The Book of Halloween E-Book

Ruth Edna Kelley

• Herausgeber: Aurora Boreale di Nicola Bizzi
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Book of Hallowe’en by Ruth Edna Kelley was published for first time in Boston, Massachussets, in 1919 and no one could imagine that it was destinated to become an international best seller, published in many countries and translated in many languages until the present days.
Ruth Edna Kelley, born in 1893 in Lynn, Massachussets, was only twenty-six years old when wrote The Book of Hallowe’en, an essay stood alone as one of the only serious scholarly works on the subject of Halloween for over seventy years as the preminent source on the meanings and traditions behind one of the most ancient and popular celebrations of all the western world.

Leseprobe

Symbols & Myths

RUTH EDNA KELLEY

THE BOOK OF

HALLOWE’EN

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: The Book of Hallowe’en

Author: Ruth Edna Kelley

Series: Symbols & Myths

With introduction of Nicola Bizzi

Editing and illustrations by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN e-book version: 978-88-98635-47-4

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2018 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

[email protected]

To my Mother and the memory of my Father who inspired and encouraged me in the writing of this book.

Ruth Edna Kelley

INTRODUCTION OF THE PUBLISHER

I’m very proud to introduce to the readers of Symbols & Myths, an Aurora Boreale’s publishing series dedicated to the studies concerning the symbolic and mythical aspects of the Western Tradition, one of the most important and amazing essays ever wrote about the story and the meaning of the celebration of Hallowe’en, The Book of Hallowe’en by Ruth Edna Kelley.

This book was published for first time in Boston, Massachussets, in 1919 by By Lothrop, Lee and Shepard Co. and no one could imagine that was destinated to be an international best seller, published in many countries and translated in many languages until the present days.

Ruth Edna Kelley was born on April 8 1893 in Lynn, Massachussets, where received a master of arts degree. She was only twenty-six years old when wrote The Book of Hallowe’en, an essay stood alone as one of the only serious scholarly works on the subject of Halloween for over thirty years. In fact, the only serious work that even came close to it wasn’t published until thirty years later: Halloween through twenty centuries by Ralph and Adelin Linton. But this latter book was considered by the critics, according to Lisa Morton (author of Lisa Morton, author of Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween), «a curious and repulsive mix of fact and misinformation so sensationalized that it could best be described as horror fiction». So, no really adequate and properly researched scholarly books would follow until the 1990s, meaning that Kelley’s book stood alone for about seventy years as the preeminent source on the meanings and traditions behind Halloween.

Even according to Lisa Morton, Kelley did right by the holiday. Kelley’s history is “good overall”, and the young librarian-slash-historian evidences an enthusiasm for the more, shall we say unbridled, aspects of the holiday that makes her a positively endearing figure. Which is where we get to the part about her being a total badass.

First of all, as I puntualized before, this girl was only twenty-six when she wrote this intensively researched, full length, scholarly volume combining history, mythology, and folklore… in her spare time. For fun! All while holding down a full-time gig at the Lynn Public Library — library sciences, it goes without saying, being one of the most badass professions out there, so two points for her. She dedicates the book to her mother and the memory of her departed father, which is sweet, so there’s another point.

Now so far, I’m painting a pretty demure picture. A sweet girl, a spinster librarian, dedicates her book to her folks. Then, slowly, into her book creeps a whiff of something elemental, like smoke from a fire, curling, subtly, filling the air. From her sympathetic detailing of Druids and Celts, Bretons and Teutons, witches and ritual, and her coverage of St. John’s Day (Midsummer) and Walpurgisnacht (May Eve), there’s something about her descriptions that comes across as rather lovingly detailed. In short, we get the sense that Kelley really relishes Halloween and everything it stands for. When she quotes Sudermann’s St. John’s Fire, it is easy to imagine it as something of an endorsement of pagan-inspired holidays in general:

«For you see… within every one of us a spark of paganism is glowing. Once a year it flames up high… once a year comes Free-night. Yes, truly Free-night. Then the whole wild company skims along the forest way, and then the wild desires awaken in our hearts which life has not fulfilled».

In other words, Kelley would have a been an extremely fun spinster librarian to hang out with. Or, as Lisa Morton puts it, she «would undoubtedly have approved of the Greenwich Village Halloween parade».

Later in life she wrote her second book, A Life of Their Own (1947), which dealt with immortality and spirituality, and is much harder to find.

Ruth Edna Kelley died in 1982 in Marblehead, Massachussets, at the age of eightyeight years.

Nicola Bizzi

Florence, October 31 2018.

PREFACE

This book is intended to give the reader an account of the origin and history of Hallowe’en, how it absorbed some customs belonging to other days in the year, such as May Day, Midsum-mer, and Christmas. The context is illustrated by selections from ancient and modern poetry and prose, related to Hallowe’en ideas.

Those who wish suggestions for reading, recitations, plays, and parties, will find the lists in the appendix useful, in addition to the books on entertainments and games to be found in any public library.

Special acknowledgment is made to Messrs. E.P. Dutton and Company for permission to use the poem entitled Hallowe’en from The Spires of Oxford and Other Poems, by W.M. Letts; to Messrs. Longmans, Green and Company for the poem Pomona, by William Morris; and to the Editors of The Independent for the use of five poems.

Ruth Edna KelleyLynn, 1919.

CHAPTER I

SUN-WORSHIP

THE SOURCES OF HALLOWE’EN

If we could ask one of the old-world pagans whom he revered as his greatest Gods, he would be sure to name among them the Sun-God; calling him Apollo if he were a Greek; if an Egyptian, Horus or Osiris; if of Norway, Sol; if of Peru, Bochica. As the Sun in the center of the physical universe, so all primitive peoples made it the hub about which their religion revolved, nearly always believing it a living person to whom they could say prayers and offer sacrifices, who directed their lives and destinies, and could even snatch men from earthly existence to dwell for a time with him, as it draws the water from lakes and seas.

In believing this they followed an instinct of all early peoples, a desire to make persons of the great powers of nature, such as the world of growing things, mountains and water, the sun, moon, and stars; and a wish for these Gods they had made to take an interest in and be part of their daily life. The next step was making stories about them to account for what was seen; so arose myths and legends.

The Sun has always marked out work-time and rest, divided the year into winter idleness, seed-time, growth, and harvest; it has always been responsible for all the beauty and goodness of the earth; it is itself splendid to look upon. It goes away and stays longer and longer, leaving the land in cold and gloom; it returns bringing the long fair days and resurrection of spring. A Japanese legend tells how the hidden sun was lured out by an image made of a copper plate with saplings radiating from it like sunbeams, and a fire kindled, dancing, and prayers; and round the earth in North America the Cherokees believed they brought the Sun back upon its northward path by the same means of rousing its curiosity, so that it would come out to see its counterpart and find out what was going on.

All the more important church festivals are survivals of old rites to the Sun. How many times the Church has decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old bottles of heathendom. Yule-tide, the pagan Christmas, celebrated the Sun’s turning north, and the old midsummer holiday is still kept in Ireland and on the Continent as St. John’s Day by the lighting of bonfires and a dance about them from east to west as the sun appears to move. The pagan Hallowe’en at the end of summer was a time of grief for the decline of the Sun’s glory, as well as a harvest festival of thanksgiving to him for having ripened the grain and fruit, as we formerly had husking-bees when the ears had been garnered, and now keep our own Thanksgiving by eating of our winter store in praise of God who gives us our increase.

Pomona, the Roman Goddess of fruit, lends us the harvest element of Hallowe’en; the Celtic day of “summer’s end” was a time when spirits, mostly evil, were abroad; the Gods whom Christ dethroned joined the ill-omened throng; the Church festivals of All Saints’ and All Souls’ coming at the same time of year - the first of November - contributed the idea of the return of the dead; and the Teutonic May Eve assemblage of witches brought its hags and their attendant beasts to help celebrate the night of October 31st.

Charles Meynier: Apollo with Urania, Muse of Astronomy, 1789

(Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art)

Gustave Moreau: The Chariot of Phoebus Apollo, 1880

(Private collection)

CHAPTER II

THE CELTS:

THEIR RELIGION AND FESTIVALS

The first reference to Great Britain in European annals of which we know was the statement in the fifth century B.C. of the Greek historian Herodotus, that Phoenician sailors went to the British Isles for tin. He called them the “Tin Islands”. The people with whom these sailors traded must have been Celts, for they were the first inhabitants of Britain who worked in metal instead of stone.

The Druids were priests of the Celts centuries before Christ came. There is a tradition in Ireland that they first arrived there in 270 B.C., seven hundred years before St. Patrick. The account of them written by Julius Caesar half a century before Christ speaks mainly of the Celts of Gaul, dividing them into two ruling classes who kept the people almost in a state of slavery; the knights, who wages war, and the Druids who had charge of worship and sacrifices, and were in addition physicians, historians, teachers, scientists, and judges.

Caesar says that this cult originated in Britain, and was transferred to Gaul. Gaul and Britain had one religion and one language, and might even have one king, so that what Caesar wrote of Gallic Druids must have been true of British.

The Celts worshipped spirits of forest and stream, and feared the powers of evil, as did the Greeks and all other early races. Very much of their primitive belief has been kept so that to Scotch, Irish, and Welsh peasantry brooks, hills, dales, and rocks abound in tiny supernatural beings, who may work them good or evil, lead them astray by flickering lights, or charm them into seven years’ servitude unless they are bribed to show favor.

The name “Druid” is derived from the Celtic word “druidh”, meaning “sage”, connected with the Greek word for oak, “drus”,

«The rapid oak-treeBefore him heaven and earth quake:Stout door-keeper against the foe.In every land his name is mine».

(Taliesin: Battle of the Trees)

for the oak was held sacred by them as a symbol of the omnipotent God, upon whom they depended for life like the mistletoe growing upon it. Their ceremonies were held in oak-groves.

Later from their name a word meaning “magician” was formed, showing that these priests had gained the reputation of being dealers in magic.

«The Druid followed him and suddenly, as we are told,

struck him with a druidic wand, or according to one

version, flung at him a tuft of grass over which he

had pronounced a druidical incantation».

(O’Curry: Ancient Irish)

They dealt in symbols, common objects to which was given by the interposition of spirits, meaning to signify certain facts, and power to produce certain effects. Since they were tree-worshippers, trees and plants were thought to have peculiar powers.

Caesar provides them with a galaxy of Roman Divinities, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, who of course were worshipped under their native names. Their chief God was Baal, of whom they believed the Sun the visible emblem. They represented him by lowlier tokens, such as circles and wheels. The trefoil, changed into a figure composed of three winged feet radiating from a center, represented the swiftness of the Sun’s journey. The cross too was a symbol of the Sun, being the appearance of its light shining upon dew or stream, making to the half-closed eye little bright crosses. One form of the cross was the swastika.

To Baal they made sacrifices of criminals or prisoners of war, often burning them alive in wicker images. These bonfires lighted on the hills were meant to urge the God to protect and bless the crops and herds. From the appearance of the victims sacrificed in them, omens were taken that foretold the future. The Gods and other supernatural powers in answer to prayer were thought to signify their will by omens, and also by the following methods: the ordeal, in which the innocence or guilt of a person was shown by the way the God permitted him to endure fire or other torture; exorcisms, the driving out of demons by saying mysterious words or names over them. Becoming skilled in interpreting the will of the Gods, the Druids came to be known as prophets.

«O Deirdre, terrible child,For thee, red star of our ruin,Great weeping shall be in Eri -Woe, woe, and a breach in Ulla».

* * * * * *«Thy feet shall trample the mightyYet stumble on heads thou lovest».

(Todhuntert: Druid song of Cathvah)

They kept their lore for the most part a secret, forbidding it to be written, passing it down by word of mouth. They taught the immortality of the soul, that it passed from one body to another at death.

«If, as those Druids taught, which kept the British rites,And dwelt in darksome groves, there counselling with sprites,When these our souls by death our bodies do forsakeThey instantly again do other bodies take».

(Drayton: Polyolbion)

They believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31st) the Lord of Death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentences by gifts and prayers.

The badge of the initiated Druid was a glass ball reported to be made in summer of the spittle of snakes, and caught by the priests as the snakes tossed it into the air.

«And the potent adder-stoneGender’d ‘fore the autumnal moonWhen in undulating twineThe foaming snakes prolific join».

(Mason: Caractacus)

The Celtic horned God Cernummos in a detail of the Gundestrup Cauldron (Copenhagen, National Museum of Denmark)

It was real glass, blown by the Druids themselves. It was supposed to aid the wearer in winning lawsuits and securing the favor of kings.

An animal sacred to the Druids was the cat. A slender black cat reclining on a chain of old silver guarded treasure in the old days. For a long time cats were dreaded by the people because they thought human beings had been changed to that form by evil means.

The chief festivals of the Druids fell on four days, celebrating phases of the Sun’s career. Fires of sacrifice were lighted especially at spring and midsummer holidays, by exception on November 1st. May Day and November Day were the more important, the beginning and end of summer, yet neither equino-xes nor solstices. The time was divided then not according to sowing and rea-ping, but by the older method of reckoning from when the herds were turned out to pasture in the spring and brought into the fold again at the approach of winter by a pastoral rather than an agricultural people.

On the night before Beltaine (“Baal-fire”), the first of May, fires were burned to Ball to celebrate the return of the Sun bringing summer. Before sunrise the houses were decked with garlands to gladden the Sun when he appeared; a rite which has survived in “going maying”. The May-Day fires were used for purification. Cattle were singed by being led near the flames, and sometimes bled that their blood might be offered as a sacrifice for a prosperous season.

«When lo! a flame,A wavy flame of ruddy lightLeaped up, the farmyard fence above.And while his children’s shout rang high,His cows the farmer slowly droveAcross the blaze, - he knew not why».

(Kickham: St. John’s Eve)