There are poems to read more. . .
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. – William Shakespeare, 'Macbeth' - Act IV, Scene 1
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“Halloween” is a mashed-together spelling of All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day, which in turn was a make-over by Christians of Samhain, the first day of the pagan Celtic New Year.
The ancient traditions of the Celts have come down through the ages to us, but transformed from solemn rites to pretend-scary fun for children: the diminutive ghosts and princesses, witches and super-heroes, pirates and zombies, who appear on our doorsteps with bags outstretched for their share of the candy-loot.
Yet the echoes of the past can still make us shiver, just a little. The ghastly face lit by flickering candle flame of a well-carved Jack O’Lantern still spooks us, even though we adults pretend otherwise.
Using torch and bonfire to ward off the unknown out there in the dark are part of the fall and winter rituals of every culture, all the way back to the first humans who learned to make and keep fire.
Triad
.
by Adelaide Crapsey
.
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow... the hour
Before the dawn ... the mouth of one
Just dead.
Pumpkin-carving comes to us from an old Irish story of a man named Stingy Jack who tricked the Devil, not once, not twice, but three times. When Jack died, the Lord wouldn’t allow such a devious character to enter heaven, but when Jack fell into Hell, the angry Devil threw him out, with only a live coal to light his way in the darkness. Jack carved the insides out of a large turnip and put the coal in it, doomed to wander the earth as “Jack of the Lantern” – Jack O’Lantern.
When Irish immigrants came to America, they saw that pumpkins would be much easier to carve into lanterns than turnips, so they adopted them instead, adding to our uniquely American version of All Hallows Eve.
So make your pumpkin’s face really scary to ward off any ghosts or evil spirits who might come out to do mischief during the long dark hours of Halloween ... just in case.
There were many poets born this week, but these are the ones that I found had written poems related to “Things that Go Bump in the Night.”
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