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This week: A Holiday By Any Other Name Edited by: Andy~hating university  
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Fair is foul, and foul is fair;
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Hi all,
I'm Andy~hating university , and I'm your guest editor this week. Apologies for repeating a theme, but, by bizarre coincidence, my NL is on the same theme as last week's one by Arakun the twisted raccoon  (the festival of Samhain). I wrote this piece before I went off on holiday but only found out late on Monday about Arakun's NL, when I finally got round to reading last week's issues. But hopefully mine is sufficiently different that it doesn't feel like the same NL.
When most people think about October, they immediately think of Halloween and horror stories, and Halloween night itself is often used as the setting for such.
The feast of Halloween traces its roots all the way back over 2,000 years ago to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. It is pronounced sow-een, sow-in, or sah-win, depending on which part of the Celtic world you came from, but never as sam-hain. The Celtic new year was celebrated on November 1st, and it celebrated the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. The Celts believed that on Samhain, the night before new year (October 31st), the boundary separating the world of the living and the world of the dead would weaken, and it was possible for spirits (the aos sí) and the dead to walk the earth. It was tradition on Samhain to wear costumes, build bonfires, and tell fortunes.
Once the Roman Empire conquered most the Celts in the 1st Century, two Roman festivals slowly merged with Samhain, and lent new celebrations to the day. The first was Feralia, which was celebrated in late October and remembered all those who had died; telling stories about people who passed away was an important part of the festival. The second festival was a day to honour Pomona, the goddess of fruits and vegetables, and her feast was celebrated by bobbing for apples.
Once Christianity replaced the ancient Celtic beliefs by the 9th or 10th Century, the Church began merging Christian and Celtic beliefs to make the transition to Christianity easier. The Christian celebration of All Martyrs Day (today called All Saints Day) used to be observed on May 13th, but this was moved to November 1st by Pope Gregory III (possibly to replace the Celtic festival with a religious holiday). At the same time, the church created November 2nd as All Souls Day, to honour everyone who had died (but was not a saint), but it was essentially celebrated in the same way as Samhain.
All Saints Day (November 1st) was also called All-hallows, and the traditional day of Samhain (October 31st) became known as All-Hallows Eve, which eventually became Halloween. This is also why you will see Halloween sometimes written as Hallowe’en (as it is a contraction of All Hallow’s Eve/Even), but over the years the apostrophe (which originally replaced the "v" in "Even" in about the 1600s) fell out of use, and the modern spelling of Halloween first appeared as a word in its own right and not as a contarction of two words in mid-1700s..
The modern-day celebrations associated with Halloween actually originate from colonial America. The Puritans in New England were not able to celebrate the traditional All Hallows Eve because of their rigid belief system, but the southern Anglican colonists (and Catholic colonists in Maryland) were able to celebrate All Hallows Eve (along with All Martyrs and All Souls). Over time, the traditions of the various European settlers and Native Americans meshed and merged - what people and the Church liked, they kept in, and what they didn't like, was slowly phased out. Halloween in America was eventually celebrated much as All Souls Day was in the UK, except that no costumes were worn - costume-wearing on Halloween would not make an appearance in the US until the middle of the 1800s..
It was really only following the Irish immigration during the Potato Famine that Halloween became the popular, secular holiday it is today. It was also during this time, that the more Celtic aspects of the holiday resurfaced in the US. It became popular to dress up in costumes, and it was during this time that young women came to believe that they could foretell their husband’s name with an apple peel (which itself came from the earlier Roman belief honouring the goddess Pomona).
Although Samhain/Halloween has lost its place in most people's religious lives over the last hundred and fifty years or so (though Samhain is still celebrated in one form or another by Neopagans and Wicca), there are still several original Celtic aspects that have held on and are amongst children's favourite parts of the day.
Modern day "Trick-or-Treating" has its origin in the All Souls Day parades in England, where poor people would beg for food and were given Soul Cakes in exchange for praying that person's deceased relatives. This practice, which was supported by the Church, actually had its origins in the practice of "going a-souling" where food and drink that was given to people was left out to please any wandering ghosts or spirits. Children in Scotland do not traditionally go Trick-or-treating, but they go guising. It is still with the same hope of obtaining loads of sweets and candy, but the "trick" aspect is that the child has to perform some kind of task to get the treat, such as singing, reciting a poem, playing a harmonica, or more ambitious children will perform magic tricks.
Wearing a costume on Halloween is something that most children love doing, whether it be as a princess or as Frankenstein's Monster. It was a practice during Celtic times on Samhain, for people to wear costumes and masks if they left their home. The Celts believed that the dead walked the earth on Samhain, but, by wearing a costume, they hoped to be mistaken for a fellow ghost.
Many children still bob for apples, as they once did for the goddess Pomona. Although I don't think young ladies still try foretell the name of their future husband by peeling an apple, the practice does occasionally appear in films and TV shows.
And where would we all be on Halloween without a carved pumpkin? This practice originated in Ireland and Scotland where a turnip (or beet, swede/rutabega, mangelwurzel, or similar gourd) would be carved into a lantern to frighten away spirits and Stingy Jack. Stingy Jack was a folklore figure who was condemned to walk the earth for all eternity. After spending his life tricking the devil, God refused to admit him to heaven, and the devil refused to admit him to hell. Stingy Jack was sent into the eternal night as punishment (likely the origin of the Christian concept of purgatory) and given a turnip lantern to guide his way. The Church preferred the concept of the turnip lanterns representing the souls of those trapped in purgatory, who were lamented on All Souls Day. Either way, when the immigrating Irish brought this tradition with them, they did not find their traditional lantern sources, so they started carving pumpkins.
How ever you choose to celebrate Halloween, be it watching a load of trashy horror movies or going out with your little ones trick-or-treating, have a safe and happy Halloween. |
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Horror/Scary: October 25, 2017 Issue [#8568]
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