| Show ilac li op 1 l VF av CZ aft T by ELMO SCOTT WATSON palo capurs slimmer in me th sky ky the dead and dying leaves go co by dimly across the faded green strange shadows tranger stranger thadea shades art are seen en it I 1 tile mystic myrtlo halloween this writer Is no 1 seventh son of a seventh f son and therefore possess posses V ing second slight bight and the 40 gift of prophecy he be feels perfectly safe in making a prediction it Is this on oil the night of october 31 there will be unusual activity among the juvenile population of the united states of america parties of them will gather in houses boutes in which the decorative scheme will in elude grinning jacko jack o lanterns dry and yellowed stalks of corn black cats witches et el cetera but the principal activity will be outdoors rather than i indoors in the aies and towns white sheeted figures will roam the tha streets and other figures lacking any special costume will flit furtively among the shadows in alleys and back streets in the country the roads and lanes will see more night traffic than usual and dogs will bark at shadowy intruders in farm yards the next nest morning merchants in city and town will find the front windows of their stores decorated with long scrawling crawling lines of white soap put there but not to dean clean the panes paces gates will villi ile be missing from their accustomed cus tomed places benches and chairs will have disappeared water will be gushing forth from unguarded taps and la in general there will be such a transposition of any object tell left outdoors by the careless householder as to cause one to wonder by what strange magle magic have hitherto inanimate things come to life farmers finding wheels missing from their wagons hung bung perhaps high up in a tree or even perhaps discovering the wagon itself perched astride the ridgepole of the district school will mutter the same thing that the merchant Is muttering under his breath the little he athens P 1 they call the children that however pagans Is the word rather than heathens heathers he athens for october 81 Is halloween Hal hallow loueen een and on that night young america Is a throwback throw back to their pagan ancestry of thousands of years ago for the boys and girls who ho go about on halloween HaJI oween playing pranks on their elders even though probably oot not one out of a hundred knows 14 it are simply keeping olive alive a custom born in england in the far ar olt ciff days of the druids druies with this difference their ancestors of ancient days observed this custom to keep away or propitiate evil spirits whereas their descendants assume the characters of evil spirits or at least mischievous one sand act a accordingly the orl origin in of halloween goes back to the respect and homage paid hy by ancient nations to the sun the pagans of those days whether egyptian greek or roman assigned a place of great importance in ID their pantheon to the sun un god the giver of light and heat beat slid and life the sun marked out for them the time of work and the time of rest it divided the year into sea sons bons it made possible bounteous crops of grain and fruits and under its warming rays flourished all that was beautiful and splendid and wonderful on this earth so it as only natural that the early pagan should set aside a day of grief for the ending of summer when bis big beauty and splendor declined under the frosts and winds of the coming coining winter when the earth tell fell under the spell of the evil powers end and was not to be free from them again until the coming of spring but mingled with ith this grief over the passing of summer was the joy which lie he felt as he beheld the golden harvest of the autumn and in his bis heart he felt a song of thanksgiving for the ripened grain and fruit the deity to whom the romans were accustomed to render their thanks for these gifts was the goddess pomona and they were accustomed to set apart october 31 or november I 1 in her honor as a festival day in which outs auta and apples representing the winter store of fruits fig ared prominently the celts belts the original inhabitants of the british isles worshiped the spirits of the forests and streams their priests the druids druies held their rites beneath the great oaks which are characteristic of that land since this tree was held in special veneration by the celts belts the druids druies in time became skilled killed prophets in interpreting the will of tile the gods they kept their sacred lore from the people slid and hand ed it down only among themselves they taught that souls were ere immortal and that they passed from one body to another when life became extinct on october 31 the drujda druids taught that the lord of death gathered gat lured to gether the souls of all ail those who hall bad died during the year just passed and assigned to them bodies of the aal mals dials they were to inhabit the coming coining twelvemonth according acron ling to their con detonation Sa whitin summers end was no vember I 1 to the be druies drelda flocks blocke werf were 4 4 nt r 5 an fn brought in people rested from labor tires ires were nere built to baal tires 0 of thanksgiving tor for the seasons close which brought harvest in abunda abundance lice altars were lighted and after midnight rites on october 31 fire was as carried to every dwelling by the people the old fires bres nere ere quenched and the new enthroned ned they were kept burning for a year until the return of Sam aln hala fire blessed the household from this custom custo nand and that of burning a sheep arose the practice of delving into the future in the dying cheeps struggles were read omens of the morrow evil spirits that came out of in ireland lived for the rest of the year in bruchan cave in connaught called the hell gate of ireland on this yearly date the care was opened and evil spirits in the form of copper colored birds came out they preyed on families stealing babies from their cribs leaving to in their places goblins and hideous changelings chang elings these evil spirits had bad the reputation of being very cunning and the peasantry in order to get rid of them and around their evil visitations performed various and sundry acts of propitiation they boiled egg shells in ID the sight eight of the changelings chang elings treated III the children left them and did at other her weird and strange things the celts belts placed great store in tests was the great time for these individuals were ere blindfolded that they might be the better guided by fate in the practice of these superstitions the tha celts belts were not alone they w were ere universal over europe in the ag ages es previous to the christian era christianity and the roman emperors put them to rout augustus forbade his big subjects to be initiated into the Druid iclal worship when he occupied britain tiberius drove the priestly cult from gaul and emperor claudius stamped out their bullet belief tile the romans pursued the druids druies ruthlessly to the island of mona blona near wales calesi where they exterminated them at one fell blow and destroyed their oaks christianity in time succeeded the Druid iclal worship onto the old religion and old festivals were grafted new dew names and new customs the midsummer festival was dedicated to st john gave way to lam mas tile the berries of the mountain ash or rowan tree ulilah had been food for tile the people ot of the goddess annu now served to exorcise the very in whose honor they at one time had been eaten all or all saints day on the church calendar was waa assigned to november Novem her 1 in the beginning it was celebrated in may the month in which pope boniface IV in consecrated the roman pantheon to the virgin and all the saints and martyrs of the church the latter day assignment was made by pope gregory IV in la in order that the crowds which came up op each year to rome for the religious services might be fed sufficiently y from the bountiful harvests of the year in the tenth century november 2 was made all souls day since america Is the melting pot of the nations it Is only natu natural rul perhaps that this observance like so many others othera partakes of the customs and traditions of many lands hence our halloween I 1 lorl lore Is a combination of irish english scotch and german traditions not to mention contributions from the french dutch spanish portuguese tu guese austrian italian and slavic states as well as nordle nordic the original celebrations in this country were mainly english in origin even though to lo colonial times the day was not much celebrated A few of the english in the colonies kept up the mother country tradition but for the most part it was let pass this was due largely to the vilde ide settlements the hardship of communal association and the necessity for the colonists to be busy at this time of the year laying in the harvest and provisions for winter but despite this one could find now and then old halloween customs in full form force there followed then such games as apple ducking and apple snapping as well viell as apple peeling and the peel over the left shoulder comb and mirror tests and ballads topped off by a round of ghost stories A party of twelve may learn their future if one will get from a churchyard a clod of earth and set twelve candles in it naming them as ho he lights them the future of each Is governed by the light the candle emits wavering steady sputtering or coln going out fairies come in for especial attention in ireland good and bad they hold the irish heart in their power and so BO the story runs st patrick was not immune to their wiles one lulled him to sleep before aln these thee the e spirits dwell in grassy mounds and in n streams atas and on the eve of all saints day troop forth to work bork their will ill on countryside to this day one may hear authentic accounts of f tile the appearance pe arance of fairies in irelnd ireland and th the a necessity of doing certain things la in order to bold their good will scottish halloween traditions seem to be more clearly defined and more purposeful than the irish ones there Is a lightness in irish character that Is not to be found to a the scottish and for this reason the scots take more seriously the traditions in regard to witches evil spirits and fairies all of alom they believe to be abroad aaroa on halloween the scotch invented the idea of a goblin who comes out just at samha aln in it to Is he nho ho la in ireland steals children the fairies pass I 1 at crossroads and in the highlands I 1 B hoover hoever took a three legged stool to abere three crossroads cross roads met and set upon it at would hear the names of those ho would die in a year ile he might bring with him articles of dress and as each name was pronounced throw one garment to the fairies they would be so pleased by this gift that they would repeal the sentence of death 0 1110 1930 western union |
