HALLOWE’EN FESTIVAL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 271, 31 October 1932, Page 10

HALLOWE’EN FESTIVAL

ANCIENT TRADITION DRUIDIC SUPERSTITION OBSERVANCE TO-DAY. An old Druidic festival, Hallowe’en, or All Hollows Eve, ftills to-day. It will be celebrated in Hastings by the Hastings and District Scots’ Society this evening in the form of a party for the children in the Favourite Hall. Although present observance connotes little belief in the superstition that Hallowe’en is the night ox the year when ghosts and witches are most likely to wander abroad, some of the old traditions cling. The name All Hallows E% is given to October 31 as the vigil of Hallowmas, or All Saints’ Day. The festival long antedates Christianity, history showing that the original celebrations were purely Druidic... FIRES OF THANKSGIVING. On about November 1 each year the Druids used to hold their great autumn festival, and lighted bonfires in honour of the sun-god and in thanksgiving for the harvest. In later times the practice of lighting bonfires was retained as an essential part of the observance. In Boman times other ceremonies were introduced into the observance. The custom of lighting bonfires survived in the highlands of Scotland and in Wales until recent years, and the occasion was one for unrestrained merrymaking. In ancient Ireland, on All Hallows Eve, fires used to be lighted, but gradually candles were substituted for them. The Welsh, however, were more faithful to tradition, although the significance of the illuminations was lost. In North Wales the lighting of the fires was attended by many ceremonies, such as running through the fire and smoke, each person casting a stone in the fire, and all running off at the conclusion to escape a legendary “black, short-tailed sow,’’ precursor of evil. NUTS THROWN INTO FLAMES. A feast of parsnips, nuts and apples suspended from a string and eaten without being touched by the hands, followed the fire ceremony. Each person threw a nut into the fire and the way in which it burned disclosed the future. If it burned brightly it betokened prosperity through the coming year, but if it turned black —alas for the thrower. Misfortune would surely follow. On the following day the stones were searched for in the fire and if any were missing, evil would be the lot of those who threw them in.

Among Celtic people the old traditions die hard. In Brittany, among seafaring folk, there still survive many out-of-the-way beliefs. One of the most touching—and one natural among people who know not what the angry sea has in store for them —is still carried out. On the eve of All Souls’ Day, as they call it, the doors- and windows of their homes are left wide open, and the table set with food so that the returning spirits of the dead might feel they are still remembered.

In the churchyard, where lie so many of the fishermen whose lives were taken by the wrath of the sea, the graves are strewn with flowers and prayers are said for the repose of their souls. There are many of the fishing-folk who say that during the hours of the night they hear the whispering of ghostly voices and the sounds of wailing and deep grief.