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| 'Arawn' - Ruler of Annwn (the Underworld), illustration by Ioan Einion, © Alys Einion, Y Lolfa |
All Hallows' Eve
has been celebrated across the Christian World since the formation of a
structured church. Calan Gaeaf (Kal-ahn GEYE-ahv), as it is known in Wales
celebrating the start of winter, has been a festival since earliest pagan
Celtic times. In Ireland, the festival is known as Samhain (SOW-en),
celebrating the decay of life and is derived from an ancient cult of the dead.
Hallowe’en as we
know it today, did not exist in America, or for that matter anywhere in the
world, until the great influx of Irish immigrants in the 19th Century. This day
of ghouls and goblins would not exist now if not for Irish children extorting
food and money from their neighbors at the behest of their parents, with
threats of tricks if the better-off neighbors refused to submit to giving treats.
Although the
Irish were Roman Catholic, the religious holiday melded
with the pagan to facilitate the youthful blackmailers’ chicanery.
During my
childhood, Hallowe’en was a children’s event, anticipated throughout the early
Fall with intricate plans for costumes. Gypsy or witch, princess or fairy
were the choices we girls preferred. Boys chose Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula or
headless ghosts.
From the moment
the sun dropped below Twin Peaks, we were out in packs of threes, fives or tens
running from one house to the next, ringing every doorbell. I lived in the
Haight-Ashbury and our territory for our night of extortion was as far as we
could go without getting lost.
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| Ceridwen, the Witch, illustration by Ioan Einion, © Alys Einion, Y Lolfa |
If we breached
the entry of an apartment complex, we had access to every resident. Once in a
while, there was a party going on at which we caught glimpses of Hallowe’en
Future: adults behaving like … us! The only difference was that
the adults were not subject to extreme sugar highs – theirs was a high of
a different kind.
The total world
domination of Hallowe’en as experienced in the USA was not achieved
until the appearance of the film, E. T. Phone Home, in which the opening
scene was the epitome of my childhood escapades. Even then, fully three decades
passed before “Trick or Treat” on October 31st became the norm in the six
countries of Britain, five of which are Celtic.
We cannot go back
to the innocent times of our childhood. In this city, Hallowe’en is not an
event in which children can participate with any sense of the safety,
excitement and freedom that I and my fellow witches and monsters enjoyed.
Adults have reclaimed the ancient cult of the dead and any aspect of the
religious meaning is subsumed by Bacchanalian excesses.
