Reader's Circle Halloween

October is the time of transition between summer and the onset of winter. The days are getting shorter, the trees are loosing their foliage and there is a chill in the air.

This is the time of Halloween!

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige
of some ancient pagan ritual?

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as
myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and
unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a
time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.

Research by Dragon's Heart

What better time to sit by the fire and read a spooky story?

The following is a list of books that most reader's will be familiar with. Yet, we never tire of these stories.

Lilian Jackson Braun's story about Koko and ghosts. Good cat mystery fur Halloween.

If cats and dogs that talk to each other and solve murders are your fancy, try this story by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie.

This is a dog lover's mystery. Another cozy mystery by Marian Babson.

The Monroes are camping at Boggy Lake with there pets Harold, Chester, and Howie. They met two men and a dog. The dog's name is "Dawg. Dawg takes Harold and his friends around Boggy Lake. But then they get lost. But their is something weird about Dawg. Could this all be a plan to kill the Monroes?

Its a an overnight at Boggy lake .Not Harold's idea of fun. Too many mosquitoes, ticks, and cockleburs. The Monroes set out they bring their faithful pets Harold and Howie the dogs and Chester the cat.

Chester the cat is more than ever convinced that Bunnicula is a vampire when there is a harvest of white vegetables on the morning after the night that Bunnicula was probably wandering through the neighborhood

This is the story of a families fall into madness. It also paralells the Royal families collapse as a new country gains strength. The images are those of reflection and darkness, as well as escape. Or it could be interpreted in other ways but whatefur, it is a good short story fur Halloween.

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie, 1966 (orig. publ. date). A well planned Hallowe'en party wif apples being bobbed and ofur games is ruined by a murder. Hercule Poirot arrives and do mew doubt that he can solve this? Mew do not know Poirot then. Fun mystery reading.

"The Masque of the Red Death" is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. Prince Prospero, in an effort to protect himself from the Red Death, a form of plague, gathers his friends and seals them together with him in his castle where they are to party and celebrate. At the masked ball he gives, a mysterious stranger appears whom he does not recognize as death. In the end, the red death claims Prospero, in spite of all he has done to isolate (insulate) himself and his guests from its devastation. The story is full of grim symbolism including an ebony clock that is ticking away as the time of Prospero's death grows nearer.

Ichabod Crane has both a runaway steed and a runaway imagination, but even his hunger for the marvelous is more than matched then he comes to this rural village where people have an enormous appetite for stories, particularly for those concerning the miraculous - whether they be "the twilight superstitions" that surround natural phenomena such as shooting stars and meteors, or stories of haunted bridges and haunted houses, and of a haunted horseman who long ago lost his head but not his fury.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray
Bradbury. It is about two boys, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, who see the goings on at the carnival, especially the carrousel. They are chased by the character of Dark, one of the owners of Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show, who is frightening.

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