Who knows the story behind the custom of using an empty pumpkin lit with a candle during the Halloween Season?

Answer 1

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack-o%27-lantern
"An Irish legend tells of Jack, a lazy but shrewd farmer who used a cross to trick the Devil, then refused to free him unless he agreed to never let Jack into Hell. The Devil agreed. When Jack died, he was too sinful to be allowed into Heaven, but the Devil wouldn't let him into Hell. So, Jack carved out one of his turnips, put a candle inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He was known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-Lantern.

There are variations on the legend. Some of which include:

The Devil mockingly tossing a coal from the fires of Hell at Jack, which Jack then places in the turnip.
Jack tricking/trapping the Devil a variety of ways, including placing a key or other item in the Devil's pocket when the Devil is suspended in the air or plucking an apple from a tree. Some versions include a "wise and good man" or even God helping Jack to prevail over the Devil.
Jack's bargain with the Devil being different. In some variations, the deal is only a temporary bargain, but the Devil, embarrassed and vengeful, refuses Jack entry after Jack dies.
Jack is considered a greedy man and is not allowed into either Heaven or Hell, without anything having to do with the Devil.
Despite the colorful legends, the term jack-o'-lantern originally meant a night watchman, or man with a lantern, with the earliest known use in the mid-17th century; and later, meaning an ignis fatuus or will-o'-the-wisp.[1]

A North American tradition
In England, Scotland, and Ireland, there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from vegetables, particularly the turnip, mangelwurzel, or swede.[2] But not until 1837 does jack-o'-lantern appear as a term for a carved vegetable lantern,[3] and the carved lantern does not become associated specifically with Halloween until 1866.[4] Significantly, both occurred not in the British Isles, but in North America.

Historian David J. Skal writes,
Although every modern chronicle of the holiday repeats the claim that vegetable lanterns were a time-honored component of Halloween celebrations in the British Isles, none gives any primary documentation. In fact, none of the major nineteenth-century chronicles of British holidays and folk customs make any mention whatsoever of carved lanterns in connection with Halloween. Neither do any of the standard works of the early twentieth century.[5]
In America, the carved pumpkin was associated with the harvest season in general, long before it became an emblem of Halloween. The poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who was born in 1807, wrote in "The Pumpkin" (1850):

"Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,

When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!""

Answer 2

what really happened was Jack died and was not allowed into Heaven for his miss deeds as a man so he came back to earth and soon after that the devil came calling for Jack and He told the devil that he would go with him IF the devil would climb an apple tree and pick an apple from the top of the tree and the devil not thinking anything of it climbs the tree. While he is in the tree Jack takes out a blade and carves a CROSS into the trunk of the tree, and on return from picking the apple the devil finds he cannot dismount the tree. He crys out for Jack who tells him that he will let him go ONLY if he never returns to take jack to the place below and so the devil promises and Jack cuts the CROSS out of the tree and they part ways, and Jack goes and finds a GOURD (or small Mellon) and carves a face into it and places a candle in it to light his way between worlds he goes to HEAVEN again only to be rejected a gain and so growing tired reluctantly goes down to hell only to find he isn't welcome their ether and so to this very day he wanders back from heaven to hell trying to find a place to rest and we honer him by carving pumpkins in the "Jack-o'-Lantern" style to help his soul's passage between this world and the next.

Answer 3

An Irish legend tells of Jack, a lazy but shrewd farmer who used a cross to trick the Devil, then refused to free him unless he agreed to never let Jack into Hell. The Devil agreed. When Jack died, he was too sinful to be allowed into Heaven, but the Devil wouldn't let him into Hell.

So, Jack carved out one of his turnips, put a candle inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He was known as "Jack of the Lantern", or Jack-o'-Lantern.

Answer 4

in assessment to the remarkable tale contained in the apocrypha, the wax candles that i take advantage of do no longer final very long. I frequently placed the menorah the two on a tray or a counter made out of a few fireproof cloth. optimistic, there's a touch greater risk of fireplace with *any* open flame, yet i've got no longer discovered my hanukkah candles to have critically greater my fireplace risk.

Answer 5

A veg is a plant or part of a herb used as food

Answer 6

it was to ward off evil spirits during the pagan festival of the dead