“The truth is incontrovertible... ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” Winston Churchill
Is there ANYTHING that makes me madder than IGNORANCE!!!
If I have to hear one more stupid person say they are not doing Halloween because it is an 'AMERICAN FESTIVAL'. I will scream. How ignorant is that! It is so true that if you don't know your past you are making an idiot of yourself in your present.
Halloween... is OURS. The dressing up. The defacing peoples property if they don't give you treats. The lanterns made of carved veg lit up by candles. The bonfires. The celebration of the dead. The ghoulish masks.
OURS. OURS. OURS.
And it has been from about the late iron age (100-50 BC). The Celts (as far as we know) were the first to start this nonsense, and it was continued by the Romans, though into the Christian period right up to today.
We've been Halloweening since the world was flat. And I can't believe that so many of us Brits are letting this weekend pass us by as we mistakenly think that it's one more insidious bit of US culture taking us over. Is there anything more limiting than NOT knowing your own history?! Like I said IGNORANCE makes me mad!!!
The festival of the dead started life in the UK as the pagan Celtic festival known as Samhain. When the Romans turned up in AD 43 they merged it with their beliefs and when they converted to Christianity in AD200, the mixed up festival stayed with them. It's principal colours were orange to signify the autumn harvest and black as a nod to the dead. The three days between 31st October and 2nd November pagan and Christian celebrations intertwined in a fascinating way and is a perfect example of superstition struggling with religious belief.
In the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church made 1st November a church holiday to honour all the saints. From Medieval times (1066 - 1485) through to the 19th century, 31 October was celebrated as the eve of All Saints Day and was known as All Hallows Eve This increasingly became a time when people focused on the souls that were in purgatory (Catholics believed that this was a place where souls are temporarily punished for moderate sins before moving on to heaven). From the 19th Century to the present day, 31st October has increasingly acquired a reputation as a night on which ghost, witches, and fairies, are especially active.
The Celts being pagan believed that evil spirits came with the long hours of winter darkness. They believed that on that night the barriers between our world and the spirit world were at their weakest and therefore spirits were most likely to be seen on earth. They also built bonfires to frighten the spirits away, and feasted and danced around the fires. The first signs of these beliefs merging with the new religion (Christianity) was when it started to be believed that these fires brought comfort to the souls in purgatory and people started to prayed these souls as they held burning straw up high.
The fires of Halloween burned the strongest in Scotland and Ireland,. Of course this is no surprise as this is where Celtic influence is strongest in the UK, although to be fair this practice was still on in some of the northern counties of England until the early years of the last century. So we southerners had to do something about it. We moved the bonfires to 5th of November to remind the rest of the UK that it is governed from London... therefore the collapse of the 'gunpowder plot' of 1605 became the new date. King James ordered that people should have a great bonfire on the night on 5th November to mark the day one of the gang (the watchman Guy Fawkes) was arrested.
But even with the bonfires gone,other customs remained...
Many places in England combined Halloween with Mischief Night (celebrated on 4 November), when boys played all kinds of practical jokes on their neighbours. They changed shop signs, took gates off their hinges, whitewashed doors, and tied door latches. Children would be bribed with food or money in order to spare the more nervous of householders from this mischief.
The ninth century European custom, of souling became very popular in the UK. This was where people would make house calls begging for soul cakes. It was believed that even strangers could help a soul's journey to heaven by saying prayers, so, in exchange for a cake they promised to pray for the donors' deceased relatives.
Less Christian, as it has strong Celtic roots, was the tradition of dressing up. The Celts strongly believed that on All Hallows the dead returned to earth for the night. In order not to be recognised by a ghost that may hold a grudge against them, people would wear grotesque masks when they left their homes after dark, so that if the ghosts would mistake them for fellow ghouls.
Jack o'lanterns were hung outside homes and in windows to ward of ghosts. These ghoulish faces were carved into turnips and a candle placed with in. These lanterns are so called after the Irish Celt legend of a man called Jack who could not enter heaven because he was a miser. He could not enter hell either as he had played tricks on the devil. He was ordered to wander the earth with his lantern till judgement day and any undead who associated with him suffered the same fate. Thus the lanterns were thought to make ghosts believe Jack was present in the home.
Yes, as you can see Halloween has been an important part of life in the UK dating WAY before John Cabot bumped into Canada in 1497... WAY before America was named by Martin Waldsemuller and Ringman in1507.. and certainly WAY before the American Independence was declared in 1776.
Americans make a big deal about Halloween. But lets face facts, they make a big deal about EVERYTHING! If the world were a family they would be the toddler... they are a YOUNG country only a few centuries old...OF COURSE they are gonna make a big deal about something we've been doing for YEARS! It's like a child walking “Mama! Look at ME!!!”. So them have their moment... and applaud their efforts.
BUT... trouble is, like in many a family sometimes the youngest just happens to do something really well. In fact they do it with more colour than their predecessors. Sometimes the baby of the bunch is just a great showman. But please... don't think just because someone does something in a big way that suddenly the original idea is de-facto owned by them.
You see... because they put on a great show...doesn't make the script THEIRS.
It's OUR heritage too... the tricking and treating, the dressing up, the veg with a candle in it.
So please... go and enjoy it... and claim one back.. for queen and country. We're NOT the 51st state...Yet!
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