Author Topic: Halloween Lore and Legends  (Read 63274 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #50 on: October 30, 2017, 07:12:56 pm »
Tomorrow is Samhain.  8)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #51 on: October 30, 2017, 10:07:32 pm »
Happy Halloween everyone!!


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #52 on: October 30, 2017, 10:18:38 pm »
Tomorrow is Samhain.  8)

I noted that in my very first published story, when I was in journalism school -- a feature in the University of Minnesota daily paper called "Celebrate Halloween Like the Druids Did." It was written in the cheery style of a feature in a home and garden magazine or newspaper lifestyle section, except that instead of "slice kalamata olives into spider shapes and put them on deviled eggs" it was based on my research of Druid traditions, so more like, "gather around the fire with your family, carve a face into a gourd and light it with a candle to scare away demons, for tonight the dead return to earth and walk among us" and that sort of thing.

Everybody liked it except my magazine writing teacher, who gave it a C minus. When I pointed out that it had run on the front page of the Daily, she raised my grade to a B. Apparently she was very religious and was offended by the lighthearted references to demons and such.




Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #53 on: October 31, 2017, 10:09:30 am »
I noted that in my very first published story, when I was in journalism school -- a feature in the University of Minnesota daily paper called "Celebrate Halloween Like the Druids Did." It was written in the cheery style of a feature in a home and garden magazine or newspaper lifestyle section, except that instead of "slice kalamata olives into spider shapes and put them on deviled eggs" it was based on my research of Druid traditions, so more like, "gather around the fire with your family, carve a face into a gourd and light it with a candle to scare away demons, for tonight the dead return to earth and walk among us" and that sort of thing.

 :laugh:

When I visit my dad, we usually stop for a Dunkin Donuts coffee on Sunday mornings on our way home from church. This past Sunday when I went into the store to get the coffee, I noticed that they had Halloween-themed doughnuts. I thought "the Spider" was cute. It was one of their ordinary doughnuts with orange frosting. On top of doughnut they had a chocolate Dunkin' Munchkin, with stripes of black frosting over the orange to represent the spider's legs.  ;D

Quote
Everybody liked it except my magazine writing teacher, who gave it a C minus. When I pointed out that it had run on the front page of the Daily, she raised my grade to a B. Apparently she was very religious and was offended by the lighthearted references to demons and such.

Commonly this time of year there are reports of some religious fundamentalist or other wanting to cancel Halloween. Anybody see anything like that this year?

If the teacher allowed her religious beliefs to interfere with her evaluation of your work, she should have been ashamed of herself.

I used to know a Wiccan who considered this the High Holy Day.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #54 on: October 31, 2017, 10:42:43 pm »
Everybody liked it except my magazine writing teacher, who gave it a C minus. When I pointed out that it had run on the front page of the Daily, she raised my grade to a B. Apparently she was very religious and was offended by the lighthearted references to demons and such.


::)


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #55 on: October 31, 2017, 10:45:46 pm »
When I visit my dad, we usually stop for a Dunkin Donuts coffee on Sunday mornings on our way home from church. This past Sunday when I went into the store to get the coffee, I noticed that they had Halloween-themed doughnuts. I thought "the Spider" was cute. It was one of their ordinary doughnuts with orange frosting. On top of doughnut they had a chocolate Dunkin' Munchkin, with stripes of black frosting over the orange to represent the spider's legs.  ;D




Commonly this time of year there are reports of some religious fundamentalist or other wanting to cancel Halloween. Anybody see anything like that this year?

If the teacher allowed her religious beliefs to interfere with her evaluation of your work, she should have been ashamed of herself.

I used to know a Wiccan who considered this the High Holy Day.


I think that they still consider it a Holy Day.   I have a few friends  who are Wiccan, and they tend to mark the day with a ceremony.


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #56 on: November 01, 2017, 10:08:49 am »
Today is the feast of All Saints. Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #57 on: November 01, 2017, 10:41:26 am »
Commonly this time of year there are reports of some religious fundamentalist or other wanting to cancel Halloween. Anybody see anything like that this year?

I don't think religious fundamentalists hold the power to "cancel Halloween" period. But kids in many schools, Minneapolis schools for example, are not allowed to wear costumes -- not even non-scary ones -- to class on Halloween because of people with religious objections.

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If the teacher allowed her religious beliefs to interfere with her evaluation of your work, she should have been ashamed of herself.

I know! And think about it -- we're talking about someone who also was an academic and a journalist in the 1970s. Back in them days I didn't even know there were such a thing as religious fundamentalists outside of Southern things like tent revivals or snake handling or speaking in tongues. But in Minnesota, in that era, on a college campus? I doubt she was anything more extreme than a devout Lutheran or Catholic.

Within just a few years, I had met fundamentalists here. They weren't college instructors, though.

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I used to know a Wiccan who considered this the High Holy Day.

Yup. I once did a package of stories about Wiccans (and the European witch persecutions -- not quite connected, but at least somewhat related).

Today is the feast of All Saints. Tomorrow is Dia de los Muertos.

I believe this to be the result of one of those compromises between pagans' holiday to honor the dead (Samhain) and Christians' preference for giving things a Christian overlay. Like the way Christmas shares symbolism with winter solstice and Easter with spring solstice. They're related to seasons and to planting and harvest cycles. Those early European Christians were good at finding those kinds of compromises. At least, back in them days, some of the time ...  >:(



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #58 on: November 01, 2017, 12:37:42 pm »
I don't think religious fundamentalists hold the power to "cancel Halloween" period. But kids in many schools, Minneapolis schools for example, are not allowed to wear costumes -- not even non-scary ones -- to class on Halloween because of people with religious objections.

Of course they don't, but some of them make a fuss; it seems to me it's similar to the fuss made about "the War on Christmas," just coming from a different place.  >:(

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I know! And think about it -- we're talking about someone who also was an academic and a journalist in the 1970s. Back in them days I didn't even know there were such a thing as religious fundamentalists outside of Southern things like tent revivals or snake handling or speaking in tongues. But in Minnesota, in that era, on a college campus? I doubt she was anything more extreme than a devout Lutheran or Catholic.

Yeah, I once worked with a devout Catholic who objected to Halloween.

Quote
I believe this to be the result of one of those compromises between pagans' holiday to honor the dead (Samhain) and Christians' preference for giving things a Christian overlay. Like the way Christmas shares symbolism with winter solstice and Easter with spring solstice. They're related to seasons and to planting and harvest cycles. Those early European Christians were good at finding those kinds of compromises. At least, back in them days, some of the time ...  >:(

Yes. But, at the risk of sounding prejudiced against Roman Catholics (OK, I admit I am sort of prejudiced against the Roman clergy), in later days the Catholic Church was particularly good at that kind of syncretism; they felt they could win more converts if they allowed the natives to adapt some of their pagan customs to Catholic Christianity. I mention this because I think it's particularly applicable to Dia de los Muertos. I seem to recall reading somewhere that customs associated with this holiday go back to pre-Christian Mexico.

As a matter of fact, this sort of syncretism even appears in Margaret Coel's "Wind River Mysteries" novels, which take place in the present day on the Arapaho Reservation in Wyoming. Some of the stories feature one of the main characters, Father John O'Malley, a Jesuit, allowing Arapaho customs to be used in addition to the Roman Catholic Mass as part of funeral ceremonies.

At least in North America, anyway, I think Protestants were far less tolerant of this combination of native and Christian customs. For example, I'm thinking of the Puritan clergyman the Rev. John Eliot, who was a missionary to the natives in Massachusetts, who required his converts to give up all of their native customs.

Not braggin' on the Protestants here, just sayin.'
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Halloween Lore and Legends
« Reply #59 on: November 01, 2017, 12:39:12 pm »
So, what does Halloween have in common with Valentine's Day and Easter?

The day after, any leftover candy goes on sale.  ;D
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.