I’ve always heard Halloween was originally a Celtic festival (supposedly Nov 1 was like the New Year ).Then the Christians took the ‘pagan’ holiday and kind of made it their own. Curious if it is widely celebrated in Europe as it is here in the US., pumpkins, trick-or treat,damage night, bobbing for apples,black cats, etc. Some older folks still call it beggars night. Just curious to hear
^ Pronounced Sow-wen traditionally. I, for one, will be celebrating by having a zombie movie marathon, getting drunk with my wife and practicing procreation. Was that too much? EDIT: Also, the Christians took MOST of the pagan holidays and made them their own. Look up the history of the Christmas tree and the Wedding Band, for example. The moral of this story? Pagans have the most awesome holidays and rituals.
I love halloween and the various pagan festivals, which are remnants of that old religion. Halloween is a pretty big thing over here in the UK. Kids are out trick or treating, apple bobbing and having parties. I had a pumpkin carving contest the other day, unfortunately my pumpkin grew some furry fungus really quickly and had to be thrown on the compost heap 
Some of the other pagan festivals, such as imbolc (start of spring), beltaine (may day) and lammas (last harvest) are fairly common in Britain, less so in England but popular in the more rural areas. I wonder do you celebrate any of these in the USA??
It didn’t really catch on over here until about ten years ago. Now the shops and home windows get full of the stupid trinkets. Now like Christmas, and Guy Fawkes night (5th November), another way for the shops to make money.
I’m a huge Halloween nut. We decorate the house, my front yard is now a cemetery. The whole family dresses up, seems like the only day out of the year that we can be kids again.
Thanks for the links Roderick! Reminds me of a music festival I went to in down by Exeter called Beautiful Days festival, its a modern (2003 onwards) one setup by a band called the Levellers with a mix of folk, reggae and punk. Anyway, the first 2 years it was on they had a big finale with the burning of a HUGE wickerman, I presume some sort of homage to the film, but it was certainly spectacular. I think they stopped it by year 3 due to health and safety, Booooooo!
Wow, I see a few festivals I haven’t even heard of…very interesting.Anyone hand out tricks? When I was into chickens years ago we would hand out chicken claws wrapped up in butcher paper to older kids (who probably shouldn’t be out)A few came back very angry with their mothers, understandably! That’s the risk you run I guess, it doesn’t have to be a treat. I am curious, though., Snuffhead, do you hand out EMPTY snuff tins for Halloween?- you have to have a whole closet- full! And that would be a terrible ‘trick’ 
@ Bart, no any kids that come begging at my door, well I just put on my Rasputin mask. They don’t half run. 
Haha! nice trick.
Maybe we had it wrong as kids but when we said “trick or treat” we took it as give us a treat or we’ll be playing a trick on you. The one house in the neighborhood would tell us every year “we don’t believe in halloween”. We hated them and their sourpuss attitude. Their house was also bombarded with eggs every year.
@Snuff Head: I love that mask. Our Halloween plans are being ruined by excessive snow…blec…
@onefortheroad: Same here! I actually feel guilty for the torment me and my mates put the anti-halloween christians through around the estate we grew up on They brought it on themselves though. “We don’t believe in halloween” is pure provocation to a bunch of hungry kids
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@ oaxaca: the four festivals you mention (I’m sure Ashrael can tell you as well), are quarter points of the Celtic year. They are set roughly halfway between each equinox and solstice. Samhain is the most important of the four as it regards the end of the year and the beginnng of the dark time from which the new year is born. Literally it translates to “summer’s end” and is also used for the name of the month of Novemeber in some Celtic languages. In the US, Lamnas aka Lughnasa aka Martinmas is pretty much unknown. Beltaine is also known as May Day, but no one really knows what that’s about, so it too remains forgotton. Imbolc on the other hand, has been transmogrified into the bizarre festival, Ground Hog Day. This event grows more popular every year and has almost become as tacky and as cheapend as Halloween has. It also is sort of a start of spring festival. The ground hog was a snake in some ancient Celtic cultures. Its anyone’s guess how it caught on here.
Good info xander, thanks. I have been interested in paganism (I guess neo-paganism is the term for it now) for a while now. Despite the seeming scientific logic behind an atheistic viewpoint (especially vs creationism!), I find that there is something really endearing, culturally, to the ancient native religions such as paganism in the UK and Shinto in Japan, etc (I’m sure the native Americans had their own too). They engender a reverance for and reliance upon nature and I think the major religions don’t really focus on that component. A religion that holds the natural world as its highest priority is surely more sensible than one which idolizes a so-called supreme being, modelled on the image of man. (Mind you I am an environmental biology student so tend to hold nature and in high regard :p).
“the bizarre festival, Ground Hog Day. This event grows more popular every year and has almost become as tacky and as cheapend as Halloween has” My sister-in-law was born and raised in in Puxatawny. Home of the worst of the Groudhog day celebration. Every business on Main street has a cement groundhog, painted or dressed in a manner suggesting what type of business it is. That’s the tamest decorations there. It’s like some horrible drug induced nightmare marriage of Christmas & halloween. I wont get anywhere near the place during that time of year again…
@oaxaca, the main reason why I love mountain biking so much is because it brings me into contact with Nature. When I’m out there in the wild, I can really appreciate the fact that, somewhere, there must be a Higher Power who created this wonderful planet called Earth. I do not have enough faith to just believe it all happened by itself. There are to many miracles out there and around us to blindly believe that in only one big bang, all of this just jumped out.
Snuffhead looks like he barely survived the big bang!
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