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Mood: Camille Saint-Saëns “Danse Macabre”

Can you imagine? Another post about Hallowe’en by me? Did I not mention before that this begins my favorite time of year? Indeed, it does, and as such I cannot but seem to post about it’s separate parts, so to speak, beginning with, again, Hallowe’en!

Since childhood, it has always fascinated me. Well, scarcely the willies outta me, before the fascination. These days, especially on this site, there is a different sensation associated with the Willie. 😉

I recall the times one parent or another would get the ladder out and go up to and open the door to the attic that was in the ceiling just outside the bedroom I shared with my brothers. Not only was it in itself a scary place to such a young mind, but the almost reverent taking down of and subsequent opening of the Hallowe’en boxes was always an emotional thing of excitement and wonder, feelings that stayed with me to this day, though there was a period when I lost the totality of that excitement and wonder, only found again when I entered The Stage in Hallowe’en productions.

In the meantime, ‘growing up’ and finding that different meaning and use for the Willie, I also became much interested in history, and along that train of thought came the interesting the history of Hallowe’en. With that in mind, I thought that a little digging into those origins would be fun and just possibly informative. Of course, with that said, there is still much we do not understand about it’s true origins, and much is based on speculation, though there are logical trains of thought that lead to such semi-conclusions.

Isn’t just perfect, though, that there remains a mystery to the origins of the day?

Talk About Tradition!

It seems the main origin of the day came sometime in the Iron Age, some 3-4000 years past from the Celtic religion that may be a precursor or part of what was to be known as Druidism. Literally translating to “summer’s end”, Samhain (pronounced ‘sa-wain’ for those who are unaware), when the half of the year that is dark begins. For reasons lost in time, at least insofar as I can determine of speculations that do not sound like so much compost, this is also the time of year where the veil between the worlds of the living and dead become thin and permeable enough for the dead to come through.

I will note here that most of the history of Hallowe’en comes from Western civilizations of the Northern Hemisphere. This does not make it any less fascinating to me, in fact makes it moreso, but I thought it worth mentioning.

I could further speculate on rituals and such that present day Druids perform during this time, but there does not yet seem to be and solid historical evidence for any of them. It may be my own short-sightedness, but many of these seem to be either total bullshit or of a ‘I wanna be cool and rebellious’ thing. Certainly not against any such celebrations as long as they don’t burn a sacrifice in a giant made of wicker!

Religious Interference

Nailing down the exact date of Samhain is somewhat problematic, as the advent of the Julian and Gregorian calendars have made a bit of a mess of when. However it was done, October 31st became The Day. At any rate, when Christianity came to the fore, some Higher Ups determined that having their big celebrations at the times that The Pagans held theirs would be ‘good marketing’ to get more people to join their religion.

This became a three-day celebration of Allhallowtide, consisting of All Hallow’s Evening, All Hallows’ Day (aka All Saint’s Day) and All Souls Day, from October 31st to November 2nd. Of course, and without going into detail, the feast day of the 2nd of November is still practiced by some, as well as All Hallows’ Day, but as har as I can tell not by many.

All Hallow’s Evening morphed over the years to All Hallow’s Eve, to All Hallow’s e’en, and eventually to Halloween (though my personal preference is to keep the “e’en”).

There never seems to have been a time where the time was not somehow associated with the supernatural. Christianity took it as a time when demons were at their strongest and therefore all sorts of Evils would be at leisure to play amongst the mortals.

These Pumpkins Are Out of Their Gourds!

Jack o’ Lantern, according to one of the legends, was a sinner who was wallowing in Purgatory but somehow was given a reprieve by The Boss and released, but bequeathed a burning cinder of brimstone, which he commenced to carry about in a hollowed out gourd.

Whether or not the true origin of the actual jack o’ lanterns, the historical use of vegetables carved with faces started in Ireland and Scotland using turnips. It is unclear as to whether or not they were hollowed out and lit from within at this point, but it was in the 1800s when this began. By the late 1800s and into the 1900s is when the use of pumpkins began to become popular, but the tradition of carving visages designed to scare away spirits seems to have been part of the history from the beginning.

Trick? Treat? Bribe? Saving a Soul?

In short, ‘trick or treat’ has origins in all of the above bold words.

It seems sometime during the Middle Ages such a thing as Souling became a thing, wherein children and the poor would receive a soul cake from knocking on a church door and agreeing to pray for souls in Purgatory in the belief that enough prayers would release the souls to journey to Heaven.

This was also done at Christmastide, but the evidence seems to suggest that this became ‘popular’ during All Hallow’s Eve. At least, there seems to be a direct line to trick to treating, even though you can find a few traditional Christmas songs about bringing figgy pudding to Wassailers, as well.

Tricking seems to have become a thing that spoke to the thinning of the barriers between the spirit world and ours, giving rise to mischief that could be ‘blamed’ on those bad spirits. At some point, people figured that if they bribed ‘spirits’ with fruit or baked goods they could be spared such tricking.

There were times, especially during The Depression, when the tricking became deeply destructive with widows being smashed all the way to fires destroying buildings and lives. Even today, there are places where fires of vandalism are set on the night of Hallowe’en.

The early 1900s, I believe in the 20s, saw the beginning of the production of candies specifically for Trick or Treating, really hitting popularity in the 50s and exploding into what we have today, a billion dollar industry, a good portion of which is certainly the candy.

Almost Too Much Fun

There is so much more to the history of this Day, and really I have seriously glossed over those subjects I’ve written about in this blog. But I have scary movies to watch and books to finish reading, so even as I enjoy spending time writing this stuff, there is only so much time, y’know?

I hope this was enjoyable if you made it this far. I will leave you with a recipes for Soul Cakes, close to one I used to make, though I haven’t made them for several years; maybe at Christmas I will again…

• 1 cup butter, two sticks American
• 3 3⁄4cups sifted flour
• 1 cup fine sugar
• 1⁄4teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 4 -6 tablespoons milk
• 
  DIRECTIONS
  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender or a large fork.
  • Blend in the sugar, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and allspice; beat eggs, vinegar, and milk together.
  • Mix with the flour mixture until a stiff dough is formed.
  • Knead thoroughly and roll out 1/4-inch thick.
  • Cut into 3-inch rounds and place on greased baking sheets. Prick several times with a fork and bake for 20-25 minutes.
  • 
    Be well and I bid you Peace.
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