The story of the Jack 'o' Lantern

I've had this article, from the West Michigan Food for Thought Magazine (October 2009), for a few days and I've been waiting for October to post it.

"By far the most identifiable Halloween icon is a face carved into a glowing orange pumpkin. Would that which we call a jack o' lantern glow so brightly in a vegetable? Once upon a time, the story goes, id. Lay it at the feet of an Irish cad of centuries ago. The legend of one Stingy Jack paints him an ornery cuss: a drunkard, and a trickster he was, a bargainer out for all he could get.
Such a trickster, indeed, that one fine day he tricked the Devil himself. With cunning Eden's serpent might have admired. Jack convinced the Devil to climb an apple tree. Quick as a wink, before the old tempter could climb down, Jack trapped him by placing crosses around the base of the tree. Pressing his advantage, Jack bargained: in return for a promise not to take his soul upon his death, he'd remove the crosses. The promise given, he let the Devil go.
Jack mended his ways not a bit, grew old and died. Stingy and conniving as ever, the old drunkard was turned away from Heaven's gate for his bad character. Taking himself to the Devil's door, Stingy Jack sought a home with the damned. Ah, but the Devil had not forgotten being tricked by a mortal: he refused Jack entry down below as well. In response to pleas of mercy, the Devil through Jack a small coal, a fragment of hellfire, for his troubles. A crafty one, Jack hollowed out a turnip to protect the burning ember that lights his way as he wanders still 'twixt Heaven and Hell.
The story goes that in recognition of the cautionary tale of Stingy Jack (who came to be know as Jack o' Lantern), the Irish carved fierce faces into turnips to scare away Jack or any ill intentioned spirit abroad during the old harvest festival on October 31. (Others in the British Isles used other vegetables: the British used beets; the Scottish, used potatoes as well as turnips.)
And so might the practice have remained had not the Great Potato Famine occurred. When many Irish emigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s to build new lives for themselves, the Halloween custom of Stingy Jack came along. Turnips seems in short supply, but pumpkins were a lovely substitute, big and orange and easy to carve. Jack's turnip lantern was left behind and the pumpkin version is with us to this day."

Hopefully you all enjoy the legend behind the Jack o' Lantern!