Stingy Jack |
10-16-2004 05:36 AM |
Quote:
Originally posted by Tubalcain
ok, im a christian, but even i know how to distinguish reality from make believe. faith is great, and everyone should have faith in something, but i dont believe that god would want you to miss such an excellent chance to bond with your child. and lets face it halloween can be great fun for the whole family. every day of the week should be the lords day imo. and if you break halloween down to its basic origin, it was a chance for the farmers to get together and thank "god" for their bountiful harvest. they would celebrate, have fun, then hunker down and get ready for winter. it wasnt looked down upon until us christians associated satan with it.
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Actually, Halloween began in Ireland, and was originally a night to be feared. Samhain, the Celtic new year, was celebrated at the end of October, signifying the official end of summer. It was believed that on this night, the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead was at its thinnest. Spirits of the dead, and other fairies and sprites from beyond, could easily enter into this world on that night; and it was believed that they would do so in search of a body to possess for the next year. Naturally, people did not desire their bodies to be overtaken by a dead spirit, so they would dress up in ghoulish costumes in the hopes of fooling any spirit into thinking they (the people in costumes) were already spirits themselves and should be left alone. The spirits were also thought to be very dangerous tricksters, and households would set out plates of food for them hoping that the spirits would be pleased and leave that particular household alone. (This is how many people believe trick or treating began, but there are other histories for this tradition ... some involving the door-to-door gathering of "soul cakes" for All Soul's Day.)
One particularly nasty spirit, Stingy Jack, was said to enter into the world of the living on the night of Samhain. Tricked by the devil to wander the world of the dead forever, Jack used a turnip as a lantern (lit by an eternally burning coal given to him by the devil) and could only gain eternal rest if he could find a live soul to replace his own. The jack-o-lantern tradition came from this legend. If you put a jack-o-lantern out on your doorstep, Jack would see it and think that you, too, were searching for a soul and would leave yours alone.
My point for all this is to show that Halloween was originally much more than a feast thanking god for a good harvest. It did involve spirits of the dead, and devils and faeiries and all of that jazz.
Which is just how I like it.
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