A jack-o'-lantern, sometimes also spelled Jack O' Lantern, is a pumpkin whose top and stem have been cut out and interior removed, leaving a hollow shell that is then decoratively carved. Jack-o'-lanterns are associated with the holiday Halloween. The term is not particularly common outside North America.
At one point, the art of pumpkin carving went extreme... these are the photos.
NERD
NOTE: Halloween originated under the name of Samhain as a Pagan festival among the Celts of Ireland and Great Britain. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century.
NERD
NOTE: Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent (according to, for example, Catalan mythology about witches and Irish tales of the Sídhe).
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