Halloween

The Sculpture Cemetery

The Halloween series is inspired by the story of Jack O’Lantern:
That was Jack. He was a young lad, and he loved to tease and play pranks.
One evening, he met the Devil, who tempted Jack; it went so far that Jack got the Devil to turn himself into a coin. Jack put the coin in his pocket, and the Devil had to stay there for several days because Jack refused to take the coin out again until the Devil had promised to leave him alone. The Devil wouldn’t promise that, but Jack couldn’t help taking the coin out of his pocket anyway—and then the Devil was back in action.
Another time, Jack tricked the Devil into climbing a tree to pick an apple for him. When the Devil was all the way up in the tree, Jack carved a cross into the tree trunk, and then the Devil didn’t dare climb down again; he was afraid of the cross. And the Devil remained stuck in that tree for three days. Then Jack made a deal with the Devil: if the Devil promised never to tempt him again, Jack would let him come down. The Devil promised.
The Devil didn’t tempt Jack again, but he didn’t forget him either. Many years passed, and one evening the Devil sat down in the forest and waited for Jack.
Jack was walking home from work—he worked on a large farm outside of town. It was a dark and cold evening in late October; it was stormy and pouring rain. Jack walked along the gravel road through the forest. He was carrying a turnip in his arms. He had cut off the top of the turnip, and now he was hollowing it out with his knife and eating the pieces he cut off. At the edge of the forest, the Devil was lying in wait, and when Jack walked past him, he threw a piece of burning coal into Jack’s turnip. Jack blew and blew, but because it was the Devil’s coal, he couldn’t blow out the fire. And the Devil said, “Jack, this is your punishment for tricking me—from now on and forever, you shall wander the world, through darkness and cold, with your lantern lit by my coal. And everywhere you go, people will call you Lantern Jack.”