A Story for Jasmine

Jasmine, I remember when you were just about 1-1/2 years old you liked to tell us stories. My favorite story was the one you told about Snow White. When you got to the point about her eating the poison apple you would grab your throat and make choking noises. It made me laugh every time you did it. So I have decided to tell you some stories. You can use them to practice your English and maybe you can tell them to your friends at school.

Many years ago in Ireland a group of people called Celts were living on farms. At harvest time in the fall they collected the crops from the fields and killed the animals they had raised to prepare the meat for storage so they could use it during the winter. They thought that at this time the evil spirits of the dead could come back to earth and cause them trouble. To prevent this happening they made huge fires at night and threw all the bones of the animals they had killed into the fire. They also put on scary masks and danced around the fires to frighten away the evil spirits. Today we buy our meat at the market but a lot of kids take advantage of this old custom and dress up in scary masks to trick their friends and neighbors into giving them candy.

Also at this time in Europe the people thought that a person's intelligence was located in their head. So, to scare off evil spirits they used the head of a vegetable to make a lantern to scare away the evil spirits. They usually took a large turnip, carved a hole in it, and placed a candle in to to use as a light. There was an old farmer named Jack; he liked to drink a lot and gamble. One day he tricked the devil into climbing up a tree. He carved a cross on the trunk of the tree to scare the devil and keep him up in the tree. The devil put a curse on Jack and made him wander the earth at night carrying a lantern made from a turnip with a candle inside it.

In America people found out that pumpkins are larger, more available, and easier to carve - so they use pumpkins instead of turnips. The lights are called Jack's Lantern or Jack-O-Lanterns.

These are pictures of neighbor's yards that they have decorated to scare the kids who come to Trick-or-Treat and ask them for candy.

These are some Jack-o-Lanterns.

These are pumpkins by our front door

This is the candy we will give kids coming to "Trick-or-Treat"