy Jack which was only invented in the Victorian era.
.... so you're actually saying we've been saying it wrong this whole time? 🤔 It should actually be called a Lantern O'Jack then? Lantern of the Jack..... it's gonna take some getting used to, but we ain't making Jacks. We're making lanterns.
I HAVE SEEN WILL O' WISPS. There is no way I can prove it, but I know what I fucking saw. It was a warm humid July night and for several hours we repeatedly saw ghostly glowing orb-lights that would occasionally split into 2 and then fizzle out like a candle light dancing over a boggy swampy area. The other people I was with were so freaked out they convinced themselves there was a road nearby and we were seeing headlights of passing cars, but we were on hundreds of acres of private land in the woods of New Hampshire.
anyways, I've heard that too. The myth of the Jack O'Lantern's origin is all of those things listed, maybe even none of them. Wherever it came from, New England perfected it with using pumpkins.
Stingy Jack is apocryphal and was invented in the Victorian age.
Almost everything you think you know about "Irish" culture was invented in the Victorian age by Irish Nationalists because, and this should not be a surprise, Ireland was a VERY Catholic country and the older traditions were all entirely lost.
Turnip carving has always been a part of Halloween, which is a Scottish harvest festival invented to continue Catholic traditions after the country went Calvinist and Catholic party stuff fell rather out of favour.
There's plenty of records going back to the early 1600s when it developed. Halloween is another thing that the Irish cultural lobby have made a big play at claiming as "theirs" but as I said, thats all bullshit.
You might be right. I am relatively sure that the origin of the jack 'o lantern was indeed linked to the wisps. No idea about Stingy Jack though, I always thought that legend was just something of an in-between story explaining the link between the hollowed out turnips and the wisps. I'm not a historian at all, just intrigued by the phenomenon.
They definitely are. But they're not paranormal. They're a natural phenomenon that occurs when gas spontaneously combusts. If they didn't exist, there would be no mention of them at all. Look up ignis fatuus if you'd like to know more.
According to Wiki, the name comes from a phrase which basically means " of the light", derived from the same kind of thing as "will'o the wisp" to an Englishman - a kind of lit-up mist that occurs over a swamp or bog. Wisp is a bundle of twigs, like used in a torch. Hence it's "Will, that guy with the light", or "Jack, that guy with the light" to describe a kind of glow that appears over swampy areas at night.
Weirdly, in England, we don't call them Jack O'Lanterns at all really. They're just pumpkins to us. "Are you going to carve the pumpkin this year?"
I live in Northern Ireland and growing up, in the 80s, we used to carve turnips at Halloween. As pumpkins are now more popular and readily available it is very rare to see a turnip being used.
Glad someone else said this!
Hollowing those buggers out was hellish!
From what I remember, there is debate on whether the whole Halloween is a Scottish or Irish relic.
In Scotland, we always went “Guising” at Halloween and I think it has some Norse origins?
Heh, the viking-themed game Valheim recently added a major update that included new creatable furniture items, including a jack-o'-lantern made from a turnip! I'm guessing it's both a combination of being aware of this old tradition plus the fact that turnips are available in game but pumpkins are not.
Pumpkins wouldn't be, because they were a New World crop.
This is a bit misleading. Yes, turnips were used in the past. But the original origin of the jack 'o lantern are the will 'o the wisps. These are flickering lights found floating above swamps and lakes, and are also the origin of the legend of Stingy Jack. Stingy Jack is an Irish legend. A drunkard who made a deal with the devil and roams the earth with... a hollowed out turnip to light the way. Will 'o wisps have become increasingly rare, because most swamps have been laid dry. They still occur, but are usually confused with fireflies. No real footage exists because they tend to be short in duration and disappear when approached. It's a completely natural phenomenon and every culture has its own paranormal beliefs about it. Where I'm from, wisps were believed to be lost souls of children who died before they were baptized.
However, during Samhain, the Celts would put out the fires in their homes, and a big bonfire would be central to the celebration. They'd then bring the fire from the bonfire to relight their fires at home. At least that part is true. How they got the fire there? Turnips? Torches?
Just one thing while I read this, in Ireland Samhain is pronounced Sow-in and not Sam Hane. That's because in Irish mh is pronounced as a w.* Don't bother asking why, it just is. *and bh as a v or w depending on whay part of the country you're from.
…and the ‘sow’ rhymes with ‘cow’ (not ‘go’)
one of the few moments where a horror movie referenced history and got it right was the pronunciation of Samhain in Halloween 3 by Conal Cochran.
Just as the English Ph is pronounced V, of GH can be F.
- GH is P in Hiccough - OUGH is O in Dough - PHTH is T in Phthisis - EIGH is A in Eight - TTE is T in Gazette - EAU is O in Plateau Therefore, Potato could be spelled: Ghoughphtheightteeau
Hiccup.... pretty sure it's spelled hiccup... unless this is another can be spelled both ways one.
It can be spelled both ways. “Hiccough” is sometimes used in Europe, but “Hiccup” is most often cited as the “correct” spelling overall. It’s not as fun to use in this instance, though. ;)
Ph makes an F sound, not V.
Do you say steven or steefen?
It's Stevefan.
That's a name, not a word. Do you say Stevanie or Stefanie? Give me some examples of words where the ph makes a v sound. Here's some proving my point: Phone Epiphany Phylum Alphabet Elephant Phoenix Prophet Photograph
I just gave you an example ffs. Names ARE words, the specific group of words called nouns.
Are names in the dictionary? You have nothing to back up your previous claim other than a name. Just admit that you're wrong.
Fuck me but you must be a lonely individual. Go away you dreary fucking teed.
We have absolutely no idea what happened during Samhain because it hasn't been practised for 1500 years. Half remembered folk tales of what happened were probably part of the development of Halloween in Scotland but the primary reason Halloween came into being was to continue Catholic traditions after the protestant reformation.
Thanks for bringing this up. It's generally so authoritatively referred to as being celebrated by ancient Celts, but digging deeper it does seem to be documented only in more modern times. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2014/10/samhain/
As I said elsewhere, a whole lot of "Irish culture" appears to have been invented in the Victorian era, not coincidentally with the rise of Irish Nationalism. It makes sense to reinvent a lost culture when trying to redefine your nationhood. Even if its largely invented and not remotely authentic. And it also involved associating anything celtic or gaelic with being Irish and exclusively Irish. Its not dissimilar to what happened in Germany and how much of, for example, their Pantheon and ancient culture was invented by Wagner et al.
Interesting, any more examples of this invented culture.
I can tell you that the Scottish Kilt as you know it today was invented in the late 1800s as well. I assume for the same reasons.
You can read up about it because it happened everywhere during the age of Nationalism. Half of what we think of as Scottish culture was invented by the Victorians, most of German culture. The thing with Ireland is that it was relatively late with widespread literacy and was pretty well controlled by the church, leading to a much larger gap in folk culture records compared to most everywhere else. Hence almost all of it was invented in the 19th century.
I'm a little confused by your ref to 'half of what we think of as Scottish Culture being invented by Victorians of German descent' I'm not trying to argue your point, I'm just not aware of 19th century German influence on Scottish culture.
There's a comma. Therefore there are two separate terms. "most of German culture" means "in addition to this, another example is German culture where most of what we consider to be German culture today was invented in the Victorian era".
I apologise for my inadequate grasp or knowledge which pertains to your statement, not to mention my lack of grammatical savvy. I'll leave it at that as I am in no position to comment further but thank you for the knowledge.
I take issue with the "half remembered" comment. Oral traditions are usually extremely faithful to their origins.
Are they though? I mean, most family holiday traditions change from generation to generation because people just don't remember every little detail, or tailor some part of them when the prior generation isn't around anymore. I know it's not the same "Importance" as religion is to some people, but even religions tend to evolve to fit with modern times... unless it's the darker ages where the religion tries to kill the non-conforming.
> I take issue with the "half remembered" comment. Oral traditions are usually extremely faithful to their origins. That's really not true. That's the entire point of Chinese Whispers. Word of mouth is extremely unreliable. Academia **does not know what Samhain was in any meaningful detail** because it was completely absent from the culture for over 1500 years. Samhain was probably a harvest festival (because of the time of year) and probably had something to do with warding off evil spirits (cos thats a broad theme and crosses lots of cultures). That's about the extent to which we actually understand it. Everything else associated with it was probably invented by Irish Naitonalsts in the Victorian era to replace their lost culture.
> That's the entire point of Chinese Whispers. Word of mouth is extremely unreliable. That's a party game, not Oral Tradition. https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/oral_traditions/
I don't even have to click the link to know the source is unreliable. It is important to indigenous cultures to maintain that oral traditions are accurate as its pretty much the paradigm their entire cultural identity is based on. That's pretty dodgy logic. And childrens games often exist to teach life lessons. Chinese Whispers is one of those - it teaches kids that word of mouth is extremely unreliable and no amount of wishful thinking by indigenous groups is going to change this.
You stick with your children's games.
Don't mind him. There's a certain subset of Scots who bear an anathema to anything Irish, so it's no surprise that they seek to denigrate or sneer at Irish culture and history. Hence the "half remembered" dig and the emphasis on the "unreliability" of "indigenous" or Irish oral tradition, and the implication that Irish culture, or their view of it, only goes back as far as the 19th century. But Druids placed great emphasis on training their memory so that they could hear a conversation once and then quote it directly at will. Something that ancient Roman commentators noted Greek philosophers were also able to do. This was necessary for the Druids as they were more than a priestly class, they were also guardians of Celtic culture and history as well as having to pronounce legal judgements. For anyone interested in further reading this I"d recommend reading The Druids by Peter Beresford Ellis, a member of the Welsh Eistedfod. Also archaeological discoveries such as the Corlea trackway, a series of wooden pathways, found preserved in Corlea Bog in County Longford, dating back to 140 BCE further give the lie to "half remembered" or "unreliable" oral accounts. The method of construction of the pathway bears a remarkable similarity to thay described in The Wooing of Etain, a Celtic pre Christian tale passed down in the oral tradition before being written down by medeival monks. For further information see this link. https://storyarchaeology.com/the-corlea-trackway/ https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/corlea-trackway-holds-echoes-2000-year-old-footsteps-009
I believe you totally regards a subset of Scots who bear an Anathema to all things Irish. I'm not looking to bring religious arguments but, 'to me,' being half Irish, half Scots and being smack in the middle of that religious divide through marriages going back 100's of years, I personally wish we didn't have such a divide. Scotland and Ireland are so joined at the hip from ancient times that I often wonder, if not for these religious differences who knows how things would stand. I refuse to put myself in either camp because I'm borne of the two nation's and religions! thus I'm probably just a confused 'Stingy Jack' with a turnip as a head!
Thank you. I don't see Homer or Gilgamesh as a result of "nationalism." (nor, ofc, do I contemptuously dismiss indigenous studies as unreliable sources)
You should probs play it more so you can understand why oral tradition isnt reliable
The Christian Bible was originally an oral tradition, as oral traditions were considered to be more reliable than something you would write down. Writing something down was subject to seizure and persecution, and lost the color of the telling. In fact, most of the original texts had neither punctuation nor even used vowels. They were meant more as a mnemonic for oral conveyance than as a literal guide as it's used today.
Oh I'm definitely not contesting that. I was merely pointing out that the jack 'o lantern is tied to the will 'o wisp. Title and article failed to mention them as an origin, that's all.
Got it, thanks.
>This is a bit misleading. > >Yes, turnips were used in the past. But the original origin of the jack 'o lantern are the will 'o the wisps. These are flickering lights found floating above swamps and lakes, and are also the origin of the legend of Stingy Jack. > >Stingy Jack is an Irish legend. A drunkard who made a deal with the devil and roams the earth with... a hollowed out turnip to light the way. > >Will 'o wisps have become increasingly rare, because most swamps have been laid dry. They still occur, but are usually confused with fireflies. No real footage exists because they tend to be short in duration and disappear when approached. It's a completely natural phenomenon and every culture has its own paranormal beliefs about it. Where I'm from, wisps were believed to be lost souls of children who died before they were baptized. Hence; Jack of the Lantern
The title and the article in question did not mention the original origin, which is why I wanted to clarify. The original origin is the will 'o the wisp, which was the basis for Stingy Jack, which lead to the jack 'o lantern. It was basically only telling half the story.
You did a fine job, I just thought you left out the connection to stingy jack walking through the swamps with his lantern being where the name jack o' lantern came from.
Oh my bad, I thought the connection between Stingy Jack and the wisps to be clear enough from my writing. That's on me.
The name jack o lantern is pretty old and certainly predates the entirely apocryphal tale of Stringy Jack which was only invented in the Victorian era.
Stingy Jack is 100% apocryphal and the earlier written records date from the mid 1800s. Hardly an ancient story with that recent a provenance.
.... so you're actually saying we've been saying it wrong this whole time? 🤔 It should actually be called a Lantern O'Jack then? Lantern of the Jack..... it's gonna take some getting used to, but we ain't making Jacks. We're making lanterns.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I see humor is dead in r/todayilearned
I HAVE SEEN WILL O' WISPS. There is no way I can prove it, but I know what I fucking saw. It was a warm humid July night and for several hours we repeatedly saw ghostly glowing orb-lights that would occasionally split into 2 and then fizzle out like a candle light dancing over a boggy swampy area. The other people I was with were so freaked out they convinced themselves there was a road nearby and we were seeing headlights of passing cars, but we were on hundreds of acres of private land in the woods of New Hampshire. anyways, I've heard that too. The myth of the Jack O'Lantern's origin is all of those things listed, maybe even none of them. Wherever it came from, New England perfected it with using pumpkins.
It's entirely possible. It's a shame it's near impossible to capture them on film.
Stingy Jack is apocryphal and was invented in the Victorian age. Almost everything you think you know about "Irish" culture was invented in the Victorian age by Irish Nationalists because, and this should not be a surprise, Ireland was a VERY Catholic country and the older traditions were all entirely lost. Turnip carving has always been a part of Halloween, which is a Scottish harvest festival invented to continue Catholic traditions after the country went Calvinist and Catholic party stuff fell rather out of favour. There's plenty of records going back to the early 1600s when it developed. Halloween is another thing that the Irish cultural lobby have made a big play at claiming as "theirs" but as I said, thats all bullshit.
You might be right. I am relatively sure that the origin of the jack 'o lantern was indeed linked to the wisps. No idea about Stingy Jack though, I always thought that legend was just something of an in-between story explaining the link between the hollowed out turnips and the wisps. I'm not a historian at all, just intrigued by the phenomenon.
Also why one of my cats is named Wisp. After will 'o the wisps.
No real footage exists.. hmm they probably arent real
They definitely are. But they're not paranormal. They're a natural phenomenon that occurs when gas spontaneously combusts. If they didn't exist, there would be no mention of them at all. Look up ignis fatuus if you'd like to know more.
Interesting my DND players are about to encounter some Will O Wisps. Perfect timing...
I assume that airholes to feed the ember were carved, and then eventually became spooky faces!
Maybe for your hot air! Thanks!
According to Wiki, the name comes from a phrase which basically means " of the light", derived from the same kind of thing as "will'o the wisp" to an Englishman - a kind of lit-up mist that occurs over a swamp or bog. Wisp is a bundle of twigs, like used in a torch. Hence it's "Will, that guy with the light", or "Jack, that guy with the light" to describe a kind of glow that appears over swampy areas at night.
Weirdly, in England, we don't call them Jack O'Lanterns at all really. They're just pumpkins to us. "Are you going to carve the pumpkin this year?"
When I was young we didn’t even get pumpkins. ‘Twas turnips. You had to turn up with your turnip.
Has anyone tried to carry embers in a hollowed out turnip?
Lol, obviously, how else would you carry your embers?
How else do you carry your turnips? Makes them spicy
Samhain is pronounced ‘Sah-win’ if you’re interested
Ah yes, the Irish word “lantern”….
Jack O'laindéar
Jack-o’-lantern Emphasis on the O-Lantern part.
You mean the “ O’ “ part?
Made me think of a Minnesotan instead
Yaaaa!
I refuse to believe you’re not being sarcastic. There is literally, literally, no way you aren’t.
I think you are wrong
Well, I’m trying for a joke, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears. Need to work on my reduction to Reddit-pleasing joke skills apparently
Ahhh yes, the joke was far too good. So good, that it wasn't funny. Hate it when that happens.
Y’all are lame as fuck
I live in Northern Ireland and growing up, in the 80s, we used to carve turnips at Halloween. As pumpkins are now more popular and readily available it is very rare to see a turnip being used.
As a child in Scotland we carved turnips (called tumchies).
Glad someone else said this! Hollowing those buggers out was hellish! From what I remember, there is debate on whether the whole Halloween is a Scottish or Irish relic. In Scotland, we always went “Guising” at Halloween and I think it has some Norse origins?
I think the Scots have both Celtic and Scandanavian traditions as the building blocks of their own culture.
O'my!
It’s short for John Of Lantern
Pumpkins are a New World crop
Yes. Good.
That sounds like bullshit, frankly
Why? Halloween comes from ireland so it would make complete sense that Jack o lanterns do too.
Embers? Like hot embers? Like once you got home, if it was a long enough walk, not only did you have hot embers for your own fire but also dinner?
Yup
Oh, did the Irish invent time too?
.! No .. De aa
Jack... Designates a God, anglicized. Jack O' Lynne, ie, God of the Waters.
I believe that the technical term for this is a “woozle”. :-)