Have Yourself
an Old-Fashioned Halloween
Halloween was always my favorite holiday when I
was a kid (way back in the 1960s)—even more than Christmas. Back then, it was a
very child-focused holiday, with a few exceptions. My parents hosted a Halloween
costume party that I will never forget. One of their male friends came as
Little Bo Peep (my first experience seeing a straight guy in drag!), while my
dad borrowed a theatre costume and dressed as a very authentic Henry VIII. But
the day was really for the young. I looked forward to trick or treating all year
long. Our costumes were homemade—only the tiniest tots wore the
printed-jammies-and-plastic-mask costumes from the dime store.
When I became a serious Pagan, Halloween turned
into Samhain and a sacred holiday for me. I continued carving Jack o’lanterns
and dressing up to answer the door. But for twenty-five years I’ve lived on a
country road too lonely and dangerous for trick or treating, and my observance
of the holiday has been a very private one. In the meantime, Halloween as a
social and cultural event has exploded in the United States. Evangelical
Christians deplore “the glorification of evil and the occult” in vain.
Halloween is big business, to the tune of $8 billion a year for candy,
costumes, decorations and events. It’s the grown-ups who decorate their houses
and yards and wear the costumes now, both often far more explicitly gruesome
and macabre than anything from my youth.
If you don’t celebrate October 31 as a religious
holiday (either Pagan Samhain or the Christian “All Hallows”), you may enjoy
all the brilliant and technological festivities. You can buy Halloween lights
in multiple colors and styles, and professional quality costumes and make-up. Elaborate
yard displays include life-size ghosts, monsters and skeletons, or huge
inflatable and/or animated figures (my neighbors have a giant spider on their
porch roof right now that looks like it should be chasing Frodo through Cirith
Ungol). But what if you fall somewhere between these two poles? Maybe you’d
like to try some of the old-fashioned, quieter traditions for celebrating the
day. Here are a few things you can do:
Carve a
Turnip Jack o’ lantern.
The original Jack o’ lantern predates the
introduction of the pumpkin to Europe from the Americas, where it was
domesticated and cultivated by the Native tribes. The earliest such “punkie
lights” were made from large root vegetables like turnips, rutabagas and
mangel-wurzels. You can buy the big rutabagas in many grocery stores, often
waxed to keep them from drying out.
The first time I tried making a “turnip light,” I
was surprised at how easy it was. All you need is a large metal spoon with a
sharp edge. Slice the top off the rutabaga and start scooping out the inside
flesh a little at a time. As you work down into the core, start scooping to the
sides. You want to hollow out the rutabaga until the sides are between a half
inch to a quarter inch thick. Make a “floor” at the bottom that can hold a tea
light candle (or you can use a battery-powered Jack o’ lantern light or a small
flashlight) When your rutabaga is completely hollowed out, carve it the same
way you would a pumpkin.
Try Out Some
Fortune-Telling.
Reading the future was a common tradition for a
number of holidays, including New Year’s Eve, May Day and Midsummer Day. But
there are more fortune-telling customs around Halloween than any other day.
Many of them sought predictions on who would die in the coming twelve months,
but many asked about love and marriage. A young girl would sit before a mirror
with her hair unbound at midnight on Halloween. By the light of a single
candle, she would eat an apple slowly and comb her hair, waiting to see the
shadowy image of her future husband appear over her shoulder.
You could try reading the cards or any other
divination method you know. The Ouija Board has acquired an undeservedly
negative reputation, but you can make a “talking board,” the Victorian parlor
game on which the Ouija Board is based. All you need is a large sheet of smooth
paper on which you’ve written the letters of the alphabet, numerals, and any
symbols or words you wish (“yes” and “no” help speed things along). Then you
need a small flat, or flat-bottomed, object that will slide easily over the
paper. The Victorians used an inverted wine glass (short stem, wide mouth and
base). A large coin like a silver dollar also works well. To operate the talking
board, two or more people rest the tips of their fingers on the slider very
lightly. It can take a while for the board to come to life—it should start with
the slider moving in broad, sweeping circles. When it stops, ask a question.
Speak to
the Spirits.
Traditionally, Halloween was the old Celtic New
Year and the beginning of winter. That made it a “threshold” holiday when
different dimensions or planes of reality overlapped, and beings not usually
seen in our world could enter. This might include the Fae, spirits of the dead,
deities, elementals, and to Christians, angels or devils. Dressing up in masks
and costumes (or “guising”) as these beings was a way of confusing them or
warding off the harm they might do.
But Halloween was often a solemn time of communing
with these spirits. You could set a “dumb supper” or empty place setting at
your dinner table for them, or leave a lighted candle with food and drink by
the hearth (if you have one) or on the doorstep. People sometimes sat before a
mirror hoping to glimpse a lost loved one, or placed a memento under their
pillows and made a wish to speak to the departed in their dreams. Pagans create
“ancestor altars” with photos and small belongings of deceased family members,
while Christians remember their beloved dead in their prayers.
Make Something
Out of Blackberries.
The last blackberries of the year must be eaten
before Halloween night—after that, anything left in the fields belongs to the “pwca”
(or Pooka), a dark and sinister spirit shaped like an animal. Bake a blackberry
tart or squeeze the juice for a deep red drink.
Bob for Apples.
Apples are a sacred fruit in many cultures, and autumn
is their time of year. Bobbing for apples is one of the oldest and most common
of Halloween games. An apple is floated in a large tub of water and the
contestants have to try and retrieve the apple with their teeth. In a
variation, you can hang the apple from a string—the winner is the first who
manages to take a good bite out of it. The winner must eat the whole apple
after the game ends, and supposedly will gain the gift of second sight.
Candy apples—dipped in candy syrup, caramel or
another sweet coating and often rolled in nuts—are one of the earliest
Halloween “treats.”
These and other traditional customs are less
expensive and gaudy than animatronic zombies or cakes shaped to look like
severed body parts. When you revive them, you’re connecting with your forebears
who practiced them in simpler times. That connection with those who have passed
on is the “true meaning of Halloween.” But whatever you do to celebrate, have a
fun, safe and spooky October 31!
————————————————————————————————————————
Inanna Arthen (Vyrdolak) is an artist, speaker and
author of The Vampires of New England Series:
Mortal Touch (2007),
The
Longer the Fall (2010), and
All the
Shadows of the Rainbow (September 30, 2013). Book 4 is currently in
progress. Inanna is a lifelong scholar of vampire folklore, fiction and fact,
and runs By Light Unseen Media (http://bylightunseenmedia.com), an independent
press dedicated to publishing vampire fiction and nonfiction. She is a member
of Broad Universe, New England Horror Writers, Independent Book Publishers
Association (IBPA) and Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE). She holds
an M.Div degree from Harvard and is an outspoken advocate for the Pagan and
LGBTQ communities. She is minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of
Winchendon, MA. Her professional website is http://inannaarthen.com.
Purchase
All the Shadows of the Rainbow HERE.