October Advent, Day 7: Souling and Guising
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As I continue to do rudimentary research on Halloween as part of this advent calendar, I’m discovering that I know pretty much nothing about the holiday.
Here are five little facts I’ve picked up:
The Festival of the Dead, which generally took place at the end of October and the beginning of November, was celebrated in a wide range of places including ancient Peru, Rome, Egypt, Persia, and Japan.
The word “Halloween” is pretty old. It surfaced around 1550, and by 1785 Robert Burns was writing poems about it.
The concept of begging for treats is also old. Shakespeare mentions it in Two Gentleman of Verona when a character is said to be “puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.”
Dressing up in costumes was called guising, and it was first recorded as happening in Scotland just before 1900, though it may have originated long before as a way to scare off ghosts.
Then there’s the going door to door business. Supposedly, about 150 years ago, people used to go caroling and sing this song at each house:
A soul! a soul! a soul-cake!
Please good Missis, a soul-cake!
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,
Any good thing to make us all merry.
The practice was called souling, and it was mainly practiced by children and the poor. It’s an obvious predecessor to trick or treating.
One thing that stands out to me is that Halloween is currently far removed from the Festival of the Dead. For me, the holiday has never been about my ancestry. It has just been about decorations and candy and costumes — stuff that can be sold. I’m wondering what rituals, if any, could bring some meaning back to the holiday. What could I do to make the holiday about something more than commercialism? Or perhaps I should be asking (and I mean this sincerely), How can I forget about giving Halloween meaning and just have fun? After all, fun is good.