People left 'extremely disturbed' after discovering what Halloween Jack O'Lanterns originally looked like
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Getty stock
The original Jack O'Lanterns were nothing like they are today - they were carved out of a different vegetable entirely, and were so spooky they've left some people 'extremely disturbed'.
Before pumpkins became the go-to Halloween decoration, people in Ireland were carving turnips into creepy faces to keep evil spirits away.
According to the National Museum of Ireland, these terrifying creations were part of Oíche Shamhna, or Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival marking when the barrier between the living and the dead was weakest.
“Candles were placed inside the turnips and they were used to frighten people on the night of 31 October,” the museum explains.
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Some were even carved from potatoes, because apparently, nothing says Halloween like a haunted spud.
But after similar photos were shared on Twitter, users likely experienced their first scare of the festive season!
"A reminder that the original jack o' lanterns date back to 18th century Ireland if not earlier, were based on a shady boozy blacksmith called Stingy Jack who cheated the devil & was trapped between 2 worlds, were carved from turnips and looked like this," they wrote, accompanied by some pretty terrifying-looking turnips.
One user wrote: "These are extremely disturbing!"
With a second typing: "And bloody hard to carve too."
Yes, trying to remove the 'insides' of a turnip I imagine would be much harder than taking the inners of a pumpkin out - and that sentiment is evidenced by some in the comments.
One of which highlighted: "That's what we had growing up. My mum didn't trust us with knives so she made us carve our turnips out with a spoon. Do you have any idea how long that took?
While another added: "I’m 52 and grew up in North East England. We had carved turnips not pumpkins, the smell of singed turnip is something I’ll never forget. It was so hard to carve, actually nearly impossible to hollow out, that it needed Dad to do it."
The museum also notes: “The pumpkin that is prevalent today is an American development of this Irish tradition.”
Basically, the US took the idea, swapped the rock-hard turnips for pumpkins, and made it a lot less traumatising.
As for the name, it comes from the eerie Irish folktale of Jack - 'who was welcome neither in Heaven nor Hell and was destined to wander the countryside forever, with just a lantern to light the way'.
If Jack’s lantern looked anything like those creepy turnips, we get why he’s still wandering.