Halloween, when it was scary!
Forget all this dressing up as Disney Princesses and Pirates at Halloween. In the good old days, Halloween was PROPER scary, as per this photo! I would have been running for the hills if this band ever came to my door, trick or treating!
The night or evening of Samhain became known as All-hallows-even then Hallow Eve, still later Hallowe’en and then of course Halloween. A special time of the year on 31st October when many believe that the spirit world can make contact with the physical world, a night when magic is at its most potent.
Throughout Britain, Halloween has traditionally been celebrated by children’s games such as bobbing for apples in containers full of water, telling ghost stories and the carving of faces into hollowed-out vegetables such as swedes and turnips. These faces would usually be illuminated from within by a candle, the lanterns displayed on window sills to ward off any evil spirits. The current use of pumpkins is a relatively modern innovation imported from the United States, and we can also extend the same debt of gratitude to our friends in America for that ‘quaint’ “trick-or-treat” tradition!