Halloween at Toyotama

I taught my current Toyotama second-years as freshmen last year, so they already knew the basics. For them, I brought in candy again, and quickly recapped the basics of Halloween. With a lot of help from Iwase, I decided to tell the students the story of Jack of the Lantern. After finding several web sites (and about as many different stories) on the subject, we chose one version and prepared to illustrate the story. She was absent this week, so I did the drawing on my own, with a stand-in English teacher (Mr. Sunada) helping (tremendously) with translation and elaboration.

The picture shows how the lesson turned out. Starting with a blank board, the story went something like this:

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1. There once was a man named Jack (drawing a face and distinctive hair), who was very clever (drawing a smirk), but very mean (drawing mean eyebrows).

2. One day, the devil came to Jack (drawing the devil's face, with evil eyes, evil goatee, toothy grin, and horns), and said (drawing a word bubble) 'I want your soul, Jack' (drawing Jack lying down, X's for eyes, a wispy soul-looking thing floating out of his body).

3. Jack said, 'Okay, but I'm thirsty. Would you buy me a drink?' (drawing a frothy mug of "soda" [folks here seem to be completely honest about alcohol] and a 500-yen coin)


4. The devil agreed, and turned into a coin (drawing the devil's face, an arrow ->, and a 500-yen coin with horns and devil's eyes for 0s).

5. Jack took the coin, and put it in his purse. (drawing a purse, gesturing from the coin to the purse, drawing the devil coin in the purse)

6. There was also a cross in the purse (drawing a cross in the purse). The devil is afraid of the cross (drawing scared eyebrows on the devil coin)--he was trapped!

7. The devil said, "Let me out!" "Okay," Jack said, but you must let me keep my soul for ten years."

8. The devil agreed, Jack took out the cross (erasing the cross), and the devil escaped. (erasing the devil coin)


9. Ten years later (drawing wrinkles on Jack's face), the devil came to Jack. "I want your soul, Jack," the devil said. (drawing the same image inside a word bubble)

10. "Okay," Jack said, "but I'm hungry. Can you get me an apple from that tree?" (drawing an apple tree)


11. The devil climbed the tree to get an apple. (drawing the devil on the tree, reaching for an apple)

12. While he was in the tree, Jack put a cross at the bottom. (drawing a cross at the bottom of the tree) The devil was trapped!

13. "Let me down!" the devil said. "Okay," Jack said. "But you must promise never to take my soul." (drawing Jack's face, a word bubble with the earlier image of a soul leaving dead Jack, but this time with a big X over the picture)

14. The devil agreed. Jack removed the cross (erasing the cross), and the devil escaped. (erasing the devil)


15. Years later, Jack died. (drawing Jack, X's for eyes, lying down)



16. First, his soul tried to go to Heaven drawing a castle in happy-faced clouds, and Jack's face on a tapering ghost body)

17. But at the gate, (drawing a gate) a man (drawing a stern-looking man) told Jack he couldn't get in, because he had been a bad person. (pointing to Jack's mean eyebrows)

18. So Jack tried to go to Hell. (drawing a castle surrounded by flames and frowny-faced storm clouds) The devil met him at the gate (drawing the devil and a gate).

19. "Please let me in!" Jack begged. "I would," the devil said, "but I promised I would never take your soul." (drawing a word bubble from the devil to Jack's X-over-dead-Jack word bubble)


20. Jack had nowhere to go. He couldn't get into heaven, because he had been a bad person, and he couldn't get into hell, because the devil had made a promise. Jack was forced to wander the earth. "It's dark, and I can't see," Jack said. (trying to look around the room with squinty eyes, hand on forehead)

21. The devil laughed and threw a burning hot coal at Jack. (drawing a rock with red, orange, and yellow flames coming off it, at Jack's feet, with motion lines from the devil's direction) "Use this. It will never die."

22. Jack tried to pick it up, but it was too hot. (reaching for the coal, jumping back and wincing)

23. He found a turnip on the ground (drawing a turnip), carved it open with a knife (drawing a knife, carvy-lines, and a hole in the turnip), and used it for a lantern. (drawing a frowny-faced, sad-eyebrowed, ghost-bodied Jack in profile, carrying the carved turnip, lighty marks coming from the coal)

24. He has been wandering that way ever since. People called him "Jack of the Lantern," which was shortened to "Jack o' Lantern." People still carve turnips in Ireland, put candles inside them, and call them "jack-o-lanterns." In America, pumpkins are more common than turnips, so people carve them instead.

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Sunada helped me tremendously with the translations, fleshing out the story along the way. I'd like to think the pictures were effective, but I'm not so sure. Thanks to his help, though, the lesson went over well. In one of the classes, I made the mistake of giving the devil wings in the first picture. For continuity's sake, he had those same wings when he was in the tree. Tadahiro, one of my more perceptive students, politely asked why the devil didn't just fly away. I basically laughed and told him the devil was too scared to fly away.