31st October in Scotland......

   Hallowe'en in Scotland.......................(not me!)

First of all - why does the word "Hallowe'en" (now spelt "Halloween") have this apostrophe 

between the two "e's"...?

English speaking people may, or may not, know the answer.

It's because the word is actually an abbreviation of "Hallowed Evening" and people soon got 
fed up trying to say that...so they changed it, then others couldn't spell it, so they 
changed it again!

German is "Allerheiligen" - occasionally "Polternacht" - since "Allerheiligen" is really the 
festival on the 1st November - in English "All Saints Day" or French "Toussaint".

Now you know when it is, what it means in various languages, but WHAT is it...?

Well - the origins come from a Celtic "pagan" feast, designed to mark the passing from 
"summer" to "winter" - long daylight hours to shorter daylight hours.

Here's a link that gives you 3D screensavers on all sorts of subjects, including Halloween:

http://www.enhanced-dimensions.com/wordpress/?page_id=2  - free of charge!

As a kid, in Scotland, there were a couple of things I couldn't understand about this 
particular festivity. My parents, like many Scots, were fervent to the point of insanity, 
about their religion.

They were "protestant" - evangelical in fact, even worse!

As such they were strictly against anything "pagan" - "Catholic" - "Papist" and many other 
things like TV, Cinema (dens of iniquity), Theatre, Opera - in general, anything that 
was fun and was held outside of a church or a church hall.

Here's a link to tell you all about Clan's gatherings in Scotland.....

http://www.myspace.com/thebordergathering

BUT.....for some strange, unexplained reason, Hallowe'en was allowed! 

On top of that, it was generally celebrated in the Church Hall - I mean, a pagan festival, in the Church Hall.......!

I didn't like it very much, because we had to "perform" - us kids - for the pleasure of the "grown-ups" - sticking our heads into huge metal basins, full of freezing cold (in Scotland, everything is freezing cold - all the time) water, with apples bobbing up and down.  If you caught one with your teeth, you got to keep it - 
in theory, but my parents, being the "Pastor & Wife" of this band of muttons, 
always made me give mine to some other kid - generally the one who HADN'T been forced 
to stick his head in the cold water!

We also got to try and eat apples - coated in cheap, horrible tasting jam, and hung up on 
bits of string - with our hands tied behind our back.....!

Gets worse and worse, doesn't it? 

Church hall with Pagan feasts and bondage.......! Gets even worse, 'cos if you didn't do it to the full extent, thus getting your face, head, hair coated in the foul jam, then you got a 
"light" tap on the backside from oner of the adults!

Bondage - caning - paedophile actions.......all in the Church Hall at the "Annual Pagan 
festivity"!

For the rest of the year, we weren't allowed to watch TV - go to the cinema etc...
etc...etc.....maybe it was better that way....!

All the same.......

Understand who can! 

I couldn't.......

 

  ... and stay out of church halls - they're really mean places...!

This year, you've got an extra hour of "spirits and things".........!

*********

(iwmpop) Mr le marquis        -         Vauvert, France          -           Octobre 2010