Tagged: halloween

There are many ways to be haunted:

• haunted by memories
• haunted by relationships and addictions
• haunted by the dead
• haunted by the imagination

Living life in fear of shadows is like sleeping with the light on. Plenty of good comes out of the darkness. Tricks and treats make light of  our hauntings, So here are some insights and tips for making light of Winter.

Haunted by relationships and addictions

In a black and white life there are just shades of grey - the depths of colour are either absent or just not visible. On Halloween Black and Orange are the colours of choice, and this choice has a history. Black - we know it well, is the colour of darkness, in fact not a colour at all, but the absence of colour. It's impression can be powerful, alluding to shadows and threats sometimes dangerous and sexy - the power-dressing colour of choice.

Orange of course is a colour of Autumn -Falling leaves express this best, and the pumpkin lanterns hold the light in the darkness of this time. Orange by contrast to Black is flamboyant, and a warning, it's traffic light heeds us to pause, to get ready, it brings expectation - that something is about to happen; and so it does on Halloween, the time of year when we are haunted by superstition warning that the dead are quite near-by. Put in a more poetic way; age- old wisdom says that at this time "the veil between this world and beyond is thin".  So it is a good time for healing and for letting go. Enter the trickster, we all have him with us.

Haunted by the dead

Human nature being what it is, has transformed a Pagan religious festival into one of tricks and treats. Once a celebration of harvest, and the first winters day; its Welsh  name was  Calan Gaeaf , but  the Christian establishment preferred the theme of "All Saints day" (on Nov 2nd.), for the living to pray for the souls of the dead. Yet we are haunted still - something in our nature or even in our shadows calls us to remember a darker side; and so we light our candles and we bring it up to date with trick or treats. All Hallows Eve became Hallow Evening, and then Hallowe'en - the first day of Winter, a Pagan New Year's Day in contemporary dress. And so now we move into Winter, that more introverted time of year when we can turn more inward unto ourselves.

Haunted by the imagination

We are haunted, perhaps not by the dead, but by the trickster in our nature. When we feel the tingling down the back and spine is there something sinister or morbid in the shadows, or is our imagination playing tricks? In Greek mythology as in psychology today this feeling has been given character; its form is that of 'Hermes', but we in Celtic lands would know his name as 'Merlin', he came from near my home  ("Caer-fyrddin" was his fort, in the County where I live). Although others claim him as their own - and this befits his nature.

Hermes is the 'Puer Eternis'; eternally young father-less child, with a sense of humour, athletic, and stealthy. Not human but numinous; a figment of our imagination and an aspect of our psyche. He reminds us that we are on the edge, that genius and insanity are never far apart and haunted by that little breeze of shivers down the spine, life pauses between the gasp and outward breath.

Haunted by memories

We are haunted by memories of what we cannot let go; people die and ideas die; we experience death many times in our lives, and learning to let go is a life skill that enables us to be fully alive. In good humour we keep our sanity, making light of things we could not otherwise carry.

So on this first Winters day;  pause, gasp, hold your breath then exhale, and know you are alive. In this coming season of darkness, take time to look back and look inward, to Re-member and  celebrate.

Tip 1 - Make light, have fun, and let go.  Key area 1 of your home  is the place for appropriate reflection at this time of the year.

Tip 2 - Use Orange for enthusiasm, and for letting go.

Tip 3 - Light a candle as an affirmation of letting go

The Secret of Home  was my first book; a self-help guide to read your home and to work with your home as a means to achieve a better life.

http://www.jungatlanta.com/articles/Hermes-and-the-Creation-of-Space.pdf

In future blogs I will be writing about the meaning of colour from home experiences in Wales and beyond – Why do women wear red shoes and what happened to the woman who lived in a black and white house?  www.homesouls.com/blog

Follow me on  Twitter  and read my future blogs to find out more,    Contact me

Lindsay Halton Architect-Author-Guide

CLICK TO BUY

Llanelli's popular Jenkins Bakery has launched a special range of products to mark Halloween.

"We always like to do something special to mark different occasions throughout the year" said Russell Jenkins operations director at the Jenkins Bakery.

"Our customers have come to expect us to do something special and this year we have six different products for people to enjoy as they party over Halloween.

HALLOWEEN PUMPKIN BISCUIT 90p
Our top quality shortbread biscuit with a hand decorated pumpkin in sugar paste.

HALLOWEEN BAT BISCUIT - 75p
Hand decorated coloured sugar paste bat on our top quality shortbread biscuit.

HALLOWEEN GHOST BISCUIT 75p
Hand decorated coloured sugar paste ghost on our top quality shortbread biscuit.

HALLOWEEN KRISPIES - 1.10
Chocolate Krispie Cake with edible figure.

HALLOWEEN CUP CAKES 90p
Our top quality chocolate muffin topped with coloured frosting and decorated with sprinkles and sugar plaque.

HALLOWEEN MALLOWS 1.10
Chocolate covered marshmallow.

Halloween. It is one of the oldest festivals of all, and represents a curious mixture of many different traditions. The Celts called it Samhain, a festival that provided a boost for people as they entered the long dark winter months, when the countryside seemed dead and the days seemed so short.

Over time it became mixed in with All Saints Day, a day set aside for those poor saints who didnt have a day of their own.

Originally it represented the end of the harvest season and the beginning of a new year. The Welsh term for the festival is Nos Calan Gaeaf - a reference to the beginning of winter. As we all know today it is regarded as a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead become blurred.

A door to another reality opened up briefly and all sorts of horrors spilled out. So bonfires were lit to frighten away the spirits. This was the time in the Welsh tradition when Hwch Ddu Cwta appeared the Black Sow.

They would light bonfires and roast apples (and in later years potatoes) and leap through the flames to bring good luck. Then they would throw stones in the fire and run home to escape Hwch Ddu who would be on the prowl. On the first of November they would return to look for their stone. If they could find it then you were guaranteed good luck for the New Year. If you couldnt then you were facing bad luck, or even death.

Apples played an important part in Samahin because it came at the end of the apple harvest and there were plenty around. Apple bobbing was common. The most successful technique, assuming they had no stalks, was to plunge into the barrel and trap the apple against the bottom. Boys have always been so competitive.

In another apple game, one was tied to a stick suspended from the ceiling with a candle tied to the other. It was spun around and you had to catch the apple with your teeth. How they laughed when someone got a face full of wax.

There was also the Puzzle Jug. It had many spouts and you had to guess which one was correct. Get it wrong and you would be soaked by beer or cider. I bet they could hardly wait for the invention of television.

A lot of the traditions seem to centre upon finding a partner.In Montgomeryshire villages they would make a large vegetable mash in which a ring would be hidden. The local girls would dig into it with wooden spoons. The one who found it would be the first to be married. In Carmarthenshire nine girls would gather together to make a pancake of nine ingredients. They would divide it up into nine pieces and eat it. As a result they would, before morning, have a vision of their future husband. Which may or may not have been a good idea.

In Scotland, as you can see similar traditions outlined in Robert Burns poem Halloween. A girl could eat an apple in front of a mirror and she would see her future husband looking over her shoulder, presumably telling her that the porridge needed stirring.

Alternatively she could hang a wet shirt sleeve in front of the fire to dry and watch it closely. At midnight the spirit of her future partner would appear and turn it round a fascinating idea completely destroyed by the invention of the tumble drier.

Everywhere Halloween has been a time for the universal walking abroad of spirits, a time when the boundaries between our world and the spirit world are momentarily lowered. A time of inversion, when everything was turned upside down. In parts of Wales it became a bit of a cross-dressing festival. Boys and girls would swap clothes and go from home to home, chanting verses and spells and asking for gifts of fruit or nuts which were used to predict the future.

Other boys might dress up in sheepskins and rags and blacken their faces. They were the gwrachod (hags or witches) and they would look for gifts of apples or nuts or beer. Their job was to drive away evil spirits from the home. Clearly an early variation on the theme of trick or treat.

Of course, these days the role of the Trick or Treaters themselves has changed. They are the evil spirits who should be driven away.

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Download here:   Easy Dragon Pattern   |   Medium Dragon Pattern   |  Hard Dragon Pattern

I love carving jack o'lanterns and do gothic haunted houses, castles and stuff for my house and friends and relatives and I thought I'd do a dragon this year so I made some stencils which anyone can download and use for personal use only, not for any commercial use or resale without my express, written permission.

Below you'll find three dragons , a hard version and medium and easy versions. We also have an easy 'Castell Coch' stencil here for those of you who prefer a castle. The dragon is an emblem of Wales and can be seen on the national flag:-'Y Ddraig Goch'. So if you are Welsh or of Welsh descent carving a dragon pumpkin is a superb way of celebrating Halloween and your 'Welshness' at the same time. If not, well, it's a great motif anyway.

There are pictures of the dragons on this page, both in outline and as  finished products. Full directions are included with each of the Dragon Stencil downloads. If you try one of our stencil patterns please feel free to send us a picture or post in the comments box below. Read  on for an account of some interesting Welsh Halloween customs.

Directions

The easy and medium design patterns can be carved out or done by scraping away the outer rind and hollowing out the pumpkin to leave a thin wall of pumpkin meat in the areas in black. The hard pattern is better done by the second method i.e. not actually carving out sections but scraping away the outer rind and hollowing out the pumpkin to leave a thin wall of pumpkin meat in the areas in black below.

Cut out black sections with X-Acto knife and trace on pumpkin with crayon or wipe­ erase marker OR hold stencil over pumpkin surface and poke around silhouette of black areas with pin, then remove stencil and carve sections outlined by holes.

Make your jack ­o'lantern last longer by washing the inside with lemon juice to retard mold growth, then coat insides and exposed inner membrane with petroleum jelly to keep moist.

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Easy Dragon Pattern

This design is simply a silhouette and anyone can use this for any purpose, it is public domain. This is an easy difficulty design. It can be carved out or done by scraping away the outer rind and hollowing out the pumpkin to leave a thin wall of pumpkin meat in the areas in black, above.

Download Here

	Welsh Dragon Halloween Stencil (Easy Pattern)
	easyDragon.pdf, 122KB ∞

 

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Medium Dragon Pattern

This is a medium difficulty design and can be downloaded for personal, non-commercial use. It can be carved out or done by scraping away the outer rind and hollowing out the pumpkin to leave a thin wall of pumpkin meat in the areas in black, above. This design may not be copied, published, reproduced or used for any commercial or resale use without my express written permission.

Download Here

	Welsh Dragon Halloween Stencil (Medium Difficulty Pattern)
	medDragon.pdf, 148KB ∞

Copyright ©2009, StoryForge Studios

 

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Hard Dragon Pattern

 

This is a more difficult design and may be downloaded for personal, non-commercial use. It is better done by not actually carving out sections but scraping away the outer rind and hollowing out the pumpkin to leave a thin wall of pumpkin meat in the areas in black, above. This design may not be copied, published, reproduced or used for any commercial or resale use without my express written permission.

Download Here

	Welsh Dragon Halloween Stencil (Hard Pattern)
	hardDragon.pdf, 264KB ∞

Copyright ©2009, StoryForge Studios

 

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Old Welsh Customs Associated With Halloween / Nos Calan Gaeaf

Nos Calan Gaeaf is the Welsh term for Samhain otherwise known as Halloween in English. It has its roots in ancient pagan tradition. Whilst Samhain means 'November' in Irish Gaelic, Nos Calan Gaeaf in Welsh means 'the night of the first day of winter'.

It should be pointed out that pumpkin carving is not an ancient Welsh tradition. Indeed pumpkins were unknown in Europe in pre-Columbian times. How rapidly their cultivation spread westward to Britain and ultimately Wales after 1492 is a matter for conjecture. Of course pumpkins grow very well in Wales today, particularly, it would seem, if they are raised on a diet of real ale - Giant pumpkin fed on beer

Ghastly faces were , however, carved on turnips to ward off evil spirits on Halloween night  in parts of England, Scotland and Ireland. It seems unlikely that the practice was entirely unknown in Wales.

One custom most certainly associated with Wales (and other parts of Britain) was the 'Puzzling Jug'. For more on this, see the following post:- What Did The Welsh Do On Halloween? - The Puzzling Jug

Puzzling jugs were very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Typically an inscription challenges the drinker to consume the contents without spilling them, which, because the neck of the jug is perforated, is impossible to do conventionally. This occasioned much hilarity when unwary drinkers inundated themselves with ale.

Other specifically Welsh customs include the Coelcerth, Yr Hwch Ddu Gwta and more. From the Wikipedia :

 

Coelcerth - Families build a fire and place stones with their names on it. The person whose stone is missing the next morning would die within the year.

Yr Hwch Ddu Gwta - Legend has it that a fearsome spirit called Yr Hwch Ddu Gwta took the form of a tail-less black sow and roamed the countryside with a headless woman. Children would rush home early.

Eiddiorwg Dalen - A few leaves of ground ivy is thought to give you the power to see hags. For prophetic dreams a boy should cut ten ivy leaves, throw away one and put the rest under his head before he sleeps. A girl should take a wild rose grown into a hoop, creep through it three times, cut it in silence, and go to bed with it under her pillow.

Teiliwr - In Glamorgan tailors were associated with witchcraft. They supposedly possessed the power to ‘bewitch’ anybody if they wished.

Twco Fala/fale  Ducking apples

 

For more on these and other ancient Welsh customs and superstitions you might wish to consult 'Cambrian Superstitions', an excellent work on Welsh folklore published by William Howells in 1831. The full title of the book is ' Cambrian superstitions, comprising ghosts, omens, witchcraft, traditions, To which are added a concise view of the manners and customs of the principality, and some fugitive pieces ' There are links to buy, or read online from the Internet Archive, in the advertisement below.

"Cambrian Superstitions, comprising ghosts, omens......"

Buy it here: Cambrian superstitions, comprising ghosts, omens, witchcraft, traditions, &c : To which are added a concise view of the manners and customs of the principality, and some fugitive pieces (1831)

Or download here: Cambrian Superstitions on the Internet Archive

 

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