Colin Wilson

You will probably have noticed iNews Cayman has published a number of articles recently, including today’s edition, featuring prominently Halloween.

In one of today’s stories from the New York Times under the headline “Britain embraces Halloween and cashes in on ghoulish celebration” it claims ‘Halloween, with all its silliness, is even eclipsing Guy Fawkes Day, the 400-year-old British festival on Nov. 5.’

When I was a young lad in England, and yes it’s over 60 years ago, Halloween was hardly celebrated at all. In fact I had never heard of it until I was almost in my teens.

You see, Halloween comes very close to the huge festival Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes Day on November 5^th that celebrates the capture of Guido Fawkes the man who was about to light the fuse and blow up the Houses of Parliament – Britain’s governing buildings. The official name is the Palace of Westminster.

The festival in my day was second only to Christmas and to hear Halloween is now eclipsing Bonfire Night is shocking.

The reason is probably because Halloween has more commercial potential. Apart from the fireworks companies and to a much lesser extent the costumers, the companies that can actually benefit from the commercial benefits from the festival are limited.

However, Halloween has a much wider appeal to manufacturers and marketing companies.

With Halloween so hugely commercial in the USA and many big box office cinematic offerings with the name Halloween in the title the very name is already out there.

And the appeal is not limited to the USA. It has gone almost worldwide.

I personally do not embrace it.

Halloween falls on the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (also known as All Saints’, Hallowmas or Hallowtide) on November 1 and All Souls’ Day on November 2, thus giving the holiday on October 31 the full name of All Hallows’ Eve.

By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for the souls in purgatory. In addition, “it was customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls. “Souling”, the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls, has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom was found in parts of England and dates back at least as far as the 15th century. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Hallowmas, collecting soul cakes, originally as a means of praying for souls in purgatory. Similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy.

Many Christians in continental Europe, especially in France, acknowledged “a belief that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival,” known as the danse macabre, which has been commonly depicted in church decoration, especially on the walls of cathedrals, monasteries, and cemeteries.

During Britain’s Reformation these customs came under attack and many Protestants berated purgatory as a “popish” doctrine incompatible with the notion of predestination. Thus, for some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows’ Eve was redefined; without the doctrine of purgatory, “the returning souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits. As such they are threatening.

With regard to the evil spirits, on Halloween, “barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth.”

In the 19th century, in parts of England, Christian families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows’ Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him in a circle, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen’lay, derived either from the Old English tendan (meaning to kindle) or a word related to Old Irish tenlach (meaning hearth). The rising popularity of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November) from 1605 onward saw many Halloween traditions appropriated by that holiday instead, and Halloween’s popularity waned in Britain, with the noteworthy exception of Scotland.

In France, Christians, on the night of All Hallows’ Eve, prayed beside the graves of their loved ones, setting down dishes full of milk for them.

On Halloween, in Italy, families left a large meal out for ghosts of their passed relatives, before they departed for church services. In Spain, women, on this night, made special pastries known as “bones of the holy” (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and put them on the graves of the churchyard, a practice that continues to this day.

You will notice North America is not mentioned.

North American almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was celebrated there.

The Puritans of New England, for example, maintained strong opposition to Halloween, and it was not until the mass Irish and Scottish immigration during the 19th century that it was brought to North America in earnest. Confined to the immigrant communities during the mid-19th century, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and by the first decade of the 20th century it was being celebrated coast to coast.

So those old ‘enemies’ of the English, the Scots and the Irish are to blame.

No wonder I always feel very uncomfortable about Halloween.

So trick or treaters don’t knock on my door on Halloween. To me, there is nothing to celebrate.

I shall watch a movie on television. Now let’s see what is on offer?

Halloween (1978)

Halloween II (1981)

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Halloween (2007)

Halloween II (2009)

Oh NO!!!!

I understand we can now follow the dead on Twitter – so do we need Halloween at all?