Deal with the Devil

the god of stories, knowledge and trickery. And let's not forget the Greek Prometheus who stole fire from the Olympians to give to humanity. But of all these trickster myths, there's one that stands out the most during the Halloween season, the Irish legend of Stingy Jack. As his name suggests, Stingy Jack was a bit of a selfish guy. He

was known for lying, stealing, and drinking. Rumors about his vile behavior made it all the way down to the underworld, and the devil himself became fascinated by his most evil of mortals. One night, Stingy Jack was taking a drunken strolled on a dark cobblestone path, and he stumbled upon what appeared to be a dead body. But Jack, a born trickster, could not be tricked. He immediately realized that

the body was actually the Devil in disguise. Still, meeting Satan on a deserted street was never a good thing. Jack assumed the devil was there to collect his sinful soul and take it down to hell. Desperate to make it out alive, Jack decided to try one final trick. He asked Lucifer for a little favor, just one last pint of beer. Amused by Jack's insistance, Satan said sure, and the pair took off toward the nearest pub. After downing way more than a single pint, Jack revealed his secret.

He didn't have a cent on him. He needed the devil to pay the tab. Now, being the ruler of the under the world, Lucifer didn't find it necessary to carry cash, but he agreed to transform himself into a coin only so Jack could pay the bill and then leave. As soon as Satan turned into a silver medallion, Jack grabbed the coin and stuck it in his pocket, where he also happened to be carrying a crucifix and that crucifix kept Satan trapped. In order to escape, he had

to make a deal. In exchange for his freedom, Satan promised to spare Jack's soul for ten years. It was a good enough deal for Jack, so he pulled the silver coin out of his pocket and he and Lucifer went their separate ways. However, Jack had learned exactly zero lessons from his near death experience. Ten years later, he once again was out walking, drunk, stumbling down a cobblestone path when he happened upon Satan. The devil was there right on time, ready to cash in on their deal.

Of course, stingy Jack had something of a contingency plan. He told Lucifer that he was just so hungry, couldn't Satan climb an apple tree and grab him a snack before carding him off to the under world, and the devil made the mistake of saying yes. He climbed in nearby tree, and as he plucked an apple from its branches, Jack placed a circle of crucifixes around the bottom. Again Satan was trapped, and this time Jack made an even

bigger demand. If the devil wanted to get down, he had to promise he would never bring jack soul to Hell. Lucifer really didn't have a choice, he said fine. Jack moved the crucifixes and Satan he tailed it out of there, not wanting to get caught in any more bad deals with clever mortals. Some years later, Stingy Jack, who had lived a full life of thievery, cons and a whole lot of beer, finally died. When he knocked on the

door of heaven, God refused to let him in. This must have been a shock to Jack, who thought that he had this whole afterlife thing planned out. With nowhere else to go, he trecked down to Hell and asked his old friend Lucifer to let him in, but Satan said no. They had a deal. After all, Stingy Jack's soul could not enter the underworld. All the devil could offer him was an ember, a tiny little piece of light. So Jack had made his bed, and now he had

to lie in it. He took the ember and placed it inside a hollowed out turnip, which he carried with him as a lantern. It lit his way as his soul aimlessly wandered the earth, and this was what got him the new nickname Jack of the Lantern. Now, in eighteen hundreds, Ireland people carved faces into hollowed out turnips, Rudebega's beets and potatoes, and then they put candles inside.

Around All Hallows Eve, when the veil between the living and the dead was thinnest, they placed the lanterns on their porches, hoping to scare away Jack of the Lantern's wayward soul. As people immigrated from Ireland to America, All Hallows Eve became Halloween, and they found a plant that was larger, easier to carve, and made a much better lantern pumpkins, And just like that, the Jack O' lantern

as we know it was born. So if you're carving pumpkins this year, take a moment to remember the curious tale of Stingy Jack and keep your candles lit just in case his spirit comes knocking. If someone asked you to draw a ghost right now, you would probably sketch what's known as a bedsheet ghost, You know, the one, the round top, squiggly bottom, couple of dots for eyes. The image is frightfully ubiquitous. It appears in everything from movies to art. In the Halloween decor isle at targets.

That's even a bedsheet ghost emoji, which got me wondering where did the idea that ghosts wear sheets even come from. Well, it turns out the image can be traced back at least seven centuries. In the thirteen hundreds, ghosts were often depicted in art as skeletons wrapped in burial shrouds. For most of human history, people weren't buried in caskets or coffins.

They were simply wrapped in sheets. If the dearly departed came from an upper class family, they might be buried in in that was made and decorated specifically for the funeral, and if they were from a lower class background, they'd likely be buried in sheets pulled right off their deathbed. Still, it took a while for the shrouded skeleton to evolve into the bedsheet ghost we know and love today, and

there were other versions in between. For example, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, ghosts were frequently featured as characters in plays. In the original production of Hamlet, the ghost of Hamlet's father wore metal armor. This created a trend in armor clad specters in the theater, but a few centuries later a haunting in London seemed to cement the bedsheet ghost as the most accurate portrayal. In November of eighteen oh three, people in the western London neighborhood of

Hammersmith reported seeing a ghostly figure prowling around town. The figure was tall, slender, and clad in a white sheet. It was ostensibly the spirit of a man who had died in Hammersmith the previous year, and locals kept seeing him around town for months and it was starting to freak them out. So they did what seemed most logical. They organized a ghost hunting team. In January of eighteen oh four. The group set off into the night, intending to take care of the haunting once and for all.

One of these ghost hunters was a twenty nine year old man named Francis Smith. As he and the rest of the group searched for the spirit, Francis saw someone round the street corner in front of them. It was a tall, thin man dressed all in white. Certain he had found the phantom, Francis raised his gun and fired, and the specter crumpled to the ground. Because it wasn't

a ghost at all. It was Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer who had been walking home from his work in his all white uniform, and sadly he died from that gunshot. It later came out that the entire Hammersmith hunting had just been a hoax, but since Thomas Millwood really had lost his life, a new legend emerged. It was said that Thomas's spirit then stalked Hammersmith, and soon after this, an image of Thomas's ghost clad in billowing white sheets

was installed in a local museum. This helped popularize the image of the bedsheet ghost in the English speaking world. A few decades later, over in the United States, a Missouri newspaper conducted a poll asking readers if they believed in ghosts. One respondent wrote in, and I quote, ghosts are nearly always white, although some of the authorities admit

there are dark ones. I should say, however, that the genuine ghost is always white, that always makes its first appearance at the haunted spot at precisely twelve o'clock midnight. Based on this quote, it seems that there were still some dissenting opinions on what spirits looked like, but white was a safe bet, and maybe that's why. In nineteen thirty nine, animators chosen all white designed for one of the most famous phantoms in history, Casper, the friendly Ghost.

It was really Hollywood and the budding film industry that turned the once terrifying image of the bedsheet ghost into something we now consider cute and fun. Throughout the fifties and sixties, animated bedsheet ghosts appeared in cartoons like Popeye and Scooby Doo. Thus it became the go to design for goules than pop culture, but some people thought it

was just a fad. In nineteen sixty four, a North Carolina newspaper reported, and I quote styles in ghosting are changing, dwindling in obscurity are the old fashioned groaning, flapping bedsheets and the simple white objects which jump out of dark places and say boo. And to that, I have one thing to say, the ghost emoji begs to differ. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about

the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.