Talk:Halloween/Archive 7

message: I have no idea what Samhain Eve is. October 31st is Féile na Marbh in Ireland. November 1st is the Celtic New Year's Day. Corrections please. Jm butler 10:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Féile na Marbh 

message: I'm removing the claim that Halloween originated in Brittany, which was supported by the following quote:
:Kelley, Ruth Edna (1919). The Book of Hallowe'en, Chapter XI: In Brittany and France:
::Gaul, as we have seen from Caesar's account, had been one of the chief seats of Druidical belief. The religious center was Carnutes, now Chartrain. The rites of sacrifice survived in the same forms as in the British Isles. In the fields of Deux-Sevres fires were built of stubble, ferns, leaves, and thorns, and the people danced about them and burned nuts in them. On St. John's Day animals were burned in the fires to secure the cattle from disease. This was continued down into the seventeenth century.
::The pagan belief that lasted the longest in Brittany, and is by no means dead yet, was the cult of the dead. Caesar said that the Celts of Gaul traced their ancestry from the god of death, whom he called Dispater. Now figures of l'Ankou, a skeleton armed with a spear, can be seen in most villages of Brittany.
since this quote says nothing at all about Halloween or Samhain. St. John's Day is in late June, not the end of October. —Angr 11:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brittany 

message: I have changed the word door for garden gate/gate and marked it (incorrectly) as a minor edit.
Doors were impossible to get at for removal but garden gates could be lifted off the pivots and removed in a trice.  They were usually swapped with a neighbours gate as it was the easiest thing to do.  The favourite trick was to tie string to the door knocker and hide in the bushes.  This is from personal observation (and participation) in the mid 1950s. Petersheeran 12:59, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mischief night Yorkshire: change doors to gates 

message: Although it is reasonable to question the level of celebration in these two countries, its stretching it a bit to claim its because it wasn't celebrated in England, both were colonised by all the inhabitants of GB & I. 
NZ immigrants data
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/homeawayfromhome-fromwhere
Why did the Celts not continue with it? Did it initially continue then cease later on?
Are there any southern hemisphere nations at all that celebrate it in the 'traditional' way? (Maybe a surviving legacy amongst the pockets of celtic immigrants?). Is there a rational for an 'End of Summer' festival to survive in the south? 83.67.8.162 14:42, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Australia and New Zealand 

message: Does this article even explain what halloween is?  This article really needs improvement.
Did anyone find anything about Hallowe'en celebrated in the scottish village of Beattock (Dumfries and Galloway) I think they celebrate it on a different day to everyone else...11th of November I believe...it's probably just a wierd local thing as I couldn't find anything about it on the Internet anywhere...just thought it might be of interest to someone :)
SparklyFaery 17:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uhh 

message: I removed the "Halloween traditions" section since none of it was sourced. Here's the full text if anyone wants to reference it.
:Halloween traditions survive most accurately on the island of Ireland, where the last Monday of October is a public holiday. All schools close for the following week for mid-term, commonly called the Halloween Break. As a result Ireland and Northern Ireland are the only jurisdictions where children never have school on Halloween and are therefore free to celebrate it in the ancient and time-honored fashion. 
:The custom of trick-or-treating resembles the European custom called "souling", similar to the wassailing customs associated with Yule. On November 2, All Souls' Day, beggars would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes" — square pieces of bread with currants. Christians would promise to say prayers on behalf of dead relatives helping the soul's passage to heaven. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits at the Samhain.  
:Souling died out in most areas of England by the mid-17th century, during the English Reformation. There is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, and trick-or-treating seems to have evolved there independently: the earliest report of ritual begging on Halloween is from 1915, and it did not become a widespread practice until the 1930s. Ritual begging on Halloween did not appear in Great Britain until the late 20th century, and imitates the American custom. 
:In Celtic parts of western Brittany, Samhain is still heralded by the baking of kornigou. Kornigou are cakes baked in the shape of antlers to commemorate the god of winter shedding his "cuckold" horns as he returns to his kingdom in the Otherworld.
:In the Isle of Man where Halloween is known as Hop-tu-Naa children carry turnips instead of pumpkins, and sing a song called Jinnie the Witch.
Voretustalk 19:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Halloween traditions 

message: Hospitals were offering to xray kid's candy? Ok... that's just plain extremely paranoid. Fools. All they need to do is check the darn candy and throw out anything that isn't in a wrapper before tossing it in kid's mouths. Even someone with a lump of peanut butter for a brain could know that... pfff. I hate stupidity... SilentWind 20:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, what do you expect of people who reproduce? —Angr 20:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Candy that has been tampered with 

message: :Other Christians, including those in Church leadership positions, consider Halloween as incompatible and conflicting with the Christian faith, due to its preoccupation with the occult in symbols, masks and costumes, its origin as pagan festival of the dead, and the fact that it is considered by satanists and other occult groups  as a festival  celebrated with certain rituals.
Does a simple statement like that need that much proof?
Not to mention citing some poorly designed offshoot source like the watchman. Sounds like someone's preaching.
:It has to do more with the paranoia wise editors learn to have when saying something about a particular group of people. Without an obsurd amount of citations, someone will come along and remove the statement no matter how basic it is. -- THL 05:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eight sources in one sentence?