Photo by David Menidrey on Unsplash
To the victor the spoils and the ability to change history to fit their narrative.
Once a festival, SAMHAIN, to show respect to nature and our place in this multi-dimensional universe… Halloween is now about eating all the chocolate we can in homage to the corporate gods of food & drugs!
Reading the “On this day in history” facts below about today there is an interesting mix of good and evil to reflect on. Anyone know where the zebra crossing in Slough is?
I’m liking the Pomona aspect, healthy apples but that feels more harvest festival.
We should look at more ways to enjoy pumpkin “meat” and you can find a bunch of recipes on HubHub
A few other ideas we shared last year about a Sustainable Halloween…
Enjoy these fun facts around Halloween…
Halloween has been around for more than a thousand years. Originally a religious observance, it became increasingly secular over the centuries until its religious trappings all but disappeared. Today Halloween is considered a holiday for dress-up and fun, especially for children.
Today, Halloween is one of the biggest holidays for candy sales in the United States, estimated to be more than $3 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.
At Samhain, held on November 1, the world of the gods was believed to be made visible to humankind, and the gods played many tricks on their mortal worshippers; it was a time fraught with danger, charged with fear, and full of supernatural episodes.
FERALIA
When the Romans conquered Gaul in 50 BC, their festival of Feralia was merged with Samhain. Feralia honored the souls of benevolent ancestors by offering them food on their graves. The Romans also introduced the autumn harvest festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of gardens and fruit.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes.
When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
Halloween or Hallowe’en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints’ Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.In popular culture, the day has become a celebration of horror, being associated with the macabre and supernatural.
One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots. Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow’s Day, along with its eve, by the early Church. Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow’s Day. Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.
Popular Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films. Some people practice the Christian observances of All Hallows’ Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, although it is a secular celebration for others. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows’ Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.
Have you got some fun & interesting facts about Windsor we could add to this and other pages relating to days of the year? Submit them here >>>
Born on this Day 31st October
1950 John Candy
1920 Dick Francis
1940 Tom O’Connor
1945 Barry Keefe
1946 Michael Kitchen
1970 Terry Alderton
1971 Ian Walker
1972 Matt Dawson
1973 Paul Abrahams
1974 Muzzy Izzet
1993 Letitia Wright
1997 Marcus Rashford
Died On This Day
1926 Harry Houdini
1993 River Phoenix
2001 William Le Sage
2005 Mary Wimbush
2012 Brian Cobby
2014 Henry Harr
Music
1970 Michelle Phillips, formerly of The Mamas and Papas married actor Dennis Hopper.
1975 Queen released their 3rd single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, which would prove to be their biggest seller.
1998 ‘Believe’ by Cher was at No.1 in the UK for 7 weeks, went double platinum and was later voted single of the year.
Sport
1982 Martina Navratilova won the final of the women’s singles in the Daihatsu tournament at the Brighton centre against Chris Lloyd in just 62 minutes.
1983 Long distance runner Ron Grant completed a 10,364 mile journey around Australia in 217 days, wearing out 14 pairs of shoes.
1991 British boxer Michael Watson, in a coma since his fight with Chris Eubank, stirred but remained unconscious.
People & Showbiz
1961 The Sindy doll was launched in the UK by Pedigree toys.
1984 Freddie Kruger was born when Wes Craven’s ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ received its premier in the US.
General Events
1914 The first trenches of WW1 were dug in France near the Swiss border.
1922 Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister and dictator of Italy .
1940 The Battle of Britain ended.
1951 Zebra crossings came into effect in Britain. The first was positioned in Slough, Berkshire.
1971 An IRA bomb exploded at the top of the Post Office Tower, London.
1984 Prime Minister Indira Ghandi was assassinated in Delhi by members of her bodyguard on her way to meet Peter Ustinov about making a documentary of her life story.
1988 Coventry became Britain’s first city to introduce a by-law banning the drinking of alcohol in public places.
Thank you.
Jon Davey
Community Champion
