Celtic society, like all early societies,
was highly structured and organized, everyone knew their place. But to allow
that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to
be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And
Samhuinn, was such a time.
-
Philip Carr-Gomm
And
here we are, the final week of October, and I, being the Holiday enthusiast
that I am, have decided to treat what few readers I have with something special
to let them know that I appreciate it- for the first time ever, a third essay
in one month. Don’t look at me like that, I don’t have any money left, I spent
it all on Batman and pizza, just like you should’ve. And honestly, I couldn’t
have picked a worse time to ‘reward’ you fools, two essays down and I’m running
out of adjectives and descriptions for ‘scary.’ So just remember while you’re
reading, should you come across any sentences that strike you as being a bit
crazy, I’m doing my best, and pulling out all the stops- because this is
MOTHERFUCKING HALLOWEEN. Shit’s sacred. It’s little kid’s excuse to dress up
and get free candy, and adult’s excuse to see their female acquaintances in
skimpy versions of regular clothes (I’m talking about you Sexy Janitor costume-
those are just two words that just shouldn’t go together). But what really
makes it so brilliant, is that it’s every man, woman, and child’s excuse to
look Polite Society in the eyes, and simply say, “Fuck it, you know what, I
think I WON’T wear a business suit to work, I’m gonna dress up as Batman and HR
can just suck my chocolate covered milk duds if they think they can do anything
about it.”
 |
| "Just be happy I didn't get the one with the nipples." |
You know that nice kid in gym who helped you find your glasses after
class? That’s the same kid who’ll be leaving a bag of flaming excrement on your
front lawn come Halloween, with a smile on his beet-red face, and a vulgar joke
oozing from his lips. And it’s all thanks to the Celts- allow me to explain. Back
in about 5th century BC, Ireland
 |
| A level 47 mage-class with his impoverished family. |
And somehow, the Celts managed to take
these amazing beliefs, and form it into a religion that could help dictate
their lives, forming a rather simple society operated by farmers, and led by
druids, men who claimed to be able to understand the natural forces of the
world, and could give the people advice on things like medicine (dirt, grass,
blood, or goat shit, pick your poison), relationship counseling (man >
woman), and most important, agriculture. The Celts ran their rudimentary
calendars around the harvest, dividing the years at the end of summer (the end
of the harvest season), and the beginning of winter (the beginning of the
sit-in-your-hut-trying-not-to-die-of-frozen-nutsack-syndrome season). On the
Roman Catholic calendar, this time was the last day of October, and the first
day of November, and was a VERY special time for the Celts. See, they noticed
that it was kind of funny how the world worked like that, how you could go from
a season full of life, growth, and abundance, to a season more dead and barren
than the sex life of your average redditor (I could probably get them to read
my essays if they would just stop looking at pictures of cats in silly clothes
every five goddamn seconds). Curious, they brought it up to their druids, who
came back with the perfect explanation- Druids: “Just don’t think about it.”
People: “But what about-” Druids: “HEY! LET’S HAVE A PARTY! RIGHT NOW!
EVERYBODY’S INVITED! FREE CAKE!” People: “Wha- oh, uh, o-okay then! Cool! I
guess we can just talk about this later then…” I mean that’s probs how it went
down. Maybe. Either way, what was born that day was (and is) one of the
greatest holidays to be celebrated EVER. The whole thing was called Samhain
(pronounced SOW-AN, but have fun reminding yourself that in your head every
time you read it as sam-hain), a day-long period when it was believed that the
world of the living and the dead crossed over, and whatever moral rules applied
on any other day, went right out the window with whatever fucks you possibly
had to give any other time of the year.
Huge bonfires were lit and people
danced around them having fun, playing with apples, oh and having random,
inappropriate sex with their friends and neighbors, all of which presented a
bit of a problem, specifically, all the annoying dead people walking around. You
see, besides being an awesome care-free day of not giving a shit, Sanhaim was
also the day when the dead were supposed to interact with the world of the
living, and if you just woke up from a long dirt nap to find a massive party
going down, don’t you think you’d like to get your crunk on with all your
widowed loved ones? The druids had apparently thought of that one though, and
instructed people to light fires and torches all around, to keep the dead away,
and to wear costumes and masks to keep the dead from recognizing them. It was
like if the nerds tried to go to the popular kid’s party, only to show up at
the door and have that one jocky douche-bag stand in their way and tell them
that they weren’t invited.
 |
| "Sorry bro. The Orgy Party's full." |
This
went on for another couple of hundreds of years or so, with Samhain being
adopted by the Romans, who made a few changes to it, like dressing up as gods
of the underworld who represented early versions of monsters we use today, like
witches, and vampires. The Romans also brought some troubles to Samhain though,
like, for example, trying to fucking kill it off. You see, over time, Roman
Catholicism became the dominant religion in Ireland, the druids and the
nature-magic of the Celtic age replaced with the priests and God worshiping of
the new age, those creative Celts we have so much to thank for, slowly growing
into the drunken Irishmen we’ve come to know and love today. However, many of
the Celtic customs still remained, including the language, the architecture,
and the holidays, especially Samhain, which was still as wild and crazy as the
day it started, and even though it left many women spending their winters
trying to track down their baby daddies (but really, even if proper condoms had
been invented back then, do you actually think they would have used them),
Samhain was beloved by all those who happened to like fun- which means that it
pissed the Catholics off. No disrespect to my theist readers, whoever you may
be, but please recognize the fact that much of the history of the Catholic
Church boils down to political subterfuge, and frequent dick-measuring contests
(I’m not really sure who they’re trying to impress though, it’s not like their
five year old boy-friends have enough experience to judge [aaand it’s official,
if there IS a God, then I’m going to Hell]). So when they heard of a yearly
tradition where the only rule was ‘fun,’ they set off in their pope-mobiles to
shut that party off like a crew of grouchy 80’s comedy movie cops. Basically,
they made November 2nd the new date of their toootally original holiday called All Souls Day, or All-Hallows
Day. The celebration consisted of parades and bonfires, with people dressing up
as demons and angels, and despite it’s more restrictive rules, it was a lot
like that other holiday, what was it
called again? Sockan? Softan?
 |
| Hmmm... It had something to do with an enourmous orgy... |
Well, while the church will never admit it, it is
theorized (and generally accepted) that this was a pretty obvious attempt to
overshadow, and hopefully eliminate good ‘ol Samhain- an attempt that, if it is
true, blew up right in their face. Because for some odd reason, the church
didn’t consider the possibility that placing their celebration holiday the day
after the biggest party of the year, and then expecting people to get off their
hung-over asses to show up, is like taking a group of people, putting
blindfolds on them, and then asking them to read you the bible. So, instead of
being buried, Samhain simply adopted a new name, ‘All Hollows Eve,’ which over
time, became the name we all recognize today- HALLOWEEN. Time continued to
progress, many, many decades passed, with Halloween becoming even more
interesting and exciting for each generation, while at the same time calming
down a bit, inviting in more people at a time, like younger children, who could
bob for apples with their friends, and dress in costumes, and be allowed to
join into the general festivities of the party, without having to worry about
accidentally becoming audience to their mom, their barber, and several other
people they’d never seen before going at it like they were playing naked
twister, before drunkenly dancing around a house sized bonfire. The most
progressive changes to Halloween actually happened during its migration to UHMERICA,
with colonists sometimes celebrating the holiday by gathering together and
telling ghost stories, dancing, singing, and lighting candles as was customary,
in order to ward off the dead. Many myths surround the candle lighting, as,
back then, the tradition was to carve out turnips, which were in abundance in
Ireland, stick a candle in there, and then light it and use it as a little,
nasty-tasting lantern.
 |
| I mean there are worse alternative of course. |
Honestly, the closest thing you have to sense when it
comes to an explanation for that is an old Irish tale about some guy name Jack,
who one day met the devil, and clearly confusing the devil with a bear of some
sort, climbed up a tree. The Devil, Lord incarnate of all that is evil, vile,
and horrible in this world according to the Christian belief, who resides over
Hell, and is so powerful that it was predicted that He would one day battle God
himself, some how managed to climb up a tree after Jack. Until Jack jumped out
of the tree, and the Devil, Ultimate Prince of Darkness, had to ask Jack to
help him, because he was stuck in a fucking tree. Jack agreed, under the
condition that the Devil would back the fuck off for the rest of Jack’s life,
and leave him alone. The Devil had no choice (he couldn’t exactly call his
infinite legion of demon warriors who obey his every word to help him), and so
Jack got to derp around for many more years before he finally kicked the
bucket. But when he went up to the pearly white gates, he was denied entrance
for being an overall dick-hole his whole life. Pissed, Jack went down to hell,
but found the door locked, because the King of Darkness, the Torturer of the
Damned Eternal, didn’t want Jack to come in, on account of the fact that he was
a meanie.
 |
| I'm gonna tell God on you! |
After leaving what can only be described as a clearly mature, and
logical argument, Jack kind of just had to wander around, in-between the world
the living and the dead for a while, using a turnip and candle he found as a
lantern to light his way. In America
 |
| The Great Haunted House Mishap of 1902 |
Newspapers everywhere started publishing articles pushed forward
by community leaders, articles that were meant to try and get people to see
Halloween in a more family friendly light, without all the mischief making, and
ghosts, and witchcraft and stuff. While they did succeed in making Halloween
more family friendly, they didn’t exactly neuter the Holiday ,
as they also tried to let the celebration become more about getting together
with your friends and neighbors, i.e. waiting until the kids were gone, and
then throwing crazy-ass parties that would make their ancestors smile (before
they froze to death or whatever people did for fun back then). But let’s not
forget exactly what allowed Halloween to become so family friendly- when they
were trying to re-work Halloween’s image, many towns would focus on the new
tradition that had been becoming popular, of taking kids door to door,
costumed, and begging for food or money. Only what they didn’t realize was the popular saying that had come along with the
tradition, where after someone answered the random child’s knock to the door,
the little tyke would say in a calm voice, “Trick or Treat,” which basically
was short for, “You sir have made the gravest of mistakes, simply by opening
your own door. Now that I know you are present in the domain, I will offer you
a choice- you respond positively to my demands for food, and whatever money you
can spare, or deny me what I ask, whereupon I will commence making your life a
living hell. I may not be of a physical stature capable of fighting you, sir,
but I will have you know that on this Holiday
which I am currently celebrating, I no longer feel the moral boundaries that
contain me for the other 364 days of the year, and would contain me in this
very situation. For such reason, I can torture you in all ways mentally,
destroying your property, setting up simple yet time-consuming puzzles and traps,
which will inconvenience you at first, but over time, will slowly drive you to
the brink of insanity, with no inkling of remorse on my part. All of this will
come to pass, and more, unless you give me, and whoever else may be
accompanying me this evening, some goddamn apples, RIGHT NOW.” And that’s where
trick or treating comes from. Children using the threat of fucking up peoples
homes to extort from them whatever they wanted. Like adorable thugs.
 |
| Creepy thugs, or possible trick or treaters? |
Still,
regardless of where it’s come, how it’s changed, what was true, and always will
be true is that Halloween, at its heart, is more than the sum of its parts. It
is more than getting to play pranks; it is more than getting to pretend you’re
something fantastical, even if only for a night; Halloween is the one night
which has served as a reprieve from the prison of society. We stay in the
prison by choice, despising it for the stress, indignation, and the constant
stifling it requires, but understanding that society also serves the purpose of
keeping the order necessary for us to work, at least somewhat peacefully,
together. But on Halloween, we no longer have to worry about social status,
about our constant battles of belief, about the problems we have to handle
everyday; we no longer have to worry about reason. I know it sounds incredibly
corny, but Halloween will always be my personal favorite Holiday, because on
Halloween, whatever age you are, whether you’re going out trick or treating for
the first time, or you’re going out in costume to spend your night partying
with friends (and getting EX-tremely drunk), you can truly allow yourself to
get wrapped up in the incomparable feeling of unlimited possibility. Before I bid
you adieu, I’d like to do something I haven’t done before, and dedicate this
essay to a group of very special people: The Westboro Baptist Church. The
single most dedicated group of trolls I have ever seen. Happy Halloween
everybody.
 |
| And a very Happy Halloween from the WBC. |
No comments:
Post a Comment