Halloween evolved from the scary jack o lantern Celtic holiday of Samhain. Over the centuries, Halloween transitioned from a pagan ritual to a day of parties, costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick-or-treating for kids and adults.

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Click on username to send feedback to member. Don’t underestimate a will to succeed. If you find any problems with this profile, please report it to the webmaster. No part may be reproduced in any form without explicit written permission. There’s no more classic Halloween image than a glowing jack-o’-lantern perched in a window or on a porch, setting a merrily macabre mood. For decades, carving a pumpkin has been a beloved fall tradition in America, celebrated with parties, festivals, and televised competitions. The backstory of jack-o’-lanterns, including how they came to star in Halloween decor and why they’re carved in the first place, is a tale worth telling.

Along the way, pagan rituals, freaky folktales, and natural phenomena have interwoven to create a fascinating history that’s part fact, part fiction, and all frightfully fun. Nathan Mannion, senior curator for EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin. The idea took deeper hold during the Celtic festival of Samhain, which was originally celebrated on November 1 and inspired many traditions of modern-day Halloween. On Samhain eve, October 31, spirits of the dead were thought to mingle with the living. Related: These paper crafts bring the party on Day of the Dead. A practical purpose also evolved, says Mannion.

Over time people started to carve faces and designs to allow light to shine through the holes without extinguishing the ember. Visitors to the National Museum of Ireland—Country Life, in County Mayo, can see firsthand how terrifying those turnips could look. Then there’s the 18th-century Irish folktale of Stingy Jack, an unsavory fellow often said to be a blacksmith who had a fondness for mischief and booze. Dozens of versions abound, but one recurring storyline is that Stingy Jack tricked the devil twice. When Jack died, he found himself barred from heaven—and from hell.

The story also helped explain ignis fatuus, a natural phenomenon that occurs in marshlands and bogs—such as those in Ireland’s countryside—producing flickering lights as gases from decomposing organic matter combust. If you were to try to follow the light, you could go into a sinkhole or bog, or drown. As Ireland began the process of nationwide electrification in the 1930s, the tale of Stingy Jack started to fade. Left: Over the years, jack-o’-lanterns have become popular in many countries.

Here carvers in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1979 take their knives to turnips. Right: Near the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York, the annual Great Jack O’ Lantern Blaze illuminates the grounds of the historic Van Cortlandt Manor with more than 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins. 1820 and republished in 1858, propelled the pumpkin into American culture like never before. In the short story’s climax, the Headless Horseman chucks an uncarved pumpkin at Ichabod Crane, who is never seen again. But most images of the terrifying villain portray him holding a fiery jack-o’-lantern, which helped the story become a perennial Halloween favorite. Sara Mascia, executive director of The Historical Society of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.

The pumpkin became associated with that element of fear, and that’s why the jack-o’-lantern comes out, because it’s with the galloping Hessian , the Headless Horseman, whatever you want to call him. Related: Witch hunt tourism is lucrative. It also obscures a tragic history. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the influx of Irish immigrants, who brought their traditions and folktales, also helped shape the story of jack-o’-lanterns in America. They discovered that pumpkins, not indigenous to Ireland but common in North America, were much better suited to carving than turnips or potatoes. As more Americans began to celebrate Halloween, the jack-o’-lantern emerged as its most iconic image.

The carved gourds have come to serve as much more than mere decoration. Despite their often fearsome look, jack-o’-lanterns now symbolize a welcoming sense of community. It’s about cementing a community, projecting good values, neighborliness. The pumpkin and jack-o’-lantern take on those meanings, too. Over the past decade, the jack-o’-lantern’s popularity hasn’t dimmed.