Halloween, as it is celebrated in the modern day with costume parties and trick-or-treating, is not historically part of the German tradition.
But there are some signs that Halloween is slowly but surely becoming established in the German Zeitgeist.
For example, a YouGov survey in 2022 found that 18 percent of Germans said Halloween was important to them, whereas two years prior just 10 percent said so.
Which is to say that most German households might not participate in the yearly tradition of carving pumpkins to make a Kürbislaterne. But some do.
So it wouldn’t be an entirely foreign thing to do, should you feel compelled to carve your own and light it on All Hallow’s Eve.
What’s a Kürbislaterne?
The term Kürbislaterne (pronounced like this) is composed of Kürbis (pumpkin or gourd) + laterne (lantern or light).
So, as you may have already guessed, Kürbislaterne is the proper German word for a jack-o'-lantern. (Although many Germans might also say jack-o’-lantern.)
Where does it come from?
While modern Halloween festivities are often seen as an American import in Germany, the tradition of making jack-o'-lanterns can actually be traced back to Ireland.
In the original Irish tradition, people would carve lanterns out of large turnips – the practice was related to a tale about a man named ‘Stingy Jack’ who had tricked the Devil and then later bore the consequences.
When Irish immigrants came to the Americas, they brought the tradition with them. But they swapped the small and hard to carve turnips for the larger, and already hollow, pumpkins found in the New World.
The tradition of carving faces and eerie imagery into pumpkins ahead of Halloween, as popularised in the US has since been exported around the world – even to Germany, where you’ll see plenty of jack-o’-lantern themed merchandise in stores and at themed parties as the end of October approaches.
Use it like this:
Was für eine schöne Kürbislaterne du geschnitzt hast!
What a beautiful jack-o’-lantern you’ve carved!
An Halloween stellen meine Nachbarn immer so viele Kürbislaternen vor ihre Tür.
On Halloween my neighbours always put so many jack-o’-lanterns on their doorstep.
Comments