JAck who?
1 Like
The bloke with the lantern made from a turnip that inspired the Americans to do the same with pumpkins That Jack. 
1 Like
Visitor, please read my opening post for this thread. The detail is there…
As an English person I enjoy a documentary or two, a nod…toddlers with their sweets in a porch…but prefer the more visceral November 5th blah blah…
I spend a month saying I’ll ‘blow fifty quid’ on rockets, maybe I will…
Those are the memories, bonfires, fireworks, and roasting catholics on a pyre etc xx
1 Like
So interesting, Minx. Now I’m trying to figure out why the holiday is so big in the US. This article says that the UK is following the US lead. I wonder why it didn’t take hold in the UK and is now (well in 2015) gaining popularity.
1 Like
Apologies…
1 Like
I wish we celebrated Halloween like the Americans
1 Like
What a lot of interesting stuff, thank you everyone
I think it has always been a U.K. thing, connected to Samhain, All Saints Day and All Souls’ Day, but the US developed it as their own
My mum and granny used to make Soul Cakes, like a currant biscuit with a cross on the top In the Middle Ages children went from house to house asking for them on All Saints day so perhaps that’s where trick or treating came from
I think the traditional U.K. lanterns were turnips, hard to carve but much more creepy when lit
2 Likes
We get a lot of young children & their parents visit most years. When my daughters were younger, we used to split in two. The girls went out with one of us, the other remained here, to hand out treats. Last year was the first time, in 22 years of living here, that we have done nothing.
As a kid, I grew up in a small farming village & we used sugar beet. We did not do trick or treating, but kept the lantern until Nov 5th, when we had top end of the village bonfire. Farmers & householders got rid of all their flammable rubbish. An area was cordoned off & we took our own fireworks & let them off there.
2 Likes
I nearly forgot. The local priests wife used to run a youth club & she was a big paranormal fan & Halloween was a big night for the youth club. Dipping for apples, ghost stories, trips around the churchyard. She loved it.
2 Likes
It’s definitely catching on in SA 
Yep, now I do recall celebrating that! We’d walk around the neighbourhood with a made up Guy Fawkes and chant this song whilst drumming on a tin with wooden sticks!
Guy Fawkes Day!
Shoot him in the eye!
Let the bugger die!
Come to think of it, a rather macabre chant for little kids to be singing!
The fun part was the bonfire where we ‘burned’ the poor Guy 
How horrid is that as kids!
2 Likes
It is rather interesting! I must say, I’ve enjoyed this research 
1 Like
That’s really insightful- thanks for sharing 
1 Like
Wow Gee, a bit of a contradiction there! Christianity and Halloween don’t usually go together unlike salt and pepper 
When I was a ‘bad chap’ back in the day this was one of my favourite tunes…as the school punk (assistant punk)
Years before I had been to a proper American 
Halloween party in Abadan dressed as a ‘corpse’ although I didn’t know what a corpse was and I didn’t know how to say the word. Anyway - sheet & talcum powder if anybody wants to try the outfit today.
‘Robin Hood’ outfit in the Netherlands was worse, everybody insisting I was William Tell
1 Like
She had a big interest in anything paranormal & it was her & her husband, the priest, who have left me with a long interest in the paranormal. As he used to say, there are generally 3 different truths. The trick is finding the correct truth, not a truth.
And priests & the paranormal have a long association together. For example the English occult group the Golden Dawn had a lodge just for Priests & one of Dion Fortunes close friends within the Inner Light was also a priest.
1 Like
I thought the Lanterns derived from the glowing lights, that appear above Marsh/Bog land called Willo O Wisp
With curiosity at night some would follow these glowing lights, ending up in the Bog never to be seen again……bringing about yarns of Ghosts and evil spirits
The first lanterns were human Skulls, then Vegetables with Ghoulish faces cut out with candles lit to ward off evil spirits….These Lanterns were called Jack o lantern and originate from Ireland
Mind I don’t really know if this is correct, as I also thought Halloween originated in Ireland not Scotland
1 Like
Perhaps someone has a better idea of it’s origins. I’m definitely not the expert
1 Like
I’m sure todays Halloween originates from a number of Pagan festivities if truth is known, and does it really matter when todays Halloween is about having Fun
1 Like