The Spooktacular History of Halloween Traditions and Lore

Halloween in the 1930s

Why is Halloween the "spooky season" in the first place? How did this nonsense begin?

Well as you've no doubt heard, supposedly this time of year is a "liminal," meaning "on the threshold." ("Subliminal" means "beneath the threshold (of conscious perception).)

Supposedly, during liminal times, the "walls separating the mortal realms from the 'other worlds' (both the spirit realms and the lands of the fairies) are lower."

I guess because this time is at the end of autumn -- in Germanic languages, "the fall" or "autumn" is just literally called 'harvest." Herbst in German, for example.

So this time is between two seasons and therefore between two worlds.

That's an idea with a lot of salience in folktales -- crossroads, for example, are also believed to be space between two worlds, which is why you might see ghosts or even the devil in a crossroads.

Crossroads are viewed in global folklore and legends as liminal "thin places" where the barrier between the living world and the spirit realm weakens.

Folklore and Supernatural Beliefs

* Spirits and Lost Souls: Crossroads are often said to confuse wandering or restless spirits. Historical burials of criminals or people who died by suicide at intersections led to beliefs that their spirits would face four paths and get lost.

* Spectral Animals: The British Isles feature legends of spectral black dogs--such as the Black Shuck or Barghest--which are seen at crossroads as harbingers of death.

Halloween is a contraction of All Hallow's Eve. The following day, November first, is All Saint's Day, so the night before is the eve of all the hallowed, the sainted.

To hallow means "to set apart as holy."

Are the words connected? Yes they are:

The words hallow and holy share a direct and deep etymological connection, both coming from the same ancient root meaning "whole" or "healthy".

Etymological Lineage

* Hallow: From the Old English verb hälgian ("to make holy, consecrate") and the noun hälga ("holy person or saint"). This evolved into Middle English halwe and modern hallow.

* Holy: From the Old English adjective hälig ("holy, sacred, or consecrated"), which developed directly from häl ("whole").

* Proto-Germanic Root: Both trace back to Proto-Germanic hailagaz / *hailagōn (holy, sacred, or set apart).

* Proto-Indo-European Root: Going further back, they stem from the PIE root *kailo- meaning "whole, uninjured, or of good omen".

Of course, this is probably a case of early Church syncretism, or the merging of pagan traditions with Christian ones. Mostly just the dates.

Because November 1st happens to be an ancient festival:

Samhain is an ancient Gaelic festival celebrated on November 1 that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.

Meaning and Timing

* Pronunciation: Commonly pronounced "sow-in" (rhyming with cow-in or sau-in).

* Dates: Celebrations traditionally begin at sunset on October 31 and continue through November 1, as the Celtic day starts and ends at sunset.

* New Year: It marked the Celtic New Year and the transition into the "darker half" of the year.

The origin of the Jack O'Lantern is interesting and very pagan.

Apparently it was a Druidic custom to light communal bonfires. I assume these bonfires had some religious/cultic purpose. Then, when the fire had died down, the embers or coals from the fire would be transported to the individual hearths of the worshippers, so that the later fires would be descended from the communal ones.

These coals were carried from the communal bonfire to the home hearth in... hollowed out turnips or gourds. Faces began to be carved into these fire-transporting turnips to ward away evil spirits. I don't know when pumpkins were used for this purpose, if ever, but the pumpkin with fire inside is clearly a direct descendant of the coal-toting turnip.

The actual name "Jack O'Lantern" emerged from later, Christian-age Irish folktales about someone who tried to trick the devil.

A grumpy bastard of a blacksmith by the name of Stingy Jack invites the devil for a drink but refuses to pay (hence, the "stingy" descriptor). He convinces the devil to shape-shift into a coin to cover the tab. But when the devil obliges, Jack sticks the coin in his pocket. And much to the devil-coin's dismay, there is a silver cross in that pocket, preventing him from returning to his original form. A deal is struck. Jack sets the devil free and, in return, the devil agrees A) to bar Jack from entering hell when he dies, and B) to leave Jack alone for a year.

A quick aside: This seems like a bad deal. And it is a bad deal -- because guess what? A year later, the devil comes back to mess with Jack. Only Jack is ready for him. He convinces the devil to climb a tree so he might enjoy a delicious piece of fruit.

Note that this tale involves fruit. As you'll see, most Halloween traditions are fruit-based.

Once the devil is up in the tree, Jack carves a cross into the trunk. The devil can't come down. Another (bad) deal is struck, although this one does have the advantage of being slightly less bad than the previous one. Jack frees the devil in exchange for ten years of peace.

Jack dies. (Don't be sad. He was an asshole.) The devil, true to his word, refuses to let Jack into hell. God, meanwhile, refuses to let Jack into heaven. So, what is Jack's fate? To wander forever in eternal darkness, of course. But because the devil is not totally heartless (wait...), he tosses Jack a lump of burning coal from hell so he can have a bit of light. Jack carves out a turnip and sticks the coal inside, creating a lantern. Hence, "Jack of the Lantern," which is later shortened to "Jack O'Lantern."

Kids have been dressing up in costumes for a long, long time.

I don't know when this began, but an early example of it is kids going out "guising" -- wearing disguises.

In the Shetland Islands, kids dressed as "skeklers," wearing dresses made of wheat stalks.

Etymology and Origins

* Skekel / Skekle: The root noun in the Shetland dialect means a masked or disguised person, a guiser, or specifically someone wearing a straw dress at Halloween.

* Norn Roots: The term originates from the historical Norn language (a North Germanic language spoken in Shetland and Orkney until the 18th/19th century before being replaced by Scots).

* Skakling: Recorded in local almanacs to describe the start of the winter half-year around All Saints' Day (November 1st).

Kids dressed up in dresses made of straw is kinda creepy!

This custom involved what evolved into trick or treating:

* Costume: Made from local oat-straw woven into a skirt (gloy), a short cloak, and a tall, pointed straw mask or hat.

* Tradition: Skeklers traveled from house to house (hoosamylla) in small groups between mid-October and late January, dancing and playing music in exchange for food or drink.

* Leadership: The group was traditionally directed or led by a figure known as the scuddler.

Apparently people used to put apples on the thresholds of their doors as an offering to evil spirits, who would be placated by the sweets and not trouble the family inside.

But kids became coming by afterwards and asking for the apples which had not actually been carried off by spirits, which I would imagine was most of them.

And from that: begging for candy in costume.

Bobbing for apples is closely associated with Halloween. Remember, this coincides with the final harvest of the year, so apples are significant. As I mentioned, fruit was central to many Halloween traditions:

In America today, Halloween is most often associated with pumpkins and candy. For centuries in the British Isles, though, this eerie night was linked with apples, nuts, and cabbage, all of which were given secret powers...

Among all the food traditions of Halloween, apples appear most often. There are loose theories for why apples are so special on this day. They've long been thought to have an uncanny magic: in Welsh folklore, for instance, they carry a whiff of immortality. In the Book of Hallowe'en, an early 20th century study of October 31 traditions, Ruth Edna Kelley writes that apples came to Halloween through the colonizing Romans, who linked their fall apple festival with the Celtic Samhain.

But the game didn't start as bobbing for apples in water. Instead, the apples were bobbed for in between fire.

A stick was hanged from the ceiling by its middle so that it was suspended horizontally, and free to spin on the string holding it. On one side was stuck an apple. On the otherside, a lighted candle. Then the stick would be set to spinning and you would, without your hands, bob and bite at the apple as it spun around, trying to avoid being licked in the face by the flame or hit in the eye with hot candle-wax.

This "game" was called "snap-apple," and, if I might channel the noted ethnologist Donald Trump, it's a shit-hole tradition.

Oh, and winning the game -- eating the apple without taking a mouthful of flame -- would mean that you would be the first to marry or marry whatever person you liked.

Another version of the game involved suspending apples on strings from the ceiling, no sticks or candles involved. This is safer, though far less Mëtäl.

Another variation:

Sometimes the apples would be labeled or marked by young men and women before they were put in a tub of water: the person who caught your apple could be your mate. In another version of snap apple, a hoop is suspended from the ceiling, and different treats and tricks, including cake, candies, bread, apples, and peppers, are stationed along its rim. The one a player caught with their teeth would foretell the nature of their love--would it be sweet, spicy, too hot? Would it nourish or burn them?

A lot of fruit, a lot of eating, and a lot of promise of sex.

Even cabbages had sexual bend:

If none of these fortune telling methods went your way, you could still resort to cabbage. One tradition involved pulling kale stalks from a field: the nature of the stalk, its weight, length, girth, and taste, would hint at one's future spouse.

I'm not going to unpack that.

A lot of divinations were of the "ill fortune" type:

Some people would bake a ring and nut into the cake--the finder of the nut would be a widow or widower. In another version, the cake had a coin, a sloe berry and a bit of wood baked in. The coin meant wealth, the sloe meant you'd outlive all your friends and the wood meant you'd die within the year.

Yay!

This being a "liminal time" when the "walls between the worlds were lower" led to Halloween being a time for minor magics like divination of the future.

And this divination usually involved predicting your future spouse.

In one divination game, you would peel an apple all in one big peel, then throw the apple peel over your shoulder. When the peel landed on the floor, it would form a letter, which would be the first letter of the name of the person you would marry.

This magical divination predicts a lot of spouses with names beginning with I, J, G, S, Z, and C, and maybe a D here and there, but anyone whose name began with K, X, Y, R, B or any letter formed by multiple strokes was shit out of luck and would die a lonely spinster.

Another of these "see your future spouse" games involved going into a darkened, lonely room with only a candle for light and looking at a mirror. Supposedly, over your shoulder and behind you, would appear the dark, fuzzy form of the person you would wind up marrying.

Obviously this just relies on darkness and unsteady light and seeing what you want to see.

I read about this "candle in a mirror and your future spouse appears behind you" game in Agatha Christie's Hallowe'en Party, which also featured "snap-apple," but I'm pretty sure it was the safe version without the candle.

Oh, and the victim is killed by being drowned in the tub for bobbing apples. Oh, and also, despite the book being set in the 1960s, they casually mention that the village has a "village witch" like this is a normal thing that most villages have and needs no further explanation.

What? English villages all had a village witch, the same as they had a butcher or postman?

There were other variations.

In many variations, the seeker was forced to walk backward, which aided the tension. From a 1916 story in the Alaska Daily Empire out of Juneau, "Little girls duck for apples till they are wet from head to foot, walk down the cellar stairs backward, hold a candle before a mirror to see their future husbands."

The opportunities for shenanigans are obvious. Friends stealthily followed behind mirror-toting players, or hid in the darkened destinations. At the right moment, they leaped from the shadows, screams stabbing the night before terror collapsed into giggles. Or, there was the potential for romantic assignations. A hopeful young man, yearning to make his feelings known, could plan to reveal himself in a mirror. As another postcard suggested, "of course this affair must be prearranged to be successful for the Witches are busy and can't tend to everybody."

This one, via Google AI (but I've read it elsewhere), is even more dangerous than snap-apple:

Walking Backwards Down Stairs: Some variations required a person to hold a hand-mirror and walk backwards down a dark flight of stairs at midnight to catch a reflection of their future mate.

That is a shithole tradition way to wind up in traction.

We've all noticed that Halloween has become, for older teenagers and young adults, a holiday all about sex. Girls dress like literal streetwalkers. It's a hookup holiday.

But I didn't realize until writing this post... it's literally always been a holiday closely associated with sex. Even stuff like the ripe, full apples suggest sexual maturation and pregnancy.

Sure, magical games to see your future spouse are the socially acceptable way to suggest sex, but it's still mostly about sex. This holiday has always had mating on its mind, from the early pagan days.

So: magic, pagan traditions, "lowering the veils" between the worlds, evil spirits and the devil. And on top of it all: the suggestion of sex.

No wonder religious people have such a problem with it.

Many of the ideas in this post came from this video about the folklore that may have inspired It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

MaaikeDx @RembrandtsRoom

Oct 31, 2024

Taken in 1936 during a photo session at Raynham Hall in Norfolk. The photographers captured the original lady of the house, Lady Dorothy Townsend, descending the staircase. One of the most famous "ghost photograph" ever

Spooky Talafreako:

I had planned on reviewing Backrooms and Obsession but I'm going to skip that. But definitely use the threat to suggest spooky movies for your fellow Morons.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:20 PM

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