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The History of Hallowe'en
243 Plays1 year ago
The later days of October introduce a new chill to the air - both in the natural world as temperatures drop and in society as we anticipate Hallowe’en. But there is also stirring within and of the heart for many people around the world because this time of year brings to the forefront of our minds the reality of death and spurs the remembrance of those gone before us. Though at times it can be a contentious discussion, we were fascinated by the real history of Hallowe'en and how what is presented in our culture today may be missing quite a lot of the mark.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
couple hundred years for all of these changes to really come into what? Set into place? Okay. For all of these changes to be set into plates. Plates. The feasting comes later, Lindsay. Right?
Episode Introduction
00:00:31
Speaker
Welcome back to the Modern Lady podcast. You're listening to episode 143. Hi, I'm Michelle. And I'm Lindsay. And today we are talking about the history of Halloween. The later days of October introduce a new chill to the air, both in the natural world as temperatures drop and as the secular world anticipates Halloween.
00:00:53
Speaker
But there's also a stirring within and of the heart for many people around the world because this time of year brings to the forefront of our minds the reality of death and spurs the remembrance of those gone before us. Far more meaningful than perhaps presented, all Hallows' Tide truly is a sacred and supernatural time.
Support and Engagement
00:01:14
Speaker
But first, the best way that you can support The Modern Lady is by subscribing to our podcast on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts and by sharing us with your friends. We also welcome you to join us over at patreon.com forward slash The Modern Lady podcast where for just five dollars a month you will get exclusive and extra content.
00:01:36
Speaker
And Michelle and I just want to thank our latest subscribers, so welcome to Patreon, Sarah, Hanalor, Michaela, and Jamie. We are thrilled that you've decided to join us over at Patreon. We would like to offer this week's episode up in prayer for a grieving family.
00:01:53
Speaker
Joanne, you and your family are in our prayers and we will continue to pray for the repose of your daughter Emma's soul. Please join us in praying for this family, dear listeners, and for all the souls of our dearly departed, especially as we enter into this hallowtide, the Tridium of Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day.
00:02:14
Speaker
If you would like to leave us a comment or message us about today's episode, the best way to get in touch with us is on Instagram at the Modern Lady podcast. But be sure to stay tuned to the end of the episode for other ways to connect because we would love to hear from you. But before we get into today's chat, Lindsay has our Modern Lady Tip of the Week.
Origins of Friday the 13th
00:02:40
Speaker
For the first time ever, I am opening with a direct quote, this one from History.com, because I can't think of a better opening than this. Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday the 13th has inspired a late 19th century secret society, an early 20th century novel, a horror film franchise, and not one but two unwieldy terms, paracave decatryophobia and frigatricidecaphobia.
00:03:09
Speaker
that describe this fear of this supposedly unlucky day. Now, one of the most persistent origin stories of Friday the 13th involves the Last Supper. There were 13 people present at the Last Supper, namely Jesus and his 12 disciples. We all know that one of those disciples betrayed Jesus, which led to his crucifixion the next day on Good Friday.
00:03:34
Speaker
Other Christian traditions report that Eve gave Adam the apple to eat on a Friday and that Cain killed his brother Abel also on a Friday. Whether this is or is not the official origin of the Friday the 13th superstition, we do know that many people of the past felt that 12 was a good solid number. A dozen baked items, 12 months and a year, 12 inches and a foot, 12 days of Christmas, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 gods of Olympus.
00:04:01
Speaker
13 just feels uneasy, doesn't it? National Geographic Kids explains that the fear of Friday the 13th isn't universal. In Spain, it's Tuesday the 13th, and in Italy, it's the 17th day of the month because the Roman numerals are XVII, and you can rearrange those into VIXI, which means my life is over.
00:04:25
Speaker
According to History.com, there was a New Yorker named Captain William Fowler who made it his mission to remove the stigma of the number 13. He hosted dinner parties for 13 people on the 13th day of the month in room 13 of a popular watering hole and there they would enjoy a 13 course dinner.
00:04:44
Speaker
Now, we might think all of this is all malarkey, just superstitious nonsense from yesteryear. But buildings are still being built without a 13th floor. Okay, of course they have a 13th floor technically, but you won't see it listed in many elevators. And some builders are really still doing this today. It's kind of wild when you think about it. We don't often see such widespread acknowledgement of something so superstitious persisting today.
00:05:11
Speaker
I did a little more digging into this whole 13th floor thing and found a very interesting article on constructiondive.com about it. They explained that there is an economic reason why many builders don't list a 13th floor and it is still based on the old superstition but in a much more capitalistic way. Builders know that people are far less likely to purchase or rent out spaces on the 13th floor, so many builders opt to use that space for mechanical and electrical equipment in a high rise.
00:05:41
Speaker
Okay, Michelle, fess up. Would you be nervous staying on the 13th floor of a hotel? Honestly, I don't notice. I don't think I would be bothered by it. I guess I'm not even a little stitious. I think you're a joke last week.
00:06:02
Speaker
Honestly, like I said, I think it was last week. I find all the folklore and stuff like this and the origin stories so interesting. But I don't know whether it's just the busyness of life or what it is. I don't stop to think about these things. The Friday the 13th for where we live, I just see all the motorcycles.
00:06:25
Speaker
That's how I know. I was going to say that. Yeah. Well, I was going to say that for our listeners who don't know, Friday the 13th here in Southern Ontario is a huge day for motorcycle enthusiasts to go down to Port Dover, a little tiny beach town. I've never been. I'm surprised, surprised, not a big motorcycle fan. So it's not something I've ever wanted to do. But yeah, that's what we associate it with here in Southern Ontario.
Catholic Perspective on Halloween
00:06:53
Speaker
The subject of Halloween is fraught with tension and contention in the social and cultural conversations of recent years. As Catholics, we certainly have a very deep and differing perspective on this time of year than the secular culture. So as we've been noting all the varying discussions going on around this time of year, we were keen to dig a little deeper into the season ourselves, right Lindsay?
00:07:18
Speaker
Yes, it's a huge discussion. It's getting more and more testy over the years between all different sects and groups and all this stuff. And I do find it so interesting and I do think that as Catholics, we have a unique voice in this discussion.
00:07:35
Speaker
Um, right. And we also think it's really interesting. We love a good origin story. We really, you know, love diving deep into seeing, okay, what is the truth here? Because we, like we learned last week, there's such a temptation lately to, um, to take things that are actually a little bit more modern and see if they can drag it as far back as possible and be like, no, no, no, Christians, this is pre-Christian. So is it right? We have all this talk, so we're going to dive into all of that.
00:08:02
Speaker
So I love Halloween. It's a very close second for me with Christmas, but it's they're like neck and neck, which you and I were just joking about before we recorded that we're perfect Victorians because it seems like they really blended Halloween and Christmas like so many of like the little traditions and
00:08:20
Speaker
Oh, we'll save that for Christmas time. But yeah, Christmas and Halloween. And Michelle, I was telling you too that I regularly lament the fact that I married a guy who does not want to dress up with me. And then I birthed four children who really could care less aside from the candy. And I'm like, you guys, I used to plan my costume like a month in advance. And every year, every year I show Jason couples costumes like peanut butter and jelly toast or like this year was Converse sneakers like a
00:08:50
Speaker
Each of us would be a sneaker or Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. I would make a great Dolly. I was built to be Dolly Parton. And he says no every time in a little piece of me dies. Every Halloween. And especially this year, I feel like it's the pinnacle for couples costumes, like between Barbie and Ken and Taylor Swift and her boyfriend.
00:09:19
Speaker
Travis, Kelsey, I don't know if I'm even saying that right. But yeah, opportunities are missed. But we have to detach ourselves, I suppose, from these things. And for years, I was the dinosaur, right? I was the inflatable dinosaur. I was just going to say, I'm like, but you make your own fun on Halloween. And that's one of my favorite Halloween memories is of you and your big inflatable
00:09:44
Speaker
T-Rex costume, terrorizing your neighborhood playground. Yup, swinging on the swings and making my teenager take photos of me. And the best part, Michelle, I just have to tell you, the first year I had that, so I had it still before it was super popular to have those inflatable costumes. And I was walking down the street in it, and I saw a child in the same costume in the child's eyes. And he looked at me, and I looked at him, and he squared up and put up his little T-Rex arms, and he yelled at me, there could only be one. And he ran.
00:10:14
Speaker
headfirst towards me. It was amazing. That is the best story I've ever heard. That's Halloween's story. Yep, so it's done. We can go home. Oh my goodness. Okay, so...
00:10:31
Speaker
Wow, a little off topic there for a second. We detoured, but let's you turn and bring it back. I know. I'm just going to go. I'm going into the accent. Okay. So if you're a Christian on social media, it seems like everywhere you turn, right? This time of the year you see discussions, sometimes heated discussions about the history of Halloween and whether or not Christians should celebrate this holiday. Now,
00:10:56
Speaker
Sorry if everybody got really excited there. We're not actually going to address the second part But we are excited to finally take our own deep dive into the history of Halloween Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was so excited to do this deep dive too because I've also been watching the discussions happening on social media and I think like
00:11:18
Speaker
for me and I know for you too our question like went a little bit further than that it was like yeah but how all this came to be about like what is the connection between everything is there a connection between everything and if so how because history and um context is so important to giving like that bigger picture vision of everything so we just decided to jump right in so
00:11:45
Speaker
Let's go. Okay, so I think that if people are like, what the heck are you talking about? Who might not maybe get the same algorithm that we have and don't know what we're talking about. I think the best place to start is Salwyn. Now this is spelled S-A-M-H-A-I-N.
00:12:02
Speaker
but it is pronounced Samhain. Now, I first heard this term when I was a practitioner of witchcraft, which I talk openly about in my episode. What is it? The light in the darkness? A light in the darkness. Yeah. Okay. That's an episode you guys can listen to if you want to hear about my conversion story. But I did practice witchcraft from 1994 to 2000 and dabbled in it after 2000 for a bit.
00:12:26
Speaker
Now, when I first heard the word Samhain, this was pre Google. Um, so I think I actually read about it in library books, believe it or not. Um, I had to go down to the library, but my understanding of it then was that it was a Wiccan holiday. And I would love, I loved going up to people and being like happy Samhain instead of happy Halloween. Now we know a lot more now about Wiccanism and it's very modern roots,
00:12:51
Speaker
Surprisingly the word Wiccanism the term the religion I guess as as a whole Dates back only to the late 1950s early 1960s. Oh and then yes Yeah, right, right, and I know everybody's make but wait a second. It's based on all the ancient. I know that but just the Wiccanism as a whole the people who created the term and a lot of like the practices that are you know formalized today is new and then but there's a growing trend that we've seen
00:13:21
Speaker
over and over and over again, with people trying to establish and really dive deep into the pre-Christian roots of many of the traditions and festivities that we love today. And this happens with Christmas every year, right? And there's the best example of what we're talking about, about like, no, this is pre-Christian.
00:13:41
Speaker
is made by Hans Feene and he has a YouTube channel called Lutheran Satire and you need to look up Horace Ruins Christmas. It is beloved by my family. We watch it every Christmas over and over again. So Horace Ruins Christmas is the example of what we're trying to illustrate right here.
00:14:00
Speaker
Yes, oh my gosh, it is the perfect portrayal of what we're trying to say, of just like this attempt to go back and take something, anything, it does seem like anything that is Christian today that we think of having Christian roots, but saying, no, no, no, it actually comes from before then. So it's just a, it's a very creative and humorous look at this whole discussion.
00:14:29
Speaker
Absolutely. Now, while some roots of those types of, you know, festivities, celebrations, traditions are easily traceable, and some do obviously go back to pre-Christian times, some are a little harder to kind of figure out the details of. And this is what we encountered when we were looking into Samhain.
00:14:46
Speaker
It's clear that Samhain was celebrated in Ireland and in Scotland, like the British Isles, in pre-Christian times. There was a bronze calendar that was found in France that has the word on it, and this calendar is dated back to the first century BC. But after this bronze calendar, it seems like it wasn't mentioned. You'd be hard pressed to find the word Samhain on anything until it was mentioned in Catholic documents in the late 800s.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting too. I did find that as well. And on that calendar, it was the name of a month, or it was based on the name of a month, right? Yeah. Which we'll probably get into later. But first, we're going to take a step back and do just a bit of history on the celebration of the saints within the early Christian church. So we're going to present this aspect.
00:15:38
Speaker
So the death of the martyrs, the martyrs were Christians who were killed for their faith, right? This custom was marked and honored from the earliest days of the Christian church. Like there are documents actually going back as far as like the year 155 AD,
00:15:57
Speaker
I think one of the documents in the fourth century on the death of Saint Polycarp, who is a bishop that was martyred, is the first instance of this marking of the death of a holy person and recognizing officially that they lived a life of virtue. So this goes really, really far back. And the saints in general in the Catholic Church are men and women who are acknowledged and remembered after death for being exemplars of Christian life.
00:16:27
Speaker
So very early on, it was clearly observed that the high number of martyrs and saints, the ever-growing number in the early church, largely because of awful persecution, it just grew too numerous to give a special day to each person on the calendar. So they needed one day to commemorate all the saints. And so this happened in Rome on May 13th, 609.
00:16:56
Speaker
when the pantheon in Rome was given to Pope Boniface IV, and it was rededicated. So its former usage was to worship all the gods in the Roman pagan sense. And now, after the rededication, it was to honor Saint Mary and all of the martyrs.
Evolution of All Saints Day
00:17:16
Speaker
And so for the next hundred or so years, All Saints were honored in early May. And then it was only sometime between the year 731 and 741 in Rome when Pope Gregory III dedicated a new chapel in the original St. Peter's Basilica to All Saints. And this was done on November 1st. And they were probably like, hey,
00:17:40
Speaker
You know what would be really helpful to remember when this dedication was done? Let's move the feast day to coincide with it. So after that, this new date of November 1st spread throughout Europe and it was recorded at that time by Saint Bede and others including kings throughout the Holy Roman Empire.
00:18:02
Speaker
And the date November 1st was again promulgated by Pope Gregory IV between sometime around 827-844, and yet again by Pope Gregory VII sometime during 1073-1085. Okay, I'm hearing a lot of dates.
00:18:22
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say I'm like, it was a very long process, but the church often takes quite a long time to really, they really want to get things right. So we're seeing this in real time happen with All Saints Day.
00:18:38
Speaker
What I'm hearing too is that there's like a you know at this point a very long history of these these days as well that have been established. So all this to say there's no perfect history here because there can't be due to due to the amount of time it took to spread news and make changes right there's no social media there's no twitter there's no phones so clearly it can take a couple hundred years for all of these changes to really be set into place.
00:19:07
Speaker
But let's go back to the Celts now, right? So we kind of can understand this history with November 1st and the commemoration of All Saints. But back to the Celtic areas. Now, the first mention of this new date for All Saints Day in the British Isles comes to us from Elquin.
00:19:23
Speaker
who was an Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric living in York, England, who wrote about it being celebrated on November 1st in the year 800. So this is what Halloween is to Christians. This is what it was to the early church. Halloween is All Hallows' Eve. All Hallows means All Saints, and it is the Eve before All Saints' Day.
00:19:48
Speaker
Now, traditionally in the Catholic Church, the evening before a significant feast day is spent in solemn preparation with fasting and prayer. And then the celebration the next day is full of music and food and revelry. Yeah.
00:20:02
Speaker
To be honest, I actually didn't know that until like a few years ago. Oh, wow. Yeah, about the solemn preparation about other feast days. Yes. Yeah, but I didn't make the connection with All Saints Day. So I have... Well, it's because no one fasts on it, right? Because it's Halloween.
00:20:22
Speaker
And it's like so we we do serious fasting on Christmas Eve Which is really hard to do because a lot of treats start to come out on Christmas Eve But you'll find a lot of really practicing devout Catholic families They often do their they do a big Christmas Eve meal, but it's at midnight. It's following midnight mass, right? That's traditionally what they would do and you'd come home and eat at midnight and then everyone would sleep
00:20:44
Speaker
really gloriously until 11 the next day. They must have not had children somehow. But yeah, so this idea that we're really supposed to fast and pray on the eve of the feast day. So that is what Halloween and its truest sense is all Hallows' Eve. So that's Halloween. It is not Samhain. So what is Samhain, right? So according to dictionary.com, Samhain comes from the old Irish word
00:21:14
Speaker
Samine, it looks like there, which some linguists have proposed is a distant relative of the English word for summer. And then the rest of the etymological history is really nerdy. So I'll just sum it up by saying that Sam, S-A-M, which we pronounce as Sal, is summer. And hen, or an, comes from the Irish word, which is spelled F-U-I-N, meaning end. So what is Samhain? In its most basic sense, Samhain is summer's end.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, when I was reading your notes, you sent me this etymological history, and I was seeing the Irish word F-U-I-N, and I'm like, oh, fun. Summer fun.
00:22:01
Speaker
That's nice, Samhain. Summer, fun. Oh, end. No, that makes more sense. Oh my goodness. But we're all on the same page now, so we can continue. Yes, okay. So going forward. Yep, summer's end, but lots of fun was to be had. So this ancient celebration, right, in the Celtic world is extremely similar though to celebrations held by cultures all around the Northern Hemisphere. Like this is not
00:22:26
Speaker
exclusively a Celtic thing. That's what it's called there, is Samhain. But this time of the year, right, the end of October, the beginning of November, the season is undergoing, I would argue, its most dramatic transformation. That's because I love it. Maybe people like when everything bursts into bloom and thinks that that's the best one in spring. I'm a team autumn. But, you know, everything goes from light to dark, from warmth to cold, from life to death.
00:22:53
Speaker
It only makes sense, right? That people around the northern hemisphere would gather together during this time. They would celebrate after their, like, very arduous harvest. And they would find ways to ward off the coming cold and darkness with fire and merrymaking.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that was so interesting to consider because again, the context of where and when these things would take place, it makes all the difference in making sense of what was going on, right? And we were even noting too, if you just look outside your window,
00:23:32
Speaker
You kind of get a sense looking at the natural world and our connection with the natural world, seeing the leaves falling off of the trees. Things are dying, right? And so, yeah, it absolutely makes sense that this is the time of year when there's a sharp contrast between the life in the summertime and entering into a completely different mood change.
00:23:58
Speaker
Yeah. Now, the very best explanation of this festival can be heard by the esteemed historian and author Ronald Hutton, who is an expert on pegging cultures and the ancient British Isles. If there's someone to trust on this topic, that's not you and I, Michelle.
00:24:15
Speaker
It's Ronald Hutton. It's him and then us for sure. He's probably referencing us on some other podcast right now. If anyone has watched my beloved Victorian farm, Edwardian farm, Tudor monastery farm, wartime farm videos, Ronald Hutton is a frequent guest that they bring. He's not part of the original crew, but he's brought in often talk about folklore and tradition.
00:24:42
Speaker
So he's great. He gave an interview just this month on a brand new podcast that is hosted by History Hit. History Hit is a great history media company and they have a brand new podcast out which just stoked my spooky loving heart called After Dark, Myths, Misdeeds, okay it's a little bit of a tongue twister, Myths, Middeeds, and the Paranormal.
00:25:06
Speaker
And the paranormal, it doesn't roll off the tongue. We get it. Yeah, you know, you'll find it. And his episode is titled The Origins of Halloween. It's a must listen because try as we might to explain this complicated history. Ronald Hutton has a way of getting right to the heart of it.
00:25:24
Speaker
So, Ronald Hutton explains that the people of ancient Ireland and Scotland and England were understandably scared of winter. There's a lot of folklore and pre-Christian religious rituals surrounding the changing of the seasons there. And this was rooted in their fear of sickness, starvation, and death. In fact, Smithsonian Magazine did an article in which they said that Samhain could be the Irish name for a pagan god called the Lord of Dead or the Lord of Winter.
00:25:50
Speaker
And the story goes that that God battled Baal, he was the sun god, every six months. And in the winter, Samhain would prevail and winter would descend and in spring Baal would win and light and warmth would return. Now that being said, I actually couldn't find another reputable source linking Samhain to a pagan god, which just reinforces for the idea for me that Samhain is a foundationally a harvest festival and not predominantly a religious one.
00:26:19
Speaker
So again, Samhain is a multi-day celebration of the end of summer and it sounds like a wonderful way for communities to gather, right? During those early dark winter days. Ronald Hutton also said that it marked the end of the fighting year. This is something we forget about, right?
00:26:34
Speaker
We forget that men weren't home a lot. They were fighting in wars during the war months and it was a near constant cycle of war. Battles to acquire new lands or defend the land that your lord was protecting and you had to fight for him.
00:26:51
Speaker
And, and Ronald Hutton said that at this time of the year, families were reunited, right? Dad was home and due to the harvest, there was all this food and drink and it was finally plentiful. And so it's just beautiful. It's like this celebration of every, the family coming back together, but also like this light and this warmth and this family time, it kind of ward off the fears that they're also feeling about the coming darkness.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yes, I thought that was such a striking fact, right? Because you're right, like we don't live with that kind of seasonal away. Right. But even he was also saying in the episode two, like even the hunting. Yeah.
00:27:32
Speaker
Like the hunting parties would be returning. And often those parties would stay away for quite some time during the warmer months. So yeah, just this reuniting aspect of it. I thought that was so interesting.
00:27:48
Speaker
But amidst all this joyful merrymaking, there would still be this sense of dread present, right? Because everyone knew that in no time they'd be staying for most of the day in their, you know, shoddy accommodations.
00:28:05
Speaker
trying to stay warm, trying to stay fed and healthy when it was the hardest time of year to do any of those, let alone all three. So there was this presence hanging over everybody of like the potential, very real potential for death, you know, hanging over the festival days. It must have been a really
00:28:27
Speaker
interesting vibe going on.
Prayers for the Dead in Samhain
00:28:32
Speaker
So enter the Catholic Church. Ronald Hutton explains that all the Christians did, and actually this is a direct quote from his answer about this, he said, all the Christians did was add in the praying for the dead. This already established tradition.
00:28:48
Speaker
He was actually really pressed by the interviewer who kind of was like, well, did they take it away from them? Did they co-opt this Celtic celebration? And he used to explain that the Celts likely welcomed this chance to pray for their loved ones, that they thought it was a good addition to something they already did. And that the church truly had no real issue with what they observed being practiced during Samhain, as it wasn't really as religious as people want to make it today.
00:29:18
Speaker
We're not saying that there wasn't probably some superstition and ritual attached to the pagan gods, but the emphasis was on those other aspects that we were talking about. And so from what Ronald Hutton has studied extensively, he said that the Catholic Church did not persecute anyone for these early customs. In fact, the church pretty much just ignored it because there was nothing heretical really happening, right? With the celebration of the end of summer. And when you put this information together with the ongoing wars,
00:29:48
Speaker
that you just mentioned, I could see how this would be a really comforting thought in the addition of praying for the souls of the dead, right? Yes. There was so much loss. That's right. Like if they did lose people, it was a way to both remember them in a really intentional and special way.
00:30:08
Speaker
And then to feel like you still had a way to help them, like to know that you were still able to assist them by your prayers and that there was a special day to do that. And it's also a good point too that Hutton explains that, you know, the church, because it wasn't as religious as people are trying to make it out to be today, that it was largely ignored. It just makes me keep coming back to this idea of the universality of the church.
00:30:39
Speaker
The church at that time wasn't just the northern hemisphere. It was starting to become more and more widespread. There would have been a lot of different local customs and everything like that. So I feel like the church really understood what was essential and what was really important.
00:31:00
Speaker
when it came down to things like these local harvest festivals, it truly was an addition to what was already there. And they did coexist without any real tension like what we would have maybe thought there would be.
00:31:18
Speaker
Yeah and I love what you just said about they really looked forward to this thing that they could do for the dead because so much of what we were hearing like Ronald
Global Traditions for Honoring the Dead
00:31:27
Speaker
Hutton talk about is that they were so preoccupied with death like they were so worried right so many children died they talked to a typhoid like
00:31:35
Speaker
It just it would have ripped through a community every winter and so they would feel helpless and this did give them something like we firmly believe that we can pray for the souls of the dead and So this did give them something to do and then I know sometimes the argument comes out Well, it's that's transactional religion, but Hutton addresses that as well saying that it was it's always transactional any of these rituals traditions any of these things is you give something to get something back like that that is not unheard of through culture and tradition and any type of celebration
00:32:05
Speaker
And again, it is universal. And so it's not just Samhain. I know that's where the focus is today. It seems almost trendy to talk about Samhain. But the truth is the Norse Viking people had a festival called Winter Nights. The Welsh had Winter's Eve. The Anglo-Saxons celebrated something called Blood Month.
00:32:24
Speaker
which was killing the livestock, right? That they couldn't afford to feed all winter. There were countless more celebrations all around the world, but specifically around the Northern Hemisphere.
00:32:36
Speaker
And all of these celebrations, he explains, do this thing that create this collective identity. This idea of doing things together with your community was a very, very important aspect of prehistory and of early history. And he said that this idea of individualism and not participating in things within your community is
00:32:57
Speaker
a modern-day luxury. So this coming together as a community, everybody having a role to play this collective sense of self was just very common back then. And so I love that. I love that it's also not just Samhain that that I think these other cultures are kind of being forgotten about right now. So like I was saying, like if we just even look beyond the northern hemisphere, we shouldn't be surprised, right, when we see that every culture has days set aside to honor their dead
00:33:25
Speaker
the customs that they did historically, there are very interesting customs that still happen today. It's a universal experience, surprise, surprise, right? A universal longing to stay connected with loved ones that have gone on before us. And human uses this word, it's a kind of therapy for us to deal with death and kind of face our own mortality.
00:33:48
Speaker
And a country that does this so well is Mexico with their celebration of Dia de los Muertos, right? The Day of the Dead. It's a long-standing Mexican tradition and they celebrate life in its embrace of death. But Mexicans trace the roots of that festival back to the Aztecs.
00:34:09
Speaker
And it is a joyful and fun celebration of the release of death and the remembrance of those who have gone before us. So just like with someone versus Halloween, there is this discussion. And you, Lindsay, you found this quote from Wikipedia, right, where it says, quote, Mexican academics are divided on whether the festivity has genuine indigenous pre-Hispanic roots
00:34:33
Speaker
or whether it is a 20th century rebranded version of a Spanish tradition developed during the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas to encourage Mexican nationalism through an Aztec identity, end quote. Wow. Yeah, that is really seeming to be more and more something to consider and be aware of when we're trying to trace back the roots of all these different celebrations.
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, that seems it's really in the academic world, which is very different than the Instagram world. Right. Okay. Like in the academic world, they are really trying to look at this. And because things go viral, things pick up steam. We've said many times that people love a good origin story. We see that when we only look at little brief, like a tweet about something or a little blurb on Instagram or Facebook.
00:35:22
Speaker
But academics are going, wait a second, they're really putting the brakes on all of this and all around the world and going, it might not go back as far as you actually want it to, right? It actually might be more modern. So I just love that they're taking a really detached and academic look at the history of so many of these things.
00:35:40
Speaker
Okay, so we looked into if any of the modern day traditions that we do if they have their roots in Samhain because Everybody says that they do and so we're like, okay do they?
Origins of Trick-or-Treating
00:35:52
Speaker
Exactly and one of those things was going door to door like for us trick-or-treating, right?
00:35:59
Speaker
And going door to door, this is simply a way for the poor to gather money, food, and drink in order to celebrate alongside their wealthier neighbors. Ronald Hutton talks about this economic factor to Samhain, which I found really interesting.
00:36:17
Speaker
So the poor members of the communities didn't want to just take their things for nothing. So they would offer like a song or a skit or a trick, something performative in order to earn their reward. It was also a way they could preserve their dignity so that they would have the things necessary to be able to celebrate the harvest season in this collective identity they had as a village while not having to outright beg for it.
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But it is also part of the Druid tradition. So with the mention of people dressing up in costumes and silly pranks and tricks being played and people going door to door and asking for food. This action of going door to door was part of every celebration during that time and during Christmas too.
00:37:09
Speaker
like it happened at Christmas as well but the question of like did this door-to-door tradition of exchanging a song or trick for a treat originate with Samhain and
00:37:23
Speaker
It's not in ancient Greece even, further back than that, children would dress as the swallows and sing a song door to door and demand treats, not even just ask. They were like demanding treats and if no treats were given, they would threaten mischief. It was like the edgier version of trick or treating.
00:37:49
Speaker
I do find that there's a lot of edgier versions of celebrations when you look back at all of them throughout, like the Lord of Misrule, which is another Ronald Hutton thing he talks about in one of the other things. Yeah, a lot of their celebrations were like super, super fun and then, oh, not fun. That was part of the trick.
00:38:09
Speaker
Yeah and then in the middle ages there was something called momming now we're gonna talk again about like costumes and dressing up and in terms of like costumes people have always dressed up it's fun people have been fun even when they were starving they would do things that were fun right like
00:38:25
Speaker
dark, cold dress up. And so sometimes you'll hear that it was to confuse the spirits of the dead that were let out or that the veil was thin and they could come through and yeah, okay, there could have been some of that dressing up to confuse the spirits. But again, it simply said it was fun. And so in the middle ages, mumming became popular. And this is dressing up in a costume. And again, performing short scenes from plays. This one's a little bit about acting. And they would then ask for a refreshment as a reward. Obviously a refreshment
00:38:55
Speaker
was a little bit of alcohol. And then today, mumming is really popular on the east coast of Canada with many, many Newfoundlanders doing it today. I know people who do it, and they call it mummering or jannying.
00:39:12
Speaker
I think it's how it's said. It's two N's. So Jani-ing, Jani-ing. Anyways, it's so important in Newfoundland and Michelle, this shocked me. It's so important. They have a 300 year history of doing this, that Heritage Newfoundland established a school program that introduces students to it. So the kids learn the history of mummering.
00:39:31
Speaker
Wow, as like part of their curriculum. Yeah, it must be. Yeah. Wow. And now in Newfoundland, it's almost always done at Christmas and sometimes during the summer when they have like this coming home festival. But people dress up, right? It has to be usually be things you found around your own house. You change and you cover your face. You change how you walk. You change your voice and you go to people's houses and they have to guess who you are. And finally, when they figure out who you are, you get your drink.
00:39:58
Speaker
oh my gosh that does sound fun mm-hmm I kind of all right well I'll have your drink ready great this is gonna be great yeah
00:40:22
Speaker
Okay, but on that note then, what about trick-or-treating as we know it today? Are these direct lineages, as it were? Like children carrying a grocery bag around and getting candy, right?
00:40:37
Speaker
Well, okay, so there's this word called I guess guising like disguising And it is a Scottish tradition and many believe that this is the official Are you ready the official origin of trick-or-tooting? It's hard to say that when we've done a whole episode where we're like well it's not kind of official and everyone did this but guising is what I found now this goes back to the 16th century and
00:40:59
Speaker
And it was done in Ireland as well. But this concept of trick-or-treating in North America, it was only first recorded in 1911. So it's new here. And guess where it was first recorded? The first incident of trick-or-treating. Michelle, guess where it was recorded? Where? Ontario. Where we live.
00:41:21
Speaker
We did that? We did that, yep. And in 1917, just six years later, that's when the first words, trick or treat, like saying that was also said, and that's also from Ontario. Wow, I'm so proud of us. I know, it should be the home of the trick or treat. You're welcome.
00:41:43
Speaker
And then it's actually so funny because Scotland didn't start saying trick-or-treat and Ireland until like the early 2000s ish so it's like took a little see that's just it is modern times and it took a long time for that custom to get back over there and
00:42:01
Speaker
So actually, fitting in so well, like once we look into all of this historical context of what was going on, we actually celebrate a very important third day, the last day of this three-day period, or the Triduum, as we call it, of All Hallowtide, and that is All Souls Day.
00:42:20
Speaker
So this feast day, it takes place on November 2nd, and it's the one in which Catholics pray for all of the dead. This is what makes it distinct from All Saints Day, which commemorates the official martyrs and the canonized saints, the ones who are formally recognized, right? Yeah.
00:42:38
Speaker
Now one interesting tradition for All Souls Day is the serving of Soul Cakes. These are one of the original treats of trick-or-treating before many Kit-Kat bars. There were Soul Cakes. And the Soul Cakes would have been given out in England since the medieval period.
00:42:57
Speaker
they're like a small round shortbread type of biscuit. They have a cross cut down the middle. And most of England has now abandoned this tradition except for in a few areas like in Sheffield and in Lancashire. The children and the poor would go from door to door and
00:43:16
Speaker
They would pray for the dead loved ones of the inhabitants and would be given a soul cake in return. So it isn't just in England though that this was practiced. People in the south of Italy used to do it and it continues today in Portugal and in the Philippines.
00:43:33
Speaker
And in the Philippines, I was just learning actually from a friend of ours, Grace, who we mentioned, she of the extremely well behaved greeter children who greet you so well from our etiquette tip last year.
00:43:48
Speaker
But their family comes from the Philippines and so she was giving a presentation with her sons at our homeschool community day last week on their heritage and they were saying that for them this feast of all souls is second only to Christmas.
00:44:08
Speaker
Yeah, that Christmas is huge, by the way. They start their countdown for Christmas 100 days before Christmas in September, I think it is. They start their countdown. And that as big as that is, All Souls Day is almost just as big and celebrating it.
00:44:26
Speaker
I'm thinking I want to move to the Philippines. I love Christmas. I love all souls. It's like my second favorite. It's warm. I was just going to say you could be a snowbird, but to the Philippines. Oh, fancier. Yeah, I like it. I like it. I think I'll join you. Yes.
00:44:41
Speaker
And one of the customs that I was finding afterwards when I was looking even more into the Filipino culture surrounding All Souls Day was that many of the tombs at this time of year, they're decorated by family members with candles and flowers. This seems similar to the Dia de los Muertos in Mexico.
Filipino Customs on All Souls Day
00:45:01
Speaker
But in the Philippines, many believe that this decorating of the graves of the deceased people represents their endearing qualities in life.
00:45:12
Speaker
And that they have continued to inspire their families to bring these flowers and candles to their tombs every year to remember and reconnect with their family members. And I just loved that.
00:45:24
Speaker
That is so beautiful. And we kept finding country after country. I mean, Poland does a beautiful job over the Triduum with their candles and their graveyards. Our graveyards are a sea of glowing red candles. It looks otherworldly during this period. And we found there are rabbit holes. We couldn't even go down today like the Hungry Ghost Festival in China. But there is just countless interesting stories out there about the way that people, especially in the Asian countries,
00:45:52
Speaker
about the way that they really honor their ancestors. They also believe their ancestors are very hungry still. There's a lot of food involved. Yes, I was just going to say, a ton of feeding. Yes, feeding the ancestors. Okay, so food
00:46:07
Speaker
And what about bonfires? This doesn't seem to be as common here in North America, but everywhere I was looking, there was so much information about lighting bonfires. Now, obviously in a practical sense, in the 800s, you're gonna need a bonfire, right? To be warm, to gather everybody you need light. Maybe we just don't need them here anymore, but bonfires, they were common during all three days, right? You would light it to ward off the evil spirits.
00:46:32
Speaker
Um, but there's a particular, I guess, symbolic nature to a bonfire on the feast day of all souls. And, and this is symbolic for the faithful who believe that it represents the purifying fires of purgatory. And then as an alternative to bonfires, I came across this other interesting tradition. Now this happened to be from Wikipedia on their soul cake page. I came across this candle thing. Okay.
00:46:57
Speaker
So, I'll just read it right from the Wikipedia page. So it says, as an alternative to bonfires and Lancashire, candles were carried between 11 p.m. and midnight on Halloween in a procession up the hills in a custom known as lating the witches. If the candles continuously burnt, then the witch's powers would not affect the candle holder because they really believed in Lancashire that the witches were gathering that night in the forest of Pendle. There's a whole thing about the Pendle witches. That's a whole other thing at that time.
00:47:25
Speaker
And that was from the 17th century. Now, east of Pendle, candles were lit in every window an hour before midnight. If a candle burned out during midnight, it was believed evil would follow. At Longridge Fell during the early part of the 19th century, parties went from house to house in the evening collecting candles, one for each inmate, and offering their services to late or to leet the witches.
00:47:49
Speaker
note that the word lighting and leading are derived from the Saxon word for light, which means light. Interesting. Okay, so speaking of witches, Ronald Hutton wrote extensively on the hitched history of witchcraft in several of his books. And he said that that association of witches though and Halloween is a relatively modern connection that was really made in the late 18th, early 19th century. And he said it's because people just
00:48:15
Speaker
It was like part of the package of menacing entities that people were becoming really fascinated by during that time. People have always been fascinated by that type of thing, right? But there was kind of like this collection of characters that were being gathered together for Halloween and witches were added then.
00:48:32
Speaker
And I think it's interesting to point out that we really appreciated Ronald Hutton's take on all of this, especially his clear explanation of how the early Irish likely accepted the new All Saints and All Souls Day celebrations, because it seems so contrary to the discussions these days that paint the churches the destroyer of Samhain. We appreciated his reflections because Hutton is actually a really well-known and much-loved figure in the British pagan community.
00:48:58
Speaker
So we weren't expecting actually to hear how the way he described it right in that podcast. So yeah, the whole witches thing. So we obviously know witches are throughout history, but they became associated with Halloween in the late 18th and early 19th century. Okay. Yeah. I was wondering that when you were talking about dates, because you had mentioned earlier that they were a much, much later edition. And so that really does clarify that. And like,
00:49:23
Speaker
These were different things, right? Like the witches that we think of with Halloween, or maybe it was like the formalizing.
00:49:32
Speaker
No, so the witches that were mentioned earlier with the candles in Pendle, that was actually a little community that had a really bad witch trial with everybody, accusing everybody. And that was in the 17th century, which was like the height of the witch trials in Salem and then across the ocean. Pendle is England's Salem. Witches obviously scared people then and stuff, but that died down again. But it was kind of this return of the witch.
00:49:56
Speaker
That came back again another hundred years later or longer. There was a bit of a reprieve from the witches Until they started showing up as like a symbolic part of Halloween later on so not necessarily the people who might Practice Halloween in their own way like what you're saying with Wiccans, but just this image of a witch it got tied in with the other Spooky things like ghosts and poltergeists all that really came to the forefront in the late 18th early 19th century
00:50:25
Speaker
Oh okay, now that makes a lot more sense. So that's all so interesting stemming from the bonfires and moving into the candles that were used in the the lating of the witch. Yes, yes. With the witches, yes. So speaking about fire then, what about the iconic jack-o'-lantern, right? We were wondering about this too. Does it have roots in Samhain? And
00:50:50
Speaker
Once again, sort of disappoint, but apparently no. The jack-o'-lantern is a 1900s American invention. Pumpkins weren't even in the British Isles until the 20th century because they weren't native. They were native to America, right? Not to Europe. So in fact, the Irish didn't start carving pumpkins at Halloween until the late 1990s, early 2000s, which is super recent.
00:51:19
Speaker
But what is ancient, though, is the idea of carving a root vegetable, like a turnip maybe, into a lantern. And this was very commonplace among poor communities all over Europe. There is this spooky association with lanterns in Ireland, though, with ghostly lights seen over the landscape, and they were called willow the wisps.
00:51:44
Speaker
Right? And so this is also part of the Irish fairy folklore that is sometimes linked with Samhain and Halloween too. Yes, yes.
00:51:55
Speaker
So we set out to figure out what came first, Samhain or Halloween, as we know it as Catholics. And it turns out the answer isn't so much which came first, but rather the importance of the distinction between the two. In many ways, they can coexist today if Samhain is what most historians say it is, simply put an end of summer festival. We can accept it for what it was, just like the early Christians did.
00:52:23
Speaker
Halloween is not Samhain and Samhain isn't really Halloween.
00:52:28
Speaker
Halloween is all Hallows Eve, and this has been twisted and turned around throughout history and today. For most people, it's a far cry from everything that it was before. The Halloween of today can be a fun night for kids to dress up and get candy. It can be, for adults, a chance to dress up in overtly sexualized costumes and get intoxicated. It can be made into something evil that is celebrated by some and renounced by others.
00:52:59
Speaker
It can be a whole cauldron full of folklore, mythology, ritual, and tradition. Now for us, it is a chance to meditate on death by celebrating life, memento mori. For us, it is a chance to look to the lives of the martyrs and saints as examples of who we want to be as we draw closer to Jesus Christ. And for us, it is the welcome chance to remember our loved ones and
00:53:25
Speaker
all the faithful departed who have gone before us praying that they are arresting in peace.
00:53:35
Speaker
We will send you off this week with a soul-ing song. This one sung about the Soul Cakes we discussed earlier, sung by the Robert de Cormier Singers and Ensemble. If you want to hear our spooky favourites in place of our usual What We're Loving This Week segment of the show, be sure to subscribe to us on Patreon.
00:53:56
Speaker
go to patreon.com slash the modern lady podcast and for just five dollars a month you will receive exclusive content like our spooky favorites episode where we discuss our spooky favorites film books and music for the month of october and for november we are going to stretch out this theme a little longer by looking at funeral customs from around the world
00:54:21
Speaker
So we hope that you'll join us for these episodes on Patreon and for all of the fun and the merry making once we get into December that we have planned for the upcoming months. If you want to get in touch and chat with us about our topic this week you can find us on our website www.themodernlady1950.wordpress.com or leave us a comment on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at the Modern Lady podcast.
00:54:49
Speaker
I'm Michelle Sacks, and you can find me on Instagram at mmsacks. And I'm Lindsay Murray, and you can find me on Instagram at Lindsay Homemaker. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great week. We will see you next time. And now, on to the Soling Song.
00:55:17
Speaker
A soul, a soul, a soul king. Please, good Mrs. A Soul King. Can apple a pear, a thumb, or a cherry. Any good thing to make us all merry. One for Peter, two for Paul. Three for him who made us all. A soul king. A soul king. Please, good Mrs. A Soul King. God bless the master of this house that Mr.
00:55:42
Speaker
Little children that round your table grow, Like wise young men and maidens, your cattle and your store, And all the twelves within your gates, We wish you ten times more. A soul cake! A soul cake! Please, good Mrs. A soul cake! A soul, a soul, a soul cake! Please, good Mrs. A soul cake! Can apple a pear, a plum or a cherry,
00:56:21
Speaker
The lanes are very dirty, my shoes are very thin. I've got a little pocket to put a penny in. If you haven't got a penny, a half penny will do. If you haven't got a half penny, then God bless you.
00:56:50
Speaker
A soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul, a soul,
00:57:10
Speaker
Please be seated.