Hi <<First Name>>, Did you know the Irish invented Halloween?
Samhain is the ancient Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the dark half of the year. Lunar time and the seasons were very important to an agricultural people and this festival took place about halfway between the autumn equinox and the ultimate dark of the winter December solstice. Cattle were brought down from the Summer pastures and some slaughtered for Winter and eaten at feasts. Great fires were held at other quarterly lunar celebrations and in this case with the cattle bones added - hence the bone-fire (bonfire).
Dressing up in disguise to fool the other-worldy wanderers was part of the ritual and it was a time that the spirits & fairies moved freely between the worlds. Later on, the evening before All Saints Day- All Hallows Eve - became shortened to Halloween.
Turnips and Pumpkins.
If you have ever tried to peel a potato and thought it was difficult, then try a turnip, it is like carving an orange rock. They come now shop-aided and abetted with some sort of a waxy exterior to make it even more diffic. The carving of these large root vegetables to form hollowed out receptacles for candles and as makeshift lanterns was born in Ireland of folk tales and brought to America by the early Irish emigrants.
The turnip lantern origin story is of a crafty man who tricked the devil twice. He eventually died and was unwelcome both in heaven and hell. Fearing he would be tricked again, the devil sent him off with only a burning coal. Crafty Jack carved out a turnip to hold it in and was able to find his way in the dark by the embers light and roams ever since.
My own 'hot take' is that the traditions of putting lights into vegetables and on windows were to help stumbling drunk men find their way back to home-port on the pitch dark nights before electricity came to the highways and byways.
A Happy All Hallows ‘een to you all
PS read on McDuff
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