To Free the Devil

How Jack got his Lantern: Two Versions of the Story

Old folks will tell you that Jack wasn’t exactly a good man, but he was a clever one, no doubt. They’ll tell you Jack even tricked the Devil once, and he tricked it bad. He trapped the Devil in his wallet, next to a small cross, which hurt the fellow badly, and rendered him powerless.

In exchange for its freedom, the Devil had to promise never to take Jack’s soul to Hell. And it kept its word. However, when Jack died on a light gray October morning, he couldn’t get into Heaven either. He wasn’t good enough for that.

He got stuck on Earth, and will be wandering it until the end of the world.

Old folks say Jack got his lantern from the Devil. Lost in the gray of the middle he asked the Devil for a light, and the smirking Devil gave him a burning coal, straight from Hell. Jack turned that coal into his lantern then, carving a turnip and placing the coal in it. When the turnip burned away, later, he carved a new one. New turnips, new pumpkins, new whatever he found that could hold the coal for a bit.

Old folks will tell you all this, while carving their own pumpkins or turnips or whatever they like carving. It’s what the tales older than them say.

I can tell you this isn’t true, though. Not entirely.

Here’s how I saw and see it.

Jack tricked the Devil once. He didn’t bargain with it once it was in his trap, though. Jack simply climbed past the Moon and took the Devil to the Gate of Heaven. He knocked politely, and when an Angel appeared, Jack told it he had the Devil right there with him, in his wallet. He offered the Angel the wallet with the Devil in it, for Heaven to decide the Devil’s fate.

The Angel leaned a little closer with a curious look on its face, its hundred and eleven eyes lit with curiosity. Without words, it asked Jack what he wanted in return for the trapped Devil.

The Devil kept whining in the wallet all the while as they were talking.

Jack looked in the largest eye of the Angel, and asked to be let into Heaven in exchange for the Devil.

“I’ve never really been a good man,” he said. “I know I would never get into Heaven otherwise. But I guess getting the whole world rid of the Devil here is worth overlooking my sins. Maybe even forgiving them, once I’m inside.”

The Angel stared back at Jack with all its eyes, its gaze making him shiver, as if his naked soul was watched and scrutinized.

“We sent the Devil to Hell, to work for us there, as its penance, because we have a use for it there,” the Angel said. “Then you caught it walking the Earth, where it should not have been. And you’ve brought it here. You deserve a chance.”

The Devil started crying in Jack’s wallet while Jack nodded, holding his breath.

“You’ll release it,” the Angel said without a mouth, its eyes unblinking. “You’ll take it back to Hell and set it free there to continue its work and to serve its time until the end of eternity. We have no use for it in Heaven. Nor for you. Not yet.”

The Devil fell silent. Jack gasped.

“You’ll walk the Earth then, and guard it, against the Devil and its works,” the Angel said in Jack’s head. “You’ll be good. And if you stay good and if you catch the Devil one more time there, among God’s good people, you’ll bring it here. Then its punishment will get worse. And you — you’ll be let inside Heaven. Because we’ll know you can walk the good path.”

“How would I catch it again?” Jack cried out, suddenly afraid. “It’s much more powerful than I, and now it knows my tricks too! It won’t fall for my trap again, but it will tempt and torment me and take me to Hell!”

The Angel took out one of its own flaming eyes, and gave it to Jack. Jack took it. It hurt, and it burned Jack’s skin, but he didn’t drop it. He didn’t even flinch. He knew it was his only chance.

“You’ll see by my light,” the Angel said. “And by this light the Devil will have no power over you.”

“It burns,” Jack whispered.

“It does,” the Angel nodded. “It’s a flame.”

Jack thought about that for a while. Then he slapped his other hand on his wallet, tight, so that the Devil can’t hear him and the Angel.

“I can light fires with it?” Jack asked the Angel in a whisper. “And if I can, will those fires protect against the Devil, and will they protect those near them? And would the Devil know those fires are born from this eye here? Or would he just be tempted by them? If we hid the fires behind lamps and lanterns carved to resemble his Hellish visage?”

The Angel with the hundred and ten eyes blinked, and its single removed eye in Jack’s hand also flickered a little.

“You want to draw the Devil out of Hell?” the Angel asked, tilting its head to the right. “So that you can catch it on Earth?”

Jack nodded.

“You didn’t say I shouldn’t, and I am who I am, a trickster. I won’t let it do evil, though, I’ll catch it faster. I’ll teach people how to carve these lanterns, and I’ll light their fire with yours so protect them.”

The Angel sighed.

Jack smiled at the Angel, and started climbing down, past the Moon, back to Earth, and from there, straight to Hell, to free the Devil.

By now we know the Devil did overhear Jack’s plan a little, though. A few words only. But the Devil is clever, and it does know Jack’s tricks already.

So they’ve been chasing each other ever since. Jack with the fire, the Devil with the darkness.

I should know. I’ve been watching them play this long game. I’ve been watching through a myriad faces and a myriad flames that I helped Jack light.

I miss Heaven a little, sometimes.

But I am patient. And eternal.