Free Halloween Pumpkin Images

I love Halloween! Over the years I've heard many people say that Halloween is their favorite holiday. I don't know about that for me because Thanksgiving has all that food, and Christmas has food and presents. But "All Hallows Eve," as it was originally called, does have all those fun Halloween pumpkins.

Even if you don't like the darker side of the holiday, it's hard to object to the ritual of carving Halloween pumpkins. You can make the carved pumpkins, which are sometimes known as Jack o lanterns (see below for the story of how that term came about), as happy or scary as you want. You can even paste or draw facial features if you don't want pumpkin innards all over your kitchen. See my Halloween crafts hub for several faces you can print, cut out and glue on a pumpkin.

If you don't want to mess with a real pumpkin at all, you can download and print these Halloween pumpkin images and use them as decorations instead. These also can be used as Halloween clip art.

Choose a small version of any of the Halloween pumpkins above the large image. When you click on one of the images, it will appear larger. Then, if you have a PC, just right-click and save the larger version of the artwork to your hard drive.

Oddly enough, the tradition of carving Halloween pumpkins, also known as Jack o lanterns or Jack-o'-lanterns, originally started with carving turnips, beets and potatoes instead. Like with all things connected to this fall holiday, carved Halloween pumpkins hail from a creepy story.

As Irish legend has it, a man named Stingy Jack invited the devil to have a drink.When it was time to pay for the whiskey, Jack talked the devil into changing into a sixpence, so he could pay the tab with it. But instead he pocketed the coin. He kept it next to a silver cross in his pocket, which kept the devil from transforming back into his true form. Eventually, Jack let the devil loose, but only after striking a deal with him that he couldn't harass him or claim his soul for darkness.

The next Halloween, Jack died. When he went to the gates of heaven, he was turned away. Having nowhere to go, he then went to the gates of hell. As promised, the devil refused to take his soul and sent him away. Jack didn't want to leave, because it was dark and he feared he wouldn't find his way from the netherworld. Taking pity on him, the devil tossed him a burning coal to shed some light on his path. The coal was hot, so Jack put it inside a turnip. This glowing turnip was the first Jack o' lantern. Somewhere along the line -- probably because turnips were too difficult to carve -- people began carving pumpkins instead and the tradition we have today was born.

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