When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for Halloween

Today, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns is ubiquitous with Halloween. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, however, chiseling ghoulish grins into turnips was the more common practice (at least in Ireland and other Celtic nations).

 The spooky tradition was part of Samhain, an ancient pagan festival that marked the end of summer and the beginning of the Celtic new year and long winter ahead. Kicking off at sundown on October 31 and continuing through November 1, Samhain ushered in the transition from the autumn equinox to the winter solstice. During those two days, ancient Celts believed that the veil between life and death was at its narrowest, allowing spirits to roam freely between both realms.

Celts approached this turning point with both anticipation and dread, fearing that they would unknowingly cross paths with wayward fairies, monsters or ancestral spirits. 

A particularly ominous entity was Stingy Jack, who was believed to have “tricked the devil for his own monetary gain,” writes Cydney Grannan for Encyclopedia Britannica. Because of this, God banned him from heaven, and the devil banned him from hell, forcing him to “roam earth for eternity.”

 For protection from Stingy Jack and other apparitions, people in the British Isles began carving faces into pieces of produce—particularly turnips, but in some cases potatoes, radishes and beets.

 Celebrants placed lit candles inside the cavities, similar to the pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns of modern Halloween.

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