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I am now back in New England on a short visit from Austria, and Halloween has been in the air since early October. In many ways New England is the modern epicentre of the holiday. When I was a boy, it was most definitely a children’s holiday, and in terms of sales a pale second to Easter – itself, the lesser twin of Christmas in the retail world. But all of that has changed: Halloween is now more for adults, and has far surpassed Easter as a money maker for merchants. Moreover, it has in many places been reinterpreted in accordance with a largely false Wiccan/Neopagan/Satanist narrative of its origins. Sadly, it is primarily this version which has been exported to Europe.
While there are a few pagan elements in its origins, its real beginning is tied not so much to Samhain but to its role as the first day of the Hallowtide Triduum. Being the Vigil of All Saints, it was a day of fast and abstinence, and from this circumstance came the popularity of Colcannon – a dish made up of potatoes, carrots, and cabbage boiled and mashed together – in Ireland on this day. As in the rest of the Catholic World, the Celtic fringe countries saw Hallowtide as primarily a celebration of the dead. All Souls was the centrepiece of prayer and offerings for the departed, with many lands seeing picnics on family plots in cemeteries for this precise purpose. But the night of All Saints Day saw the triumphant white vestments worn by the clergy for Second Vespers of this feast immediately followed by black ones for the First Vespers of All Souls. The sombre Vespers for the dead concluded, families lit candles for their departed in the cemeteries. To this day, throughout Europe, Latin America, and even our own Louisiana, the lit tapers in their variously-coloured glass containers lend an unearthly beauty to the cemeteries. Afterwards, in some places, from Quebec and Mexico to Hungary, families would return to their homes to prepare a dinner for the dead. In the morning the uneaten food would be given to the poor. In various parts of the British Isles and elsewhere, children and others would go “souling” from house to house soliciting goodies in return for praying for the donors’ dead.
It is easy to see why such observances would attract ghost stories and the like around them. Celtic lands – though not exclusively them – with their heavy amounts of fairy lore added the “fair folk” to Hallowtide’s enchantments. One story that stood out was that of Jack O’Lantern, a sinner who outsmarted the devil, was rejected by Heaven, and doomed to wander the Earth, luring people astray into bogs and other mischancy places with his light. In Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere, faces were carved into hollowed-out turnips lit with candles; these were named after hapless Jack, and used by Soulers and others. Halloween customs in Scotland were immortalized by Robert Burns in his poem of that name and his epic “Tam O’Shanter.”
Irish and Scots immigrants brought Halloween to the United States in the 19th century. The eerie side of it became foremost in its observance, as Halloween parties almost always featured fortune telling of various kinds, and decorations featuring ghosts, witches, and the like. But the pumpkin proved a particularly apt American contribution, replacing much harder-to-carve turnip; the Jack-O-Lantern entered its grinning prime. Bonfires were the order of the day, as were elaborate tricks and youthful devastation of property. As an alternative to the latter, Trick or Treating arose in the 1920s; after World War II, the children of the Baby Boom made it well-nigh universal. At first, the costumes worn were the more traditional ghosts, witches, elves, and the like. But the Universal Pictures monsters – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Werewolf, and the like – joined them in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. At the same time, songs like “The Monster Mash” and TV Shows such as “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” planted the observance ever deeper into the national psyche.
During my childhood, the horror element of Halloween was something of a joke, and nought to compare with the joy of pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, and costumed trick or treating. We had no more thought of worshipping the devil than we did of venerating Thor when trimming the Christmas Tree. But in the 1970s the many rumours of razor blades in apples and candies – though never proved – somewhat dimed the fun. More and more costumed adult parties slowly took the holiday away from children and made it once more an adult observance – alas, it was very often adults misinformed by Wicca. That said, the current practise of Halloween in America does have some interesting regional variants. As mentioned earlier, New England is in a sense the epicentre. Salem, “the Witch City,” claims prominence with its background of witchcraft and its annual month of “haunted happenings” in celebration of Halloween. Of course, its official story follows the erroneous Wiccan line that the Witchcraft at Salem was innocent but persecuted paganry. Chadwick Hansen and other writers make a strong case that there really was witchcraft in the Satanic sense at Salem, and that some few guilty were caught up with the innocent. But the rest of the region, with its incredible autumn foliage, its omnipresent harvest decorations, and its weird legendry lends itself to the darker parts of the imagination. It is no coincidence that Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Frost, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King all hail from New England.
The Valley of the Hudson on the other hand, offers a far more jovial variety of the uncanny, as witnessed by Washington Irving in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle,” and other such tales. Even such legends as the “Lord of the Dunderberg,” while admittedly bizarre, have a geniality to them that the devil-haunted New English lack. Of course, having begun my own career as a Trick or Treater in Westchester County’s Mount Kisco, I associate the area with my own cheerful first Halloween memories.
Halloween in the American countryside is of course bound up with the harvest, and so the quiet feeling of decay adds its oddly enchanting spell to the day’s frolics. In the City, however, it has often been embraced by more or less unsavoury elements of the population – further distancing the day from its origins, its real meaning, and the regard of well-meaning parents. Oddly enough, this has paralleled the decline of the horror genre itself, in literature and latterly film. At its birth as a response to the so-called “Enlightenment,” horror was deeply rooted in both the folk traditions and Christian moral universe that characterised Halloween itself. So it was as its ghouls, ghosts, witches, and vampires progressed through and with the 19th and early 20th centuries. This would be retained as late as the Universal Monster Pictures of the 1930s and 40s. But beginning with such as H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft (the latter of whom was nevertheless a great stylist) more and more such material was being written in a “modern” universe, wherein there was no God, and man’s terror emerged from his pointlessness in the face of a hostile cosmos. In the 1950s elements of science fiction entered horror in both film and literature. Since the 60s, as with all other literature it has become increasingly sexualized and (in film) just gory, although there many honorable exceptions in both areas. Since Halloween is constantly affected by the developments in this genre costumes and so on for children and adults alike, these have become increasingly unsuitable, and further aggravate distaste for the observance. Thus it is that many well-meaning people reject the holiday altogether.
This is, I think a mistake. Certainly, the air of the uncanny swirls about the observance; one hears incessantly the phrase “the veil between the worlds is very thin this time of year.” Well, so it is. Hallowtide itself is the beginning of the Octave of All Saints, on each day of which a Plenary Indulgence may be had for visiting a cemetery and praying for its dead. November itself is the Month of the Holy Souls, which Estonian folklore dubs “the Time of the Spirits.” The Church as a whole is concerned with those beyond the grave in a unique way during the late Autumn.
So it is that this a good time to teach your children about Purgatory, prayers for the dead, indulgences, and all that the Church does for the departed. Moreover, you can introduce them to the Church’s Sacramentals – her defences against the spiritual dark. Guardian Angels, patron Saints, and Our Lady herself as our protectress can be explained.
Trick or treating can similarly be transformed into “Souling.” Notes asking for prayers for one’s dead can be put in with candy given out. When one’s own children return with their delicious candy corn and other booty, they can pray with their parents for the dead of those who have given them candy. This in turn will allow Halloween to be restored – weirdness and all – to its essential role as an introduction to Hallowtide.
