Halloween: What does it all mean?
October 31st, 2009
If you’re anything like me, you know what Halloween is all about. Trick-or-treating and costumes and gore. Right?
But how did it all come to be? Why IS a bat so freaky? Why aren’t other scary figures like the Boogie Man associated with Halloween? Monarch13 explores this in her lens 7 Scary Symbols of Halloween.
“Jack-O-Lantern literally means “Jack of the Lantern” and an Irish legend tells of a man named Jack, who could not enter heaven or hell and was doomed to wander aimlessly each night, with only a candle, in a hollowed out turnip to guide him. To keep him away, local villagers would carve scary faces into turnips and place them in their windows. Irish immigrants in the United States began using commonly available pumpkins rather then turnips, and the practice continues to this day. Thus the flickering flames from the Jack-O-Lantern eventually became associated with the spirits of the dead.”
Who woulda thunk! Visit the lens to learn why bats and witches and black cats are the symbols of Halloween, plus more.
I’ll never “turnip” my nose at pumpkin carving again. Happy Halloween!
http://www.squidoo.com/halloween-symbols
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