That time of year

• Posted by Pauline Smith October 11, 2013 #Halloween  #Guy Fawkes  #Samhain  #St Martin  #Thanksg  1,849 views
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  Its coming to that time of year again when people across Northern Europe and in the USA celebrate.....being trannies...no not really, they have a variety of events and feasts which often involve bonfires, food and lanterns.  Also as the nights are longer and darker there are more trannies out and about. This blog covers Halloween, Guy Fawkes, and St Martin - so a mish mash of religious observances interspersed with politics and food.

   

  Halloween (October 31) was originally a Scottish and Irish Christian celebration, and many argue that it was based on the Celtic Samhain rituals, where bonfires were lit to ward away evil spirits and the fairies. The concept of guising (which includes young people dressing as the opposite gender or in other disguises) and knocking on doors to get food or money has been around in Ireland and Scotland for at least 300 years, this has since translated into the American "trick or treat" with the kids dressed in costume carrying lanterns. The lanterns were orginally made out of hollowed out turnips; when it moved across the pond with the influx of Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 18th and 19th Centuries they started using pumpkins. As an aside Halloween did not become a national US event until the early 20th C.  Today it seems to bear little resemblance to what it must have been - but its still a night when trannies can go out.

   

  "Souling", the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls, has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom was found in parts of England and dates back at least as far as the 15th century. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Hallowmas, collecting soul cakes, originally as a means of praying for souls in purgatory.  Similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of "puling [whimpering or whining] like a beggar at Hallowmas." The custom of wearing costumes has been linked to Hallowmas by Prince Sorie Conteh, who wrote: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities". Academic folklorist Kingsley Palmer has suggested that the carved jack-o'-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead. In the Hallowmas celebration, households in Austria, England, Ireland often had "candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes". These were known as “soul lights”

   

  Interestingly ole Guido (Guy Fawkes) who was caught trying to blow up the House of Parliament on Novemeber 5 1605...maybe these days he would be a hero,but probably still be regarded as a terrorist, he was executed on 31st January 1606.  The punishment was that the 13 conspirators were to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air". However ole Guido was last in line and he jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck... so they couldn't torture him anymore.

   

  In Britain, 5 November has variously been called Guy Fawkes Night, Guy Fawkes Day, Plot Night and Bonfire Night; the latter can be traced directly back to the original celebration of 5 November 1605. Bonfires were accompanied by fireworks from the 1650s onwards, and it became the custom to burn an effigy (usually the pope) after 1673, when the heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, made his conversion to Catholicism public. Effigies of other notable figures who have become targets for the public's ire, such as Paul Kruger and Margaret Thatcher, have also found their way onto the bonfires, although most modern effigies are of Fawkes. The "guy" is normally created by children, from old clothes, newspapers, and a mask. During the 19th century, "guy" came to mean an oddly dressed person, but in American English it lost any pejorative connotation, and was used to refer to any male person. Historian Lewis Call has observed that Fawkes is now "a major icon in modern political culture". He went on to write that the image of Fawkes's face became "a potentially powerful instrument for the articulation of postmodern anarchism" during the late 20th century, exemplified by the mask worn by V in the comic book series V for Vendetta, who fights against a fictional fascist English state.

   

  And along the way a lot of the bonfires and feasting that were celebrated at Halloween in England got hijacked for Guy Fawkes - rather apt in a way. Guy Fawkes is sometimes toasted as "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions".

   

   

  Saint Martin...who was he? St Martin of Tours was born in Hungary around AD 316 and grew up in Italy before joining the army. He rode to Amiens where he cut his red cloak in half with his sword and gave it to a beggar,  He stopped being a soldier and became a bishop, once hiding amongst a flock of geese. The goose became his sign and he is the patron saint of beggars, vintners, equestrians, soldiers, tailors, innkeepers, alcholics...and geese.  St Martin's Day, which is November 11, is considered the first real day of winter in Germany, it comes at the end of the Octave of All Souls, and is a time for winter preparation with newly produced wine and the butchering of animals. Thus St Martin is much like Thanksgiving (the 4th Thursday in November) a celebration of the earth's bounty.  It is a mini carnival with feasting and bonfires. Goose is traditionally eaten - on St Martins Eve in Sweden and on the 11th in Germany.

   

  Traditionally its celebrated at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month ( now lifted for Armistice Day since 1919). Its also the start of Carneval.....and in Duesseldorf the women can cut men's ties off with scissors (could be a euphemism for something),believe me you made sure that you wore an old tie.  Either on St Martins Eve or St Martins night there are large bonfires and small children carry lanterns and go to door to door and sing...for which they are rewarded with sweets.  I remember when I lived in Holland having to buy bags of sweets to give to all the small children in the neighbourhood...one year I had about 40 small visitors (usually with parents)...and all sang about St Martin. And in Germany I used to feast on roast goose.

   

  I hope that you manage to enjoy one of these events, if not all three in the coming weeks. And if you don't get chance to go out in disguise on 31st October then maybe you will get out in your glad rags another evening very soon.

   

  hugs

   

   

  Pauline xxx