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Halloween and Jack-o-Lanterns
The Irish are the reason we have the Jack-o-Lantern (or Jack O’Lantern depending on who you are). Let me tell you a story. Stingy Jack was a horrid, miserable, old drunk who liked to play tricks on everyone (including his own mother). One day, he had the bad fortune of running into the Devil in a pub and inviting him to have a drink with him. Well, true to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay a single penny for those drinks and true to his character, he managed to talk the Devil into turning himself into a coin so that Jack could buy their drinks. Rather than buying…
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Halloween and the Origins of Trick-or-Treating
I can’t seem to find a source that gives me one origin for the whole “trick-or-treating” thing, but I found a bunch of different traditions that I think are awesome. All over Western Europe people played tricks, thought the spirits played tricks, and went around asking for gifts (sometimes in costume and sometimes not). Celts offered treats to avoid spirits playing tricks and Druids asked for favours in return for protection of the soul. By far, my favourite ancient custom is the Irish or English version of “soul-caking”. You can get the recipe here: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/recipes/view.cfm?id=1378. Essentially, “soulers” went around and sang their songs without stopping or having much tonal variation…
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Halloween, Light, and Dark
According to a man quoted all over the internet on this topic, Rowan Moonstone, which I can only assume is a pen name, the Druids help “fire festivals,” days where all of the hearths went dark and then were lit again by holy light, essentially, the dark half of the year and renewal. You can see his explanations for things here, though I can’t really vouch for his accuracy as none of his sources seem to be primary sources, though, in fairness, those would be hard to find as the ancient Celts were a people with a strong oral tradition, not a strong written one: http://www.featherlessbiped.com/halloween/rowan.htm I don’t know if…