I've long sought something "appropriate" for the witching season, and finally found this picture to use as my user pic. It's a drawing depicting a jack-o'-lantern made from a big, purple turnip, with a few black bats flying in the background.
Turnip, you ask?
Carved vegetable lanterns during harvest season arise out of an old Irish legend. A man named Jack tricked the Devil and made a deal with him never to admit Jack into Hell. After Jack died, he didn't go to Heaven and since he'd made the agreement with the Devil not to be admitted there, he was forced to wander the Earth in quest of a final resting place. Jack carved one of his turnips and put a candle inside it so he would have a lantern on his journeys.
The first reference to "Jack-o'-Lantern" appeared in 1663, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
Turnip jack-o'-lanterns are still popular in Ireland and Scotland today. Many vegetables are used including potatoes and rutabagas. When the tradition came to North America, the variety of squash we call pumpkins became a natural vegetable for these lanterns and the species has been bred over the years for large, hollow pumpkins.
Jack-o'-lanterns weren't originally a Hallowe'en thing, though. They were a general symbol of the harvest and of autumn. The vegetable lantern didn't get its Hallowe'en association until after the Civil War, and some sources date that as late as the early 20th century.
One of the advantages of turnip lanterns over pumpkin lanterns is portability. If one pulls the turnip up from the ground and keeps the green leaves intact, the turnip jack-o'-lanterns can easily be carried about by holding on to the leaves.
So, in honor of old tradition, this year's Hallowe'en user pic is the turnip jack-o'-lantern!
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