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Am I remember correctly that on Guy Fawkes Day (no apostrophe?) the girls ask the boys out? | |||
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Not in my experience. Richard English | |||
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Samhain was a pagan festival celebrated in the first three days of November, marking the end of the harvest. Part of the festivities including the burning of bonfires. The early Christians adopted a policy of absorbing pagan rituals into their religion, and so it became All Saints' (or All Souls') Day. The night before was All Saints' Day Eve (Halloween) when the ghosts were supposed to walk and no-one could sleep safe. The protestants didn't have the same assimilation culture as their Catholic predecessors and confused pagans with Devil-worshippers. They disapproved of people having fun, espcially in the name of religion so were against the celebration of All Saints' Day. When Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators tried to blow up Parliament they saw their chance. The general populace was relieved that the plotters did not succeed and the government decreed that the night of November 5th be a time of rejoicing. The practice of burning bonfires during Samhain became transferred to Bonfire Night and the celebration became more secularised. In mainly Catholic Ireland All Saints' Day and Halloween continued. It was there that children would go from door to door soliciting treats and the custom to was taken to America by Irish immigrants. It was there that the blackmail element - the 'trick' in 'trick or treat' - was added. The only similar custom I've ever heard about is on Leap Year's Day, February 29th, every four years (approx.) when girls are supposed to be able to propose. It's certainly not a Guy Fawkes Night custom. (Note it's 'Night' not 'Day'.)This message has been edited. Last edited by: arnie, Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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Samhain was a pagan festival celebrated in the first three days of November A couple of notes: Samhain (pronounced /sow@n/) is an Irish word and feast. There is a Gaulish/Continental Celtic calendar, called the Caligny Calendar, on which there is a month of Samonios, which is cognate with the Irish Samhain. Some assume that the Gaulish month of Samonios corresponds roughly with modern October/November, but others point out that the Gaulish word for summer is Samon and that perhaps Samonios was closer to summer or the end of summer. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Congratulations! You've antedated OED, where the earliest cite given is 1947:
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Back in My Day (late thirties) in southeast Kansas, there were lots of Tricks and hardly any Treats. The few mothers who brewed a kettle of hot chocolate and served it to us outlandishly costumed Tricksters were rare. My father taught us how to make a Tick-Tack: Cut notches all around the perimeter of both ends of an empty wooden sewing-thread spool. Use a large nail for an axle; wrap a yard of string around the spool. Hold it firmly against a glass windowpane and give the string a strong pull. The resulting sound scares the victims out of their wits. One of our major Halloween activities was (in local dialect) "tumpin torlets." In those days in that place indoor toilets were practically unknown. Outdoor toilets were the target of our serious vandalism. The most fun happened when we found one in use and tumped it anyway. A less serious but very popular item was soaping windows. The thrills came from getting close enough to rub a bar of soap on the window glass, rendering it useless for seeing through until it was washed. It's good to see that that our vicious malicious rituals have evolved to the modern version where Treats outweigh Tricks by far. Seems to say Civilization is improving .... little by little. | |||
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My doorbell rang yesterday evening and I answered it. A trick-or-treater who had been hiding in the porch at the side of the door poked his head, wearing a fright mask, round the door and said "Boo!". Although I had been half-expecting something similar, for some reason I was so startled that I jumped about four feet backwards, slamming the door in his face. I reopened the door and, to his credit, he was very apologetic. He got his treats, anyway. Alan the timorous Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. | |||
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I love handing out candy on Hallowe'en. I like seeing kids in costumes and being nice and all that. Last night, however, I had to work. So I made sure we had some little toys and things to give out to any kids who might by chance come begging. I was informed that no one goes trick-or-treating in that neighborhood - they all travel to other 'hoods so they actually get some candy. Many of those kids don't wear costumes, even, they just go out asking for candy. It's sad, but true. In the end, we got about a dozen kids in the library, most of whom knew we would have some goodies because they'd been in earlier in the day and I'd told them. Sigh. ******* "Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama | |||
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We had about 25 trick-or-treaters last night, most of them very young and walking the neighborhood with one parent or the other, you know, for protection from dangers in the night. All very cute, sweet and greedy for candy. My husband took the dog walking with a group of neighbors for awhile, which dog and master both enjoyed greatly (no candy for them!) When I was a child, after about the age of 7, my brother, sister, and I were permitted to trick-or-treat in the three or four city blocks near our home, alone or with our friends. We didn't pull any vandalism stunts after about 1954, the year when my brother, his friends and I ran around soaping merchants' windows--this was the night before Halloween, known in Cincinnati then as "damage night. On Halloween, you'd go around harvesting candy, and you'd say "trick or treat," but there were never any more tricks after that one year--we were in such trouble with our mother! When my own children were small, we seemed to have a lot of trouble with neighborhood rowdies--boys aged 14 to 16 who came around and soaped windows (our childhood chickens coming home to roost) and cars, "submarined" trees with toilet paper, sprayed shaving cream on the exterior brickwork and smashed pumpkins, but nothing like that has happened for probably 15 years now. And there is leftover candy at our house, so if anybody wants to drop by...  Wordmatic | |||
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Kalleh's allusion was to Sadie Hawkins Day, which (coincidentally?) follows hard on Guy's heels. | |||
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Trick or treat and the idea of celebrating halloween is a US invention. Sadly it is becoming very popular over here nowadays, I wish it were otherwise. Richard English | |||
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As it is essentially a celebration of dressing in drag, Halloween is San Francisco's national holiday -- even our baseball team's colors are orange and black. Entire neighborhoods coordinate decorations. In addition, the Mexican community celebrates Dia de los Muertos the next day with its excellent folk art and groovy Catholicized-Aztec traditions like dinner in the graveyard. | |||
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The dressing up and acting out parts of Hallowe'en are similar to carnival week activites I've observed in the Rheinland. —Ceci n'est pas un seing. | |||
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Yesterday I heard a report on the radio that the French are thinking of banning it. So what else is new!?!?  | ||
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It is rare indeed that I agree with the French... Richard English | |||
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Ah, yes. Thanks, Granny! | |||
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