Did you know that pumpkins are a fruit? 1.7 billion pounds of them are grown in the United States every year. Most of these go for pie filling; Halloween decorations are their second most popular use. But that’s today. Pumpkins have traditionally been a symbol of autumn harvest; pumpkins are the last crop of the year to ripen. The first images of pumpkins connect them with Thanksgiving rather than Halloween, but by the late 1890s, carved pumpkins were an integral part of American Halloween celebrations. The first spooky use of a pumpkin in American literature appears in Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in 1819. Halloween is never mentioned in the story. A pumpkin becomes a jack-o-lantern once it’s carved. People have been making jack-o-lanterns at Halloween for hundreds of years. The practice is based on an Irish myth about a man affectionately nicknamed Stingy Jack. The story has several variations. A common one says that Stingy Jack once invited the Devil to have a drink with him. Of course, being known for his thrift, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that he could then use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did this, Jack dropped the money into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, but only under the condition that he wouldn’t bother Jack for a year and that when Jack died, he would not claim his soul. The following year, Jack again tricked the Devil, this time by getting him to climb high into a tree to pick an apple. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a cross into the tree’s bark so the Devil couldn’t come down until he promised Jack not to bother him for another decade. Jack died soon after this though and learned that he was ineligible for entry into heaven. The devil refused to let Jack enter hell either. He sent him back to earth with a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has roamed the earth ever since. The Irish referred to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’ Lantern.” In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack’s lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering spirits. When the Irish came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America became a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember. Although the harvest figure itself is a symbol of autumn, carving the head of a frightening face into it serves as a reminder of the wandering souls who roam the earth on October 31.