Halloween is around the corner. Spooky. Scary. Boo.
Yes, it is one of our creepiest holidays. (I’ll leave the rankings of the other creepy holidays for you to assess.)
Anyway, Halloween is filled with ghosts, and goblins, and witches. Oh my.
But it didn’t quite start out that way. I know I’ve talked about its history before, but I suppose it bears repeating.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celtic part can be pronounced either way. Don’t let the Hard-K people intimidate the Soft-S people, whoever you are. Check Webster. It’s both. Keltic. Seltic.
Back to it. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the areas we know as Ireland and the United Kingdom, celebrated their brand new year on the first day of November.
This day marked the end of summer. It also meant the harvesting of the summer’s crops and the beginning of the dark, cold winter.
More than anything, it was a time of year that was often associated with human death. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the line between the worlds of the living and the dead became foggy. That thin veil separating the living from those who have gone onto the nether world. So. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, where they believed the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
There’s more. They thought the otherworldly spirits might trick them and damage their crops. The Celts also thought the presence of these spirits made it easier for the Druids (the Celtic priests) to make predictions about the future.
So, at a time when science was on the thin side, the predictions and prophecies provided a source of comfort for these people, especially with the cold, dark winter coming on.
So they partied, as they did back then. The Druids built huge sacred bonfires. The people would burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. And the people dressed for the event. The Celts wore costumes, typically just plunking some big animal head on top of their own. They’d wear animal skins as capes, too. Blech.
When all the tom-foolery ended, and the spirits went back behind the great curtain, the people returned to their homes, relighting their hearth fires, with fire from the “big sacred bonfire.” For good fortune. And that was the early Halloween. No Bit-O-Honeys. No Popcorn Balls.
Today, our celebrations are much different. Now, our TVs fill up with scary movies. And we have kids running around in costumes from the Netflix series, Squid Game.
I tried to watch a movie last night, not knowing it was going to be scary. I had to turn it off pretty quickly when the music started hitting those long, discordant notes, while the person onscreen opened the closet door.
It seems the scary is everywhere this time of year. I’ve seen three separate articles concerning Haunted Doll Collections. One was in central Alabama, the other in Florida, and the closest one in Levittown, Pennsylvania. The woman there, one Mary Jo Chudley, had quite a story. She’s attracted the attention of Hollywood and thousands of followers on social media.
This woman founded the Penn Paranormal Society, but, despite her interest in the paranormal, Chudley said it was never her “intention to collect haunted dolls.” Now, she believes she has ten dolls infused with spirits. She says they do all sorts of things, including appearing as full-sized, walking, breathing children. Lights flicker. She gets ill. And all sorts of badness.
Personally, I would like to see some video footage. I am a quasi-believer in the world on the other side of the blurry veil. I’m just not sure how it works. And I’m not alone in this.
Scientists and skeptics are often contemptuous at the idea of spirit-infused dolls and the like. But, as we have seen many times — the world’s religions often speak of spirits and demons. As the article pointed out:
In the Old Testament, King Saul asks the Witch of Endor to conjure the spirit of the prophet Samuel.
Jesus cast out demons in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
And more.
So, I suppose if it is in the Bible, right?
I say this in all sincerity: Boo.
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“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
— Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
— The Tempest (William Shakespeare)
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“Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away…”
— Antigonish (William Hughes Mearns)
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A big bunch of booey?
