Samhain

The feast we call Halloween was originally an autumn festival. Like most prehistoric festivals we don't really know what it was about. So that means we generally assume it was some kind of fertility rite. After all, they didn't have TV or Twitter in those days - early people had to make their own entertainment.

The co-incidence of the Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls seems to have introduced, via a tortuous route, the link with death and - via Mexican traditions and Hollywood and US commercialism - produced the ghoul-fest of small children traipsing around the streets dressed as Gary Barlow and Tulisa that we know today. It's truly astonishing how mutable folkloric traditions can be.

But in keeping with our Beaker heritage, we're going to keep Samhain as a serious feast. So we're going to light a bonfire and hope it keeps the darkness away. Pumpkins, swedes and turnips carved in scary faces are allowed. As long as you light a tea light inside them. But ghouls, ghosts, pirates, mummies, giraffes (I don't want a repeat of last year) and Ricky Gervais masks are out. This is a proper celebration. And we don't want to scare the kids too much.

Samhain - Raging against the dying of the Light

As the last embers of the Wicker Man burn out, and the hi-viz of the last Beaker Person is doused with water before he sustains any more fire damage, we can look back on another exciting Samhain.

I use the word Samhain, of course, not because it is the authentic Beaker word for the festival, but because we have no idea what the Beaker People would have called it. However I should point out that, being an Irish word, Samhain is not pronounced as it is written. It is actually pronounced "Halloween". I hope I've cleared up some confusion there.

But today, in a manner that won't send me screaming into the woods again, we fought back against the dying of the light. Like the folk of Egdon on Bonfire Night, we shake our fists at the night and say, "over our dead bodies". So we lit our wicca man, we bowled blazing tar barrels across the orchard (only losing three apple trees this year, and the extra light is always welcome), we pushed a blazing rowing boat out across the duck pond (unfortunately thereby singeing Duckhenge) and, a day early since it happens that this year Halloween is the day before 1 November, we lit the first wave of Xmas Bling. Nothing too religious - no Santas or reindeer or penguins, just some tasteful strings of white lights and the 45 foot illuminated trilithon.  And then we took the patched-up dragon from the St George re-creation this morning, soaked it in petrol and set it alight.  It's fair to say we've not generated so much light in Husborne Crawley since last time the Moot House caught fire.

The autumn fogs are another hazard of this time of year, of course. But I can't help thinking that, on this occasion, we may have caused it ourselves. After all, there's only so many particulates you can kick into the atmosphere without causing a general smogginess.

And we had a nice little dance in a circle around the sundial - anti-clockwise, as the clocks went back last night. While playing Enya's "Caribbean Blue", which to be honest didn't seem to have much to do with anything, but at least it's atmospheric.
I'm not sure why, but it's always good to dance around the sundial occasionally. Maybe it's the sight of all the traditional Hi Viz that takes you back to prehistoric times, when the original Beaker Folk would dance a lot quicker in case they were caught by a polar bear or something.
But all in all, I had a great time. And we've only got 5 days till we can do it all again on Bonfire Night.

Which is just as well, as I can't help but notice, as the lights of the Thousand Punkies die out across the estate, that the dark is creeping back in again...

All Saints' and All Souls'

Some Beaker Folk have been getting rather confused about the up-coming Saints Super Sunday. So here's the running order.

We regard those Beaker Folk who have day jobs as a special group. Obviously their lack of commitment to the activities of the fellowship is to be regretted, and we do our best to ensure they feel guilty, as clearly they are letting us down. But on the other hand they are our main source of income so we can't get them too seriously disillusioned or they might go somewhere more reasonable. So because they would miss the All Saints' Day festivities we have moved All Saints to the morning of Sunday 31 October.

Come dressed as your favourite saint. Although anyone coming as St Lucy this year is requested not to be too realistic. A few people passed out last year.

After the All Saints' celebration on Sunday morning, we move on to the All Souls remembrance in the afternoon. It's a strange, Catholic kind of observance, and really dependent on a belief in Purgatory as far as I can tell - which makes it ironic that so many of our community don't really seem to believe in everything at all. But hey, they have loved ones that they miss, so it goes down well. One tea light per lost relative or pet is the rule, and if you want to commemorate more there's plenty of web sites you can use.

We've got to whip through the All Souls Solemn Remembrance pretty quick, ready for the Halloween party. Now, I know that Halloween is technically the Eve of All Hallows, which we'll have celebrated in the morning. And I realise that in temporal terms we are, strictly speaking, mucking about. But it wouldn't be right to move Halloween to the day before, would it? That would make it Halloweeneen - and what sort of numpty would move an important festival to the wrong day?

So there we have it. I hope it all makes sense. I realise you may feel like we're rushing through this period of great festivity, but if we don't how are we going to clear the decks for getting the Christmas lights up on Monday?

An Ecumenical Halloween

I think we're all set up for our Samhain celebrations.  The Wicker Person now looks scarily like Harriet Harman but it's too late to do much about that now.  The oven-ready chicken, spare ribs, potatoes, sweet corn, marshmallows etc are all ready to be put in the Wicker Person later.  The cider and spices are ready for mulling and we've all got umbrellas at the ready.

In a spirit of ecumenism (for we owe no man or woman ill) we have been sending some cards out. We've sent "You're making it all up as go along" cards to the neo-pagan folk down the road who think that this is the new year.  They also tell us that "Samhain" is pronounced "Saw-win" instead of being pronounced "Halloween" so what do they know?

We've sent "Happy All Saints" cards to the local vicars, and "Hope they're all out of Purgatory soon" cards to the local Rabidly Traditional Catholic splinter group, ready for All Souls.

We were also going to send "Hope you stop being so bonkers" cards to various American evangelicals for the claim that, among other things, Witches have prayed over most of the candy sold at Halloween -  but remembering that the good people of a Bible college in the Midlands once prayed for the soul of this site's author, we thought let's not - there's little enough decent irony in the world without going around wasting it.  Also it could be a giant set-up by militant atheists to make Pat Robertson and his friends look like they're bonkers....  As if they need to.

So now we just have the excitement of wondering whether the Moon Gibbon Folk will join us for tonight's celebrations.  They still keep telling us that we're a bunch of heretics and they're only staying for the money, but on the other hand the moon is nearly full now so they're cheering up nicely.  And I noticed they had their eyes on our Halloween masks this year.  The Nick Griffin one is of course really popular, and I wish Private Eye hadn't got there first, but I like the Ann Widdecombe, Christopher Hitchens and Jordan masks as well.  There's gonna be some terrified people down School Lane tonight.

Woodhenge and Halloween

We note the rather nice piece on Wood- and other henges on the BBC website. Especially the (necessarily conjectural) idea that the dead were carried from the forests of Durrington Walls (a wooden structure) to the stone and therefore permanent emplacement of Stonehenge - symbol of the dead. We are struck with the parallel with Swaledale's "Corpse Way", whereby once upon a time dead Northerners were carried in wicker baskets to their rest at Grinton Church. We also consider the irony that in the mid-19th century, almost the entire population was carried from this beautiful Dale down into the Durham Coalfields. We have been asked whether we might consider a similar long-distance transportation to a resting place.
So far we have said no. Partly because you don't like to think about such things, especially coming up to Samhain. Partly because the current crop of Beaker Folk look like lasting for years, thereby holding up any chance of getting our hands on their legacies. And partly because it's such a blooming long way to the crematorium along dangerous roads. I'm not carrying a dead Beaker Person along the A5 for any amount of tradition.

Meanwhile on the Halloween front, I notice that the Wicker Person (I've decided to change it from "Wicker Man" for the purposes of annoying everyone) is now at full height ready for the great burning on Saturday. Unfortunately it also seems to have taken on a decided resemblance to Simon Cowell, including the high-waisted pallets. On the bright side, as it sways in the wind our Wicker Simon has more mobility in its face than the real one. Still, we don't want to upset the rich and powerful. Please can somebody make the Wicker Person more anonymous.

Halloween Wicker Man

The Wicker Man is now rising nicely over Big Meadow.  By the time Samhain arrives we're wanting it to be 40 feet tall.  We're hoping the flames will be visible in Dunstable.

But this year there is extra urgency.  With all the excitement over the End of the World and the threatened schism (so far not actually happened) we've really rather left the Wicker Man a bit late.  So can all the Beaker Folk, as they finish their Data Mining, please swap their keyboards for nail extractors and hatchets.  We've a lot of pallets to split if we're going to get that Wicker Man up to size by Saturday.  As usual we're also looking for the sacrificial victims to put in it, so please can you all rack your brains.  A few oven-ready chickens would be nice, and obviously the normal potatoes and sweetcorns.  But what else does anyone fancy for tea on Saturday?