And a very blessed Samhain to my various pagan and witchy chums.
This evening my road will be awash with ghouls, ghosts, mummies, vampires, zombies and strangely indefinable characters with wings and bad make-up. But I wonder how many of the little darlings roaming the streets and scrumping for sweets tonight realise just what it's all about?
The festival of All Saints/All Hallows falls on November the 1st and is followed by All Souls Day on November the 2nd. It's a special celebration of thanks to all the Christian martyrs who died for the good of Mankind. In Mexico, these two days combine to form a Catholic festival called The Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos, Día de los Difuntos or, simply, Día de Muertos) and it celebrates the memory of deceased ancestors. Despite sounding morbidly depressing, it is a day of great fun with much dressing up, live music, street theatre and parades.
Meanwhile back in the rather more staid UK, All Saints Day is a more formal affair with all of the fun and frolics going on during the night before. Halloween - the name is a contraction of All Hallows Evening - is the evening and night of 31st October - the day before All Saints. And it's traditionally a Pagan day of celebration.
Which makes it all the stranger that Christian conservative America goes for Halloween in such a big way. Do they not understand what they're celebrating?
October 31st is Samhain (pronounced sah-wen), one of the Celtic ‘quarter days’ and the start of the Pagan New Year when it is believed that the souls of the dead roam abroad. It's the time of the year when the barriers between the worlds of the living and the dead are at their thinnest and some spirits will pass through. Some of these could be looking to get up to no good. And so, in past times, various charms were needed to ward them off.
The doorways and windows of buildings were felt to be particularly vulnerable. If you want to stop ghosts from getting into the house, bury animal bones or a picture of an animal near the front door. Elsewhere, on churches and castles, it was commonplace to site gargoyles or grotesque faces and figures like Sheela Na Gigs and Hunky Punks. It was believed that these would scare away malevolent spirits. Similarly, the scary faces carved into pumpkin lanterns (and earlier on 'punkies' - turnips, swedes and mangolds - see here) are also designed to frighten them away. Strangely though, the lanterns have now become a symbol of evil themselves, regularly appearing on horror movie posters.
It was also wise to leave gifts of food and drink for supernatural visitors which is, of course, one of the reasons why we now have Trick or Treat.
People created various charms to keep themselves safe. These included walking around your home three times backwards and anti-clockwise before sunset on Halloween, knocking loudly on wood before Midnight, ringing bells and using mirrors to scare away the influence of the Evil Eye. Traditional English Mummers or Plough Jags, often decorated their costumes with mirrors and other shiny items before commencing their Halloween plays. Mirrors on hats were a favourite - though all I can see in my head now are images of facially-challenged fashion dyslexic Noddy Holder in his top hat on Top of the Pops. With a voice like that, he could scare demons and hobgoblins away, I’m sure.
Meanwhile, if you hear footsteps behind you, don’t turn around as it may be the dead following you! And if you do look back you could soon be dead yourself ...
And look out for other signs too ... if a candle flame suddenly turns blue; that means there's a ghost nearby (although if the weather is cold enough, flames will turn blue or violet anyway). If a bat flies into your house, there are ghosts about, but if one flies three times round your house … cancel that holiday booking next year. You won’t be going.
Spiders are said to house the spirits of dead loved ones, so clear them out of your bedroom unless you want your dead Auntie watching you tonight.
Image: Anthony on Pexels
Halloween is a good night for divining too if you're a believer. The party game of Bobbing for Apples was originally a way of telling the future. Each player cut a chunk out of their apple and then inserted a fortune written on a small piece of paper. The apples were then chucked into a large tub of water and people took turns to retrieve an apple, using just their teeth. Thus every person had their fortune told. As a bonus, you should then peel your apple. The person with the longest unbroken length of peel is assured a long life. Finally, if single, you should throw the apple peel over your shoulder (the right shoulder I presume as the demons are hiding on the left). Anyway, the shape of the letter the peel makes on landing is the initial of your future mate.
Good news for Susans. Bad news for Kevins.
Apples are customarily a part of the ‘Dumb Supper’, a silent Feast of the Dead given on Samhain Eve. Participants set a place, with broken crockery, at the head of the dining table for the ancestors, and not a word is spoken during the meal. After the feast is over, the leftover food and broken crockery is ceremonially taken outside, into the woods, for the spirits to consume. This is a powerful ceremony of communion with the dead. Any apples on the tree unharvested after Samhain are left for the spirits.
The old Celtic custom of lighting big Samhain bonfires (a tradition that has drifted forward to November 5th in the UK) enabled further fortune telling. Once the Halloween fire had died down, the hot ashes could be pushed out from the centre to form a circle around the fire. Within the circle of ashes and at its edge, each person would then lay a pebble. If, next day, any pebble had moved or was damaged in any way, the owner would die within twelve months.
Now then, all you single ladies – forget Internet sites and dating apps. Here are a few handy Halloween tips for finding the perfect partner:
Carry a lamp to a natural water source – such as spring or river – and you should be able to see your future loved one in the reflections in the water. And if you want to see your future children too, take a broken egg with you and chuck it in.
Image: Mike Navolta on Pexels
Alternatively, go out into the middle of a field and scatter hemp seeds. While you’re at it, say: 'Hemp seed I sow thee! Come after me and show me!' You should then be able to turn around and catch a glimpse of your Prince/Princess Charming. Or you might instead indulge in the much lazier practice of sticking a snail in a tin and seeing what initial it draws in slime by morning. But if even that is too much effort, stick a sprig of rosemary and a silver sixpence under your pillow on Halloween and you’ll see your future love in a dream.
Not wanting to leave the ladies out who already have a partner, you’ll be pleased to know that you can check how faithful they are without recourse to webcams or private detectives. Simply select a letter they wrote to you – the more passionate the better – and lay it open on a table. Fold it nine times, pin the folds together, place the letter in your left-hand glove, and slip it under your pillow. If that night you dream about silver, gems, glass, castles or clear water, your bloke is faithful. If you dream of linen, storms, fire, wood, flowers, or your partner is saluting you, they're up to no good with someone.
Or just check their phone.
Of course, with the Christian church absorbing Samhain into their calendar, the idea was quickly put about that Halloween was all to do with Devil worship and that the witches' sabbath was a bad thing - hence all the scary imagery. But it was actually no such thing.
I was delighted to be invited to a Samhain celebration a few nights ago (that's our altar above). There's an informal group that meets locally eight times a year to mark the witches' Sabbats and the members represent a range of beliefs - some are Wiccans, some follow other paths, but they're all Pagans. We discussed Samhain traditions and how they have fed into modern Halloween. And we lit candles to honour the beloved dead. It was a lovely, contemplative event and a far cry from what Halloween has become.
But have a Happy Halloween, funsters!
And a blessed Samhain to those who view this day rather more seriously.
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