‘Making Lanterns’ by Edward Docker painted in the late 19th century. For children in Victorian Brita
‘Making Lanterns’ by Edward Docker painted in the late 19th century. For children in Victorian Britain Halloween wasn’t complete without carving weird and wonderful faces into different hollowed-out vegetables to make lanterns. The boy in the painting is hollowing turnips to make his lanterns, but swedes and mangelwurzels were also commonly used before the American pumpkin became widely available and popular in the latter half of the 20th Century. Traditionally in the evenings leading up to and including Halloween, children would carry their lanterns in a procession through their village, sometimes having their creations judged in a competition at the end. In the South West of England these lanterns were nicknamed ‘spunkies’ or ‘punkies’ after the local term used to describe the eerie lights which were sometimes seen above marshland. In the East of England they were called ‘Jack o’Lanterns’ after the same phenomenon. -- source link
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