In splendid colors and festive celebration the Día de los Muertos in Mexico welcomes the dead with a party and a smile. But how did it originate and how does it differ from the Halloween celebration from its neighboring country?
Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is a vibrant and deeply spiritual celebration with roots in ancient Mesoamerican traditions. Most will preface this with saying that this is not the Mexican version of Halloween from the United States, although the celebrations do share similarities and also how it originated.
It is a time when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is said to thin, allowing families to reunite with their departed loved ones. Far from a mournful event, Día de los Muertos honors death as a natural part of life, celebrating the memories and spirits of the dead with offerings, altars, and joyful gatherings. The part of it being a humorous and fun aspect often sets it apart from other celebration focusing on death and the dead.
The Origins of Día de los Muertos : From Mesoamerica to Modern Mexico
Today, the Día de los Muertos celebration is an old one, but just how old is still debated. Some argue that it have its origins in ancient pre-Hispanic traditions, particularly among the Aztecs and other indigenous civilizations as well as the Roman Catholics and the European Danse Macabre imagery.
Mictēcacihuātl: A drawing of Mictlancihuatl, one of the deities described in the Codex Borgia. She was the goddess of the dead and the underworld and today an imagery for those honoring the Aztec heritage during Día de los Muertos.
Some claim that close to all traditions could be traced back to medieval Europe and to the time when the Spanish Conquistadors colonized the land. They argued that what would be mistaken as indigenous traditions on the countryside was simply an archaic Spanish tradition from the early days of the conquest. Some would argue it is rather a Spanish tradition born out of Mexican nationalism to express themselves through this Aztec identity to remove themselves from Spain after independence.
But did the Aztec indigenous have a similar celebration? After all, a harvest celebration during the fall is a very global thing and could have existed parallel with others. These ancient peoples believed in the cyclical nature of life and death, viewing death not as an end but as a part of the journey of the soul.
The closest celebration is perhaps the Quecholli is the name of the fourteenth month of the Aztec calendar and was between October 20 and November 8 where the hunting deity Mixcoatl was central as it was hunting season. It had a similar tradition of placing food on altars close to the burial grounds of fallen warriors to help them reach the afterlife. It was a huge feasting time and they would also dress up as the deity as well as sacrificing a man and a woman to him at his temple.
The goddess Mictēcacihuātl, Queen of the Underworld, played a central role in ceremonies honoring the dead. She was often represented with a crown of skull and flowers, and people would often give offers to her in order to help the dead reach Mictlán.
Altars and Ofrendas: Welcoming the Spirits
At the heart of Día de los Muertos is the creation of altars, or ofrendas (offerings), that serve as a beacon for the spirits of deceased family members. These altars are elaborately decorated with candles, flowers, photos, and personal mementos of the deceased. Every ofrenda also includes the four elements: water, wind, earth and fire. A drink (water) for their thirst, food (earth) for their hunger and candles (fire). It is believed that the light from the candles guides the souls back to the world of the living, allowing them to briefly visit their families.
The big and adorned alters is a central part of the Día de los Muertos celebrations.
The altars often feature marigolds—known as cempasúchil—whose bright orange color and distinctive fragrance are thought to attract the souls of the dead and are often called Flor de Muerto or the Flower of Dead. It is often planted in cemeteries and in Honduras the flower is also used to wash corpses.
Sugar skulls, pan de muerto (a special bread made for the occasion), and favorite foods of the deceased are also placed on the ofrendas, as offerings meant to nourish and comfort the visiting spirits.
Each element of the altar has symbolic meaning and is different in different regions. The papel picado in Michoacan, intricately cut paper banners, represents the fragility of life, while the salt helps purify the souls during their journey. Water is placed on the altar to quench the thirst of the spirits after their long voyage. In Oaxacada they are decorated with colorful paper mache called alebrijes.
Further to the sea like Veracruz, seashells, seaweed and fish. In big cities like Mexico City they also use more urban and modern things. At the altars they adorn them with pictures of the deceased as well as statuettes and images of saints and the virgin Mary. They sometimes offer shots of tequila or mezcal to adults or toys for the children. Most iconic though is perhaps the sugar skull.
Calacas and Calaveras: The Dance of Death
La Catrina:Sueño de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central by Diego Rivera. Both him and Frida Kahlo is depicted together with La Catrina.
One of the most iconic images of Día de los Muertos is the calavera, or skull, often depicted in the form of brightly colored sugar skulls. These Alfeñiques sugared skulls, adorned with intricate designs, represent the dead but in a playful, lively way. The calacas (skeletons), whether in art or costume, are often shown dancing, playing music, or engaging in joyful activities. This imagery reflects the belief that death is not to be feared but rather embraced as a continuation of life.
Perhaps the most famous depiction of the calavera is the La Catrina figure, created by Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada in the early 20th century. La Catrina is a skeletal figure dressed in elaborate European clothing, a satirical commentary on Mexican society but also a reminder that death comes for all, regardless of status or wealth.
Whereas Posada’s print intended to satirize upper class women of the Porfiriato, the famous Mexican artist, Diego Rivera made a huge mural where she was the centerpiece. There he molded her into a Mexican national symbol by giving her attributes that referenced indigenous cultures.
La Catrina has since become a symbol of Día de los Muertos and a popular costume during the celebrations. People are now dressing as her as a tribute and her imagery is known far outside the Mexican borders. The face painting of a human skull was not really a part of the tradition, but has become popular in recent years, especially in urban areas.
The Journey of Souls
Día de los Muertos is often celebrated over two days. November 1st, Día de los Angelitos (Day of the Little Angels), is dedicated to the souls of deceased children where they are reunited with their family for a day. This is perhaps a more somber day for obvious reasons than the following day. Because November 2nd, Día de los Difuntos (Day of the Dead), is for honoring adults who have passed away and the night is more festive.
Families visit cemeteries, clean the graves of their loved ones, and often spend the night by the tombs, sharing stories, playing music, and sometimes even hosting feasts at the gravesite. These traditions ensure that the dead are never forgotten and remain an integral part of the family.
Other traditions children will go out in the street, knocking on the doors for a calaverita, which is a small gift like candy or money. The difference between this and the Trick or Treat is that there is no threat if they don’t give anything.
They also write a particular literary form called Calaveras literarias that are lighthearted and often mocking epitaph to their friends and family. In recent years, parades in the streets with people dressing up have become more and more popular. Inspired by the 2015 James Bond movie Spectre, which featured a large Day of the Dead parade, Mexico City held its first-ever parade for the holiday in 2016.
From Ancient Rituals to a Global Tradition
Over time, Día de los Muertos has gained recognition beyond Mexico’s borders. Thanks in part to the efforts of Mexican-American communities, the holiday is now celebrated in various parts of the United States, particularly in regions with large Latino populations. Schools, community centers, and cultural organizations build ofrendas, host parades, and teach the significance of the holiday. Movies such as “Coco” (2017) have introduced the spirit and meaning of Día de los Muertos to global audiences, further embedding it in the popular imagination.
Read Also: Check out all ghost stories from Mexico
This didn’t go without its controversies though, as when the American Halloween became popular through popular culture through the North American Free Trade Agreement some saw as a form of U.S Cultural Imperialism. In the 1990 the phrase “Día de los Muertos is not Mexican Halloween” became more of a political statement
But as much as the cultural conservatives saw Halloween as a ‘cultural pollution’, there is no denying that the two holidays have influenced each other in the later years. A write posed the question, when children are wearing a costume from the Disney movie, Coco, is the Mexican child wearing a Halloween costume or Día de los Muertos costume? Could it not be both?
Día de los Muertos and the Beautiful Dance with Death
The candles get lit as the Monarch butterflies that holds the spirits of the departed arrive in Mexico in the fall for the celebration. Día de los Muertos is not just a day of remembrance; it is a celebration of the beautiful, mysterious connection between life and death. It teaches that death is not the end but a continuation of the journey, one that is marked with love, color, and family. As the marigolds bloom and the candles flicker in the cool autumn air, families gather to welcome their ancestors and celebrate the timeless dance between the living and the dead.
Bonfires to ward off evil and leaving food for the ghost; the Celtic pagan celebration of Samhain slowly morphed into what is now the modern Halloween with the Trick or Treat, horror movies and costume parties. But how was the celebration done in the olden days, really?
Samhain, pronounced “sow-win”, is a festival that originated in ancient Celtic culture throughout Europe, and is the precursor to the modern Halloween. Celebrated on the night of October 31st, Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the onset of winter, a time traditionally associated with darkness and death. The Celts believed that during this liminal period, the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to return to the world of the living.
But what happened to this ancient celebration, and just how much of the modern Halloween tradition is really rooted in the pagan holiday?
Samhain Bonfire: Neo pagans celebrating Samhain in Ireland.// Source: Wikimedia
The Ancient Celtic Context of Samhain
The festival of Samhain was not merely a celebration; it was a deeply spiritual time for the Celts, who inhabited regions that are now part of Ireland, Scotland since pagan times. It was at least a part of the Gaelic Celts. Although something similar would be celebrated by the Brittonic Celts in Wales as Calan Gaeaf.
The Celtic people were a big and diverse group of people settled throughout Europe in the Iron and Bronze age, as far as Turkey at one time. In the 3rd century BC they were more or less absorbed into the Roman Empire, and most of the remains of the Celtic culture exists in the northernmost parts of Europe in the west.
Ancient records indicate that Samhain was one of the four major Gaelic festivals, alongside Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh. These festivals were pivotal in marking the changing seasons and agricultural cycles, providing a connection to the earth and the spirits that inhabited it.
Some believe that this was the Celtic New Years, but it is a much disputed theory. Samhain signified the beginning of the darker half of the year, end of the harvest, a time to reflect on the past year and prepare for the hardships of winter. According to the Celtic calendar, the Celtic days started and ended on sunsets, so that the evening of 31. October to 1. November.
This day was believed to have the veil between our world and the Otherworld be extra thin and the portals or the sídhe were open. We were much closer to the supernatural beings called aos sí and ghosts than the rest of the year. And in contrast to its summer counterpart, Beltane which was a feast for the living, this was supposed to be a feast for the dead.
Although the festival itself was not recorded in detail until the modern era, the way history remembers it is from the fragments of the living culture and traditions still alive today.
Samhain Human Sacrifices
It is often considered a rather sinister holiday, but just how dark could the Samhain celebration be? In pagan times, Samhain is believed to be connected to the Irish Crom Cruach who was given human sacrifice and was some sort of fertility God or a solar deity. It was claimed that a first born child had to be sacrificed at the stone idol in Magh Slécht, today the plains around the south-eastern part of the Parish of Templeport.
Also the people of Nemed had to give two-thirds of their children, corn and milt to the Fomori monsters. The Nemed people were thought to be a third group of Irish settlers from the Caspian Sea, before dying of the plague and the Fomorians.
Fomorians: There are many variants of the scary tales about the Fomorians. They were often considered sea creatures, even pirates as the threat from the vikings came from the sea. Here is John Duncan’s interpretation of the sea gods of Irish mythology.
How much of the Nemed people that are true though, is up for debate. But their dark and grim legends certainly fit right into the mystical and dark Halloween legends where evil is at play.
Samhain Monsters
It wasn’t only the Fomori monster that was connected with Samhain. It was everything. The Pukah that receives the harvest from the field, the headless ghost of The Lady Gwyn in her white dress chasing the children. There is also the Dullahan, small imps or headless men on their red eyed horses carrying their heads, a deadly omen.
The Headless Horseman: A staple of Halloween lore, even today. The story of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving really cemented it in American culture, like many of the Scottish and Irish stories did.
The Sluagh or the fairies were also said to kidnap people on Samhain, transporting them to the Otherworld they perhaps never would escape from.
The Otherworld: In many fairytales there is a story about people being spirited away by the fairies to the Otherworld. The Otherworld is usually called Annwn in Welsh mythology and Avalon in Arthurian legend. In Irish mythology it’s called Tír na nÓg, Mag Mell and Emain Ablach. Here from The ‘Land of the Ever Young’ depicted by Arthur Rackham in Irish Fairy Tales (1920).
As the pagan religion passed over to the Christian one, the monsters we saw changed. From fairies and pagan creatures, the devil, witches and other demons took their place. One could perhaps wonder in our more secular societies, how the Halloween costume tradition still reflects the monsters lurking in the dark.
The Samhain Bonfires Warding off Evil
The Celts honored their ancestors and the spirits of the dead by lighting bonfires, often known as Samghnagans. They were believed to provide protection and guidance. In ancient Celtic times with the druid priest in holy places, and later in the local communities. Through the middle ages, the fires were lit up closer to the farms to protect them and their harvest.
In Ireland there are many places that are still linked to Samhain, you have the Cave of Oweynagat in Country Roscommon where a being from the Otherworld would come from and host the festivities. The Hill of Ward in County Meath was also a place where people gathered to light the bonfires. The Mound of the Hostages at Tara Hill in County Wexford is a 5,000-year-old Neolithic passage tomb. There, the rising sun illuminates the inner chamber at both Samhain and Imbolc. These were often the places the Celts would gather to light up their bonfires.
Bonfires: Neopagans celebrating Samhain as they have tried to recreate the bonfire traditions that were more important in pagan times.
These special fires with special protective and cleansing power as the sun itself, and were a focal point for gatherings, where communities would come together to celebrate, feast, and partake in rituals designed to appease both the living and the dead.
Today, the act of lighting up fires isn’t connected to the Samhain celebrations as it used to. Instead the Jack-o-lantern tradition can perhaps be seen as the modern version to keep the evil at bay with the help of light.
The bonfires were also used for divination, like the 18th-century tradition in Ochtertyre in Scotland. A ring of stones were laid around the fire and people ran around the fire with a torch. The stones were checked on the next day, and if some of them were misplaced, the person it represented would die the following year. This particular divination you also find in the Welsh Celtic, Calan Gaeaf. This is a later interpetation of divination by the bonfire that perhaps have traces dating back to the pagan Celts.
Among the customs observed during Samhain were various divination practices intended to foretell the future, often with nuts and apples. The Celts would engage in scrying with different practices, and nights like Samhain with the veil between the two worlds thinning was a perfect time it.
In the beginning it was most likely the priests or designated seers that did it in religious ceremonies to gain insight from the pagan Gods. Most likely heavily on different drugs and herbs.
Throughout the years it became a more common thing that people did among themselves, perhaps mostly for fun. This practice was especially prevalent among the young, who sought knowledge about potential suitors and marriage prospects in the coming year.
Mirror Magic: Many types of fortune telling persisted up until recent years, or perhaps even practice today. Many of them was about young women and girls trying to foretell their future husband.
Guising for the Fairies
Another thing the Celts most likely did was the guising and mumming that eventually would turn into the modern Trick or Treat. They would dress up, most likely as the aos sí or the pagan Gods and go door to door, often performing or singing for food and drink.
Food and drink offerings played a crucial role during Samhain. Some documents say that they drank for six days in some places. Families would leave out treats and meals to appease the wandering spirits, ensuring that their ancestors were satisfied and would protect the home.
This was often called dumb supper, where dumb in this context means in silence and often in connection in that women ate certain types of food to fortell their husbands.
This tradition probably stems from the fact that the spirits and the aos sí were remnants from the pagan God and revered as such. Some left windows and doors to let their ancestors enter their home for the night, some shut it to keep the spirits out. It was also customary for people to wear costumes made of animal skins or disguises to confuse the spirits, preventing them from causing harm.
The Transformation into Halloween
With the arrival of Christianity in the Celtic lands, many traditional pagan celebrations began to intertwine with Christian beliefs already in 609, by Pope Boniface IV. To replace the pagan festival, the Church moved All Saints’ Day from May to November 1st, followed by All Souls’ Day on November 2nd in the 9th century by Pope Gregory. The night before All Saints’ Day, known as All Hallows’ Eve, retained much of the Samhain traditions, including bonfires and the practice of wearing costumes.
As these Christian holidays spread, so did the customs associated with Samhain. The name “Halloween” is derived from “All Hallows’ Eve,” marking the transition from a pagan to a Christian celebration. The idea of honoring the dead was preserved, albeit within a different context. Some could even argue that the Samhain traditions we know of today were also inspired by the All Saint’s Day.
The Influence of Irish and Scottish Immigration
In the 19th century, Irish and Scottish immigrants brought their customs to North America, further evolving Samhain into what we now recognize as Halloween.
As the years passed, Halloween became more secular, and the emphasis shifted from honoring the dead to celebrating with costumes, parties, and playful spookiness. Carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, initially a practice using turnips in Ireland, became popular in America due to the abundance of pumpkins. The bright orange fruits symbolized harvest and autumn while also echoing the ancient practice of lighting fires to ward off spirits.
But is this really just a dead holiday today, has it been swallowed completely by Halloween? As the highly commercialized and secular holiday took form, another branch of Samhain took form in the 19th and 20th century. Celtic Neopagans and Wiccans have taken Samhain as their own, trying to celebrate it as a religious holiday instead.
Halloween is a far cry from its Samhain origins, having transformed into a celebration of fun, fright, and community. Yet, the echoes of its ancient past linger in the traditions of dressing up, honoring the dead, and embracing the supernatural and reminding us that the veil between our world and the other, can be very thin.
As well as pagan roots, modern Halloween has its Christian touches as well. The three days of Allhallowtide is an old Catholic celebration of the dead, where its followers are praying for their departed as well as reflecting over their own mortality and coming death.
“My God, bestow Thy blessings and Thy mercies on all persons and on those souls in Purgatory for whom I am in charity, gratitude, or friendship bound and have the desire to pray. Amen.” – Invocation of the souls in purgatory
Allhallowtide, also known as Hallowmas, is a deeply spiritual and eerie season in the Catholic tradition, encompassing All Saints’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (November 1st), and All Souls’ Day (November 2nd). This sacred triduum is rooted in ancient customs that venerate the dead while warding off evil spirits, and its ghostly imagery and rituals have shaped the modern celebration of Halloween.
There isn’t only in Europe you can observe the Catholic Allhallowtide. In Mexico they celebrate it as El Dia de Los Muertos and have a very distinct imagery and customs as it merged with the ancient Aztec traditions honoring Mictecacihuatl, the goddess of the underworld. In the Phillippines they call it Memorial Day. It is not even just the catholics having some kind of celebration during the Allhallowtide as even after the Reformation, the Protestant also took some of the celebration with them. But how did this celebration of the dead start, and how did it end up as the modern Halloween?
Day of the Day: Christian devotee pays respect and offers prayers at the grave of a family member to mark All Souls Day at a Holy Cemetery in Chattogram in Bangladesh. All Souls’ Day, also known as the Commemoration of All the saints departed. //Wikimedia
The Origins of Allhallowtide
The origins of Allhallowtide trace back to early Christian practices that commemorated saints, martyrs, and the faithful departed as early as back as the 4th century. The Christians needed a day to venerate the saints and initially they decided on May 13th in 609, decided by Pope Boniface IV as the Pantheon in Rome was consecrated called Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs.
The Pantheon or Basilica of St. Mary and the Martyrs in Rome
This was a temple built for the Roman Gods and the way it transformed into a Christian Church is perhaps to show how something old and pagan turned into something Christian. Kind of like the same story with Samhain in many aspects.
By the 8th century, Pope Gregory III dedicated November 1st as All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints who had passed to align more with the European further north.
As Catholicism spread across Europe, it merged with local pagan traditions like Samhain. Some scholars think that Allhallowtide celebrations arouse to ease the Pagan Celts’s convergence into Christianity. There are also those that think the Celtic Samhain were just as much influenced by the Christian celebration.
The Celts believed that during Samhain, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest, allowing spirits to roam. This blending created an atmosphere ripe for ghost stories, fear of the supernatural, and rituals to keep dark entities at bay.
Demons, Ghosts, and Gothic Imagery
During Allhallowtide, it was widely believed that demons, ghosts, and lost souls lurked in the shadows, seeking to torment the living. While All Saints’ Day focused on the saints and their miracles.
Memento Mori: The day was often used to visit graves and lighting lights for the dead.//Source: All Souls’ Day by William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Perhaps the dark imagery we know from Halloween comes more from the next day: All Souls’ Day—the day to pray for the souls trapped in Purgatory—who had a more somber, eerie tone. People believed that the dead needed their prayers to be freed from purgatorial suffering, and if they were neglected, their restless spirits could cause mischief or even harm. Lighting candles or visiting their graves serves to kindle a light for the poor souls languishing in the darkness.
Churches often held midnight masses, with the flickering light of candles casting long, sinister shadows over darkened stone walls. The consecrated gothic churces and cathedrals became the very image of these day, and it is not a far stretch to claim the gothic imagery we have for Halloween comes in large from this.
As the faithful prayed for the dead, the feeling of unseen presences lurking around them was palpable. This led to an association of Allhallowtide with not only the holy but also the haunted.
The fear and reflection of death was important, as was the saying Memento Mori, or remember you shall die. The fear of demons also played a significant role. With the dead in close proximity, malevolent spirits were believed to take advantage of the liminal period to break through the spiritual barriers.
Many customs, such as lighting candles, dressing in costumes, or placing offerings of food at doorsteps, were meant to ward off these dangerous entities. Gargoyles, grimacing and monstrous, were commonly carved into the architecture of Catholic cathedrals, serving both as protectors and reminders of the evil that lurked.
Even the tradition of wearing costumes on Halloween has roots in Allhallowtide. Medieval Christians would dress as saints, angels, or even demons to personify the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Today, Halloween costumes range from the terrifying to the playful, but the theme of disguise—to ward off or confuse malevolent forces—remains.
Remembering the dead: An elderly woman stands alone holding her walking stick. She looks down in thought, presumably reflecting on her dead husband. To the left of the woman is a lantern on which hangs a commemorative wreath; behind that is a stone monument. //Image: All Souls Day by Jakub Schikaneder 1888.
Rituals and Superstitions
Souling: In England, a popular tradition associated with All Souls’ Day is souling,were they went round to the houses of the well-to-do on Souling Day, as they called it, begging money, apples, ale, or doles of cake.
Bonfires, another ritual carried from Samhain into Allhallowtide, were lit on All Hallows’ Eve to keep away evil spirits. The fire symbolized light and protection, guiding the souls of the faithful dead to peace while scaring off the demonic. Much like the tradition of lighting candles in church for the departed. People would also carve turnips into grotesque faces, mimicking the Jack-o’-lantern of today, to frighten away wandering spirits.
Another thing that Samhain and Allowtide had in common was leaving food on the table for the departed, keeping the room warm for them and the likes. Examples of regional customs include leaving cakes for departed loved ones on the table and keeping the room warm for their comfort in Tirol and the custom in Brittany, where people flock to the cemeteries at nightfall to kneel, bareheaded, at the graves of their loved ones and anoint the hollow of the tombstone with holy water or to pour libations of milk on it. At bedtime, supper is left on the table for the souls.
There was also a belief in divination during this time. Just as the Celts used Samhain for fortune-telling, during Allhallowtide, prophetic dreams and omens were thought to hold sway. It was believed that the spirits of the dead could offer glimpses into the future or warnings about dangers ahead.
The Dark Legacy
While Allhallowtide’s focus on saints and the dead is deeply spiritual, it also carries a dark undercurrent of fear—fear of lost souls, malevolent spirits, and demons unleashed upon the world. This duality of honoring the dead while fearing the unknown reflects humanity’s deepest existential anxieties. It is this legacy that transformed into the eerie, chilling celebration of Halloween, where ghosts and monsters, the sacred and the profane, come together in a night of unsettling mystery.
In modern Halloween, the echoes of Allhallowtide remain, even though the Halloween celebration has become a controversial one. The pagan influence as well as the demonic and dark imagery connected to venerating Satan instead of the dead has made many Christians to depart from the celebration their religion helped shape.
The prayers for the dead have become a night for ghost stories, the saints have transformed into costumes, and the bonfires have morphed into jack-o’-lanterns glowing in the dark. But beneath it all, the core idea remains the same: the borders between the worlds of the living and the dead blur, and on this night, something lingers.
Before the modern Halloween came back to the British Isles, there were celebrations like the Welsh Calan Gaeaf. The first day of winter. The night before this day was when the veil was thinnest and the spirits roamed the land.
Home, home, at once The tailless black sow shall snatch the last one. – Welsh rhyme from Nos Calan Gaeaf
As the winds of autumn grow colder and the days shorter, the people of Wales prepare for Calan Gaeaf, a festival steeped in ancient tradition and eerie folklore. Celebrated on the night of October 31st, this Celtic holiday marks the transition into winter—when the veil between the living and the dead thins, allowing spirits to walk freely among the living.
Much like its more famous counterpart, Halloween, Calan Gaeaf is a time when ghostly apparitions and supernatural forces are said to roam the earth. But in Wales, the night is uniquely filled with tales of terrifying spirits, haunted crossroads, and ominous signs of death. It’s a night where even the bravest avoid stepping outside after dark.
The Origins of Calan Gaeaf Festivities
Harvest: The Calan Gaeaf is a harvest festival as well, and things like apple bobbing and telling fortune of apple skin were some of the activities.
Calan Gaeaf, translating to “the first day of winter” in Welsh, has roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. For the Celts, this night represented the end of the harvest season and the start of the dark half of the year, when the world was gripped by cold and the dead returned to walk among the living. Or is it really a tradition for all Celts? There are those who claim there really is no evidence that Samhain was ever celebrated in Wales, making some think it is more a Gaelic custom rather than Celtic.
But how far does this celebration date back though? The word, Galan or Calan is actually from the latin, calends “first day of winter.”
What is Celtic though is the dating of the day. The night before the day is called the Nos Galan Gaef, and this is when the spirits from the otherworld, or Annwn, are said to come out to play. The Celts counted the days to begin on the evening before, not the morning off.
The same term is in the Cornish language called Kalan Gwav, or Allantide as it is mostly called now. In Breton language in modern day France it is called Kalan Goañv.
Wales, with its rich Celtic heritage, embraced these ancient beliefs, and Calan Gaeaf became a night filled with both celebration and fear. Fires were lit in villages to keep the malevolent spirits at bay, and families gathered indoors to share stories of ghosts and ghouls, all while keeping a wary eye on the night outside.
The Haunting Presence of Hwch Ddu Gwta
Among the many eerie figures associated with Calan Gaeaf, none is more feared than Hwch Ddu Gwta, a fearsome black sow with no tail. Legend says that Hwch Ddu Gwta roams the Welsh countryside on Calan Gaeaf, accompanied by a headless woman, the Y Ladi Wen, stalking those who dare to venture outside after sunset. Anyone unlucky enough to encounter this spectral beast would surely be doomed, dragged away into the darkness or even to the underworld itself.
Y Ladi Wen: The Lady in White is a Welsh legend, known as Y Ladi Wen or Y Ddynes Mewn Gwyn. She appears dressed in white, especially during Hollantide and Calan Gaeaf, and is featured in Welsh oral tradition to warn children against misbehavior. Y Ladi Wen can be seen as a scary ghost who might seek help or offer treasure. She is linked to the villages of Ogmore, Ewenny, and St Athan. In Ogmore, a spirit was said to roam until a brave man approached her, discovering a cauldron of gold under a stone in Ogmore Castle. He took some treasure but later returned for more, angering the spirit, who attacked him in revenge. He fell ill and died after confessing his greed, leading to the belief that “Y Ladi Wen’s revenge” would affect anyone who died without revealing hidden treasure. //Source: pduncaza/Deviantart
To avoid Hwch Ddu Gwta and other restless spirits, people would rush home before nightfall, locking their doors tightly. The idea of being caught outside was a terror for many, as it was believed the spirits could claim anyone out in the open on this haunted night.
Hwch Ddu Gwta a Ladi Wen heb ddim pen Hwch Ddu Gwta a gipio’r ola’ Hwch Ddu Gwta nos G’langaea Lladron yn dwad tan weu sana.
The black sow and headless white lady, Will try and catch the last to leave, Thieves abound knitting stockings, Beware the tail-less black sow on winter’s eve.
A game played by the bonfire was also that one of the men would wear a pig skin and chase the children to keep the fear and legend alive.
Divination and Dark Omens During Nos Galan Gaeaf
Aside from the lurking spirits, Calan Gaeaf is a night filled with ancient customs and rituals. One of the most unnerving traditions was a form of divination—an attempt to peer into the future and learn of one’s fate, particularly regarding death. People would gather around bonfires (coelcerth) and throw stones into the flames, each person marking their stone with a special symbol or name. After the fire had burned down, the stones were retrieved. It was said that anyone whose stone was missing in the morning would die before the next Calan Gaeaf. You could also see the people who would die if you ran around the church three times and peered into the keyhole of the church door.
Another dark tradition involved staring into a mirror at midnight on Calan Gaeaf, with the belief that the face of your future spouse—or, chillingly, a skull—would appear behind you. If you saw the skull, you would never marry, and die within a year.
Boys would cut ten leaves of ivy, throw one away and put the rest under the pillow. This would help them see the future, and if they touched the ivy, they would see witches, or gwrachod, as they slept. The men would also dress in women’s clothing mimicking the Gwrachod and go from door to door for treats. This was thought to repel the evil spirits.
The girls grew roses in hoops they could go through. They then cut the rose and put it under their pillows to see their future. Peeled apple skin was also thrown over the shoulders to spell the first letter of the future husband.
Bonfire Night: Central to the Nos Calan Gaeaf is the bonfire, or the coelcerth as it is in Welsh.
The Modern Halloween Celebration in Wales
Though today, many of these old customs have faded, the fear of spirits abroad on Calan Gaeaf still lingers in the corners of Welsh folklore. The old ways of celebrating seem like it’s being swallowed by the highly commercialized American Halloween.
On this eerie night, even the skeptics can’t help but feel a shiver down their spine as the wind howls through the hills and the night closes in. After all, as the old tales warn—if you’re out too late on Calan Gaeaf, you might just find yourself face-to-face with something that doesn’t belong in this world.
So when October 31st comes around in Wales, beware of wandering too far from home. Hwch Ddu Gwta might be watching, and the spirits may be closer than you think.
Trick-or-Treat is now an integral part of the Halloween celebration. It is often seen as an American tradition, but history tells us that this custom has deep roots to even pre-christian times with much darker and supernatural reasons.
Trick-or-treating, a beloved Halloween tradition, is now synonymous with costumed children going door-to-door in search of candy. But the history of this custom stretches back centuries and is steeped in eerie folklore, ancient rituals, and dark traditions that were once far more sinister than a friendly request for sweets.
The act of going from house to house for food or treats in the fall and winter part of the year has had countless variants throughout Europe. On the Greek Island, Rhodes, children dressed up as swallows and sang a song as they went door to door in search of treats. If the house owners refused, they pranked them. In northern parts of Europe there was the Scandinavian Julebukk, or the German St. Martin’s day or Rummelpott for instance that are much closer to winter and Christmas. In southern Europe we have more traditions of the Catholic version and in Portugal children go out on All Hallow’s Day for Pão-por-Deus (bread for God’s sake) from their neighbors.
Today, the tradition has become more global and capitalized. It is estimated that $3 billion is spent on Halloween costumes annually in North America. But for the sake of tracing it back to the modern Trick-or-Treat, we will mainly focus on the Celtic traditions.
The Celtic Roots: Samhain and the Spirit World
The origins of trick-or-treating trace back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated over 2,000 years ago in what is now Ireland, the UK, and northern France. For the Celts, Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, a time of seasonal transitions when the boundary between the world of the living and the dead blurred.
On the night of October 31, spirits of the dead were believed to return to Earth, roaming the land and causing chaos. This was also the case for the fairies or the Aos Si.
To appease these wandering spirits and avoid harm, people would leave out food and drink as offerings. Disguises were also worn—animal skins and masks—to blend in with the spirits or confuse malevolent ones who might wish to do harm.
It is also said that people dressed up and went door to door to impersonate the spirits and receive the offering on their behalf. Dressing up as them was also seen as a way to protect themselves from them. These early costumes, used as a form of protection, laid the foundation for the Halloween costumes we see today.
Neopagan Samhain Still Alive: Although the tradition of Samhain is mostly died out and replaced with various Halloween tradition, there are still those who celebrate it how they think their ancestors did it with bonfires, dressing up and offerings. Here, a neopagan is celebrating Samhain. //Source: Matt Cardy/wikimedia
Medieval Europe: “Souling” and “Guising”
As Christianity spread across Europe, pagan traditions like Samhain were absorbed and transformed by the Church. By the Middle Ages, the practice of leaving offerings for the dead evolved into a custom known as souling. On All Hallows’ Eve (October 31) and All Souls’ Day (November 2), the poor would go door-to-door offering prayers for the souls of the dead in exchange for food, often a type of small cake known as a “soul cake.”
This practice, called “souling,” was common in parts of Britain and Ireland, where people also carried lanterns made from hollowed-out turnips, a precursor to today’s jack-o’-lanterns.
Souling: An English custom with origins in the medieval era and is still practised to a minor extent in Sheffield and parts of Cheshire during Allhallowtide.The rich gave soul cakes to the poor on Halloween who prayed for their souls. It became so popular that small companies went door to door on Halloween, begging soul-cakes by singing under the windows some such verse as this: “Soul, soul, for a soul-cake: Pray you, good mistress, a soul-cake!”‘
At the same time, a tradition known as guising emerged in Scotland and Ireland, at least as far back as the 16th century. It’s a play on the word, disguise. Children would dress in costumes or disguises—often as ghosts, witches, or demons—and go house to house, offering songs, poems, or jokes in exchange for food, coins, or other small treats. Guising allowed people to celebrate the liminal nature of Halloween, when the world of spirits and the living briefly intertwined, while also warding off evil with their clever disguises.
Guising: There were many local variants of guising. The Outer Hebrides and Shetland have a blend of Celtic and Norse traditions that created the straw Skekler costume, a custom that died out around 100 years ago. They would go door to door and perform for money or food. Until the householder guessed their names, they couldn’t show their faces. Here from Oidhche Shamhna, a South Uist Halloween,1932.// Source: Margaret Fay Shaw Photographic Collection/ Canna House, the National Trust for Scotland.
The American Evolution: Mischief and Sweets
When European immigrants, particularly from Ireland and Scotland, brought these customs to America in the 19th century, they began to blend with other cultural traditions. The first recorded time guising was recorded in America was in 1911 in Ontario, Canada when a news reporter wrote about it. The first time it was said Trick-or-Treat was in 1917 in the same place. It is of course possible it was done before as well.
Late 1800s childrens’ costumes
By the early 20th century, Halloween had evolved into a community-centered holiday with parties, parades, and festive gatherings. But trick-or-treating had not yet become widespread. It wasn’t until the 1920s and 1930s, during the Great Depression, that trick-or-treating as we know it began to take shape in the U.S.
Some claim that the trick-or-treating was invented by adults to change the Mischief Night vandalism that was mostly about pranks and crime. Halloween was often a night of mischief and pranks—sometimes harmless, sometimes destructive. Young people, especially in cities, would engage in acts of vandalism or play tricks on their neighbors, from tipping over outhouses to egging homes. To curb this mischief, communities and neighborhoods began organizing more structured Halloween activities. The history tells otherwise though, and it has been a children’s activity for centuries.
After World War II, with the baby boom in full swing and sugar rationing over, Halloween trick-or-treating exploded in popularity. Candy companies seized the opportunity, marketing small, individually wrapped candies specifically for Halloween. By the 1950s, the phrase “Trick-or-Treat” became widely used across America, and the once-mischievous demand for candy evolved into the fun, family-friendly event it is today.
The Haunting Tradition Lives On
Today, millions of children across the world take to the streets each Halloween, dressed in everything from spooky monsters to superheroes, eager to collect candy. The modern tradition from America has spread back to Europe and beyond, echoing the ancient rites. It was not until the early 2000 that children started saying Trick-or-Treat in Scotland and Ireland, but the tradition has seemingly taken a full circle back, although perhaps taken over the more localized versions that used to exist.
Pop Culture Influence: Trick-or-treating originated in Britain and Ireland in the form of souling and guising but the use of the term “Trick-or-Treat” at the doors of homeowners was not common until the 1980s and later with its popularization of the tradition through movies like E.T and other.
But beneath this lighthearted tradition lies a history of ancient fears and beliefs. The disguises, the begging for offerings, and even the lingering notion of “tricks” all harken back to a time when Halloween was not just a night of fun, but a night when the spirits of the dead walked among the living.
While the tradition of trick-or-treating has transformed into a celebration of candy and costumes, the eerie undertones remain—reminders of a time when the veil between worlds was thin, and a knock on the door might just have been from something otherworldly.
Despite the concept of trick-or-treating originating in Britain and Ireland in the form of souling and guising, the use of the term “Trick-or-Treat” at the doors of homeowners was not common until the 1980s, with its popularisation in part through the release of the film E.T.
On the place were the grand Palau Guell now stands, there used to be a more humble building of rental homes known as the Ave Maria House. People passing by would make the cross for safety as the house was also known as the House of Fear and believed to be haunted.
Spain is home to many old houses, some of which are said to be haunted. From tales of ghostly apparitions, strange noises and unexplained phenomena, these stories have been passed down through generations. In this article we will explore one such haunted house in Spain and uncover its mysteries.
Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories from Spain
Prepare to be captivated by the spine-chilling tales that surround the enigmatic Ave Maria House in Barcelona. Nestled within the labyrinthine streets of this ancient city the place became known for its ghostly legends and eerie happenings.
Before it was built a huge palace was built on the site, there used to be a much humbler building. The now No. 5 house on Nou de la Rambla in Barcelona used to be called The House of the Ave Maria, or more sinister, The House of Fear. Back then it used to stand many rented homes there.
The House of Fear
Locals and passersby would share spine-chilling tales of the unnerving sounds emanating from within its walls. As night fell, lamentations and loud banging would echo through the house, sending shivers down the spines of anyone who dared to venture close. The clanking of chains added to the eerie atmosphere, instilling a sense of dread and fascination in those who crossed its path.
Read more: Check out all of our ghost stories set in Haunted Houses from around the world.
The Ave Maria House became a place of legend, where superstition and fear intertwined. To protect themselves from the malevolent forces believed to haunt the house, people passing by would instinctively make the sign of the Cross and recite a Hail Mary prayer. These rituals provided a sense of solace in the face of the unknown, offering some semblance of protection against the supernatural forces that seemed to lurk within.
The haunting tales surrounding the Ave Maria House captured the imagination of locals and visitors alike, fueling curiosity and the desire to uncover the truth behind the enigma. What lay behind those walls? Who or what was responsible for the eerie happenings that sent shivers down the spines of anyone who encountered the house? The answers remained elusive, shrouded in the depths of history and the realm of the paranormal.
The Exorcism of the Ave Maria House
In an attempt to rid the Ave Maria House of its hauntings, an exorcist was called upon to confront the malevolent forces that plagued the house. With prayers and incantations, the exorcist sought to banish the supernatural entities that held the house in their grip. The rituals and prayers continued until the paranormal activity ceased, leaving behind an eerie silence that contrasted with the previous cacophony of ghostly sounds.
Did the exorcism truly put an end to the hauntings, or did it merely suppress the supernatural forces lurking within the Ave Maria House? We don’t really know for sure as most of the homes were evicted when they started to build the palace.
Some whispered that the spirits remained, lingering in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to once again make their presence known. The mysteries surrounding the house persisted, leaving the curious and the brave to ponder the true nature of the haunting.
The House Today were Palau Guell was built on top of it
As the years passed, the Avemaria House underwent changes that further added to its mystique. Eventually, the house was torn down, making way for a new chapter in its history. A man named Eusebi Guell purchased the plot and built his Palau Guell, a magnificent mansion that still stands today that was designed by Gaudi and built from 1886-1890.
Palau Guell: On the place were the Ave Maria house once stood there now is a palace instead. It is said that the woman living in the house always felt there were something strange going on. Could it be that the haunting continued even after the building itself got knocked down? // Source: Takahiro Hayashi/Flickr
Rumors spread at the time about Eusebi Guell’s wife, Isabel Lopez de Comillas, and her uneasy relationship with the new building. She claimed to hear strange noises, reminiscent of the ghostly sounds that had once plagued the Ave Maria House. Whether these were mere coincidences or a testament to the lingering presence of the supernatural, the whispers added another layer of intrigue to the already enigmatic tale of the haunted abode.
The Enduring Allure of the Ave Maria House
While the house itself may be gone, its mysteries endure, inviting speculation and wonder. What truly happened within those haunted walls? Were the ghostly encounters mere figments of imagination, or did they hold a deeper truth? The Ave Maria House stands as a testament to the enduring allure of the supernatural, reminding us that even in the modern world, there are still mysteries that defy explanation.
As night falls and darkness once again envelopes the streets of Barcelona, the Ave Maria House whispers its secrets to those who listen. Will you be brave enough to venture into the unknown and unravel the enigma surrounding this haunted abode?
“Ken’s Mystery” by Julian Hawthorne was first published in 1883 in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. It’s a mystery story set in the late 19th century, following Ken, a young man home from an educational trip to Europe from which he has returned with an old banjo. He tells the story about what happened that halloween night in Ireland when he was walking home late and met a mysterious and beautiful woman in a graveyard who asked him to play his banjo for her. Later the same night, he met her again. But there was something strange about her, and as he played, he felt his life force being sucked out from him. The story is described as part vampire story and part Irish Samhain story, much inspired by Irish folklore.
Ken’s Mystery by Julian Hawthorne (1883)
One cool October evening — it was the last day of the month, and unusually cool for the time of year — I made up my mind to go and spend an hour or two with my friend Keningale. Keningale was an artist (as well as a musical amateur and poet), and had a very delightful studio built onto his house, in which he was wont to sit of an evening. The studio had a cavernous fire-place, designed in imitation of the old-fashioned fire-places of Elizabethan manor-houses, and in it, when the temperature out-doors warranted, he would build up a cheerful fire of dry logs. It would suit me particularly well, I thought, to go and have a quiet pipe and chat in front of that fire with my friend.
I had not had such a chat for a very long time — not, in fact, since Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the time, “for purposes of study,” whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far as we knew him, was more likely to do anything else than to study. He was a young fellow of buoyant temperament, lively and social in his habits, of a brilliant and versatile mind, and possessing an income of twelve or fifteen thousand dollars a year; he could sing, play, scribble, and paint very cleverly, and some of his heads and figure — pieces were really well done, considering that he never had any regular training in art; but he was not a worker. Personally he was fine-looking, of good height and figure, active, healthy, and with a remarkably fine brow, and clear, full-gazing eye. Nobody was surprised at his going to Europe, nobody expected him to do anything there except amuse himself, and few anticipated that he would be soon again seen in New York. He was one of the sort that find Europe agree with them. Off he went, therefore; and in the course of a few months the rumor reached us that he was engaged to a handsome and wealthy New York girl whom he had met in London. This was nearly all we did hear of him until, not very long afterward, he turned up again on Fifth Avenue, to every one’s astonishment; made no satisfactory answer to those who wanted to know how he happened to tire so soon of the Old World; while, as to the reported engagement, he cut short all allusion to that in so peremptory a manner as to show that it was not a permissible topic of conversation with him. It was surmised that the lady had jilted him; but, on the other hand, she herself returned home not a great while after, and, though she had plenty of opportunities, she has never married to this day.
Be the rights of that matter what they may, it was soon remarked that Ken was no longer the careless and merry fellow he used to be; on the contrary, he appeared grave, moody, averse from general society, and habitually taciturn and undemonstrative even in the company of his most intimate friends. Evidently something had happened to him, or he had done something. What? Had he committed a murder? or joined the Nihilists? or was his unsuccessful love affair at the bottom of it? Some declared that the cloud was only temporary, and would soon pass away.
Nevertheless, up to the period of which I am writing, it had not passed away, but had rather gathered additional gloom, and threatened to become permanent.
Meanwhile I had met him twice or thrice at the club, at the opera, or in the street, but had as yet had no opportunity of regularly renewing my acquaintance with him. We had been on a footing of more than common intimacy in the old days, and I was not disposed to think that he would refuse to renew the former relations now. But what I had heard and myself seen of his changed condition imparted a stimulating tinge of suspense or curiosity to the pleasure with which I looked forward to the prospects of this evening. His house stood at a distance of two or three miles beyond the general range of habitations in New York at this time, and as I walked briskly along in the clear twilight air I had leisure to go over in my mind all that I had known of Ken and had divined of his character. After all, had there not always been something in his nature — deep down, and held in abeyance by the activity of his animal spirits — but something strange and separate, and capable of developing under suitable conditions into — into what? As I asked myself this question I arrived at his door; and it was with a feeling of relief that I felt the next moment the cordial grasp of his hand, and his voice bidding me welcome in a tone that indicated unaffected gratification at my presence. He drew me at once into the studio, relieved me of my hat and cane, and then put his hand on my shoulder.
“I am glad to see you,” be repeated, with singular earnestness — “glad to see you and to feel you; and tonight of all nights in the year.”
“Why to-night especially?”
“Oh, never mind. It’s just as well, too, you didn’t let me know beforehand you were coming; the unreadiness is all, to paraphrase the poet. Now, with you to help me, I can drink a glass of whisky and water and take a bit draw of the pipe. This would have been a grim night for me if I’d been left to myself.”
“In such a lap of luxury as this, too!” said I, looking round at the glowing fire-place, the low, luxurious chairs, and all the rich and sumptuous fittings of the room. “I should have thought a condemned murderer might make himself comfortable here.”
“Perhaps; but that’s not exactly my category at present. But have you forgotten what night this is? This is November-eve, when, as tradition asserts, the dead arise and walk about, and fairies, goblins, and spiritual beings of all kinds have more freedom and power than on any other day of the year. One can see you’ve never been in Ireland.”
“I wasn’t aware till now that you had been there, either.”
“Yes, I have been in Ireland. Yes –” He paused, sighed, and fell into a reverie, from which, however, he soon roused himself by an effort, and went to a cabinet in a corner of the room for the liquor and tobacco. While he was thus employed I sauntered about the studio, taking note of the various beauties, grotesquenesses, and curiosities that it contained. Many things were there to repay study and arouse admiration; for Ken was a good collector, having excellent taste as well as means to back it. But, upon the whole, nothing interested me more than some studies of a female head, roughly done in oils, and, judging from the sequestered positions in which I found them, not intended by the artist for exhibition or criticism. There were three or four of these studies, all of the same face, but in different poses and costumes. In one the head was enveloped in a dark hood, overshadowing and partly concealing the features; in another she seemed to be peering duskily through a latticed casement, lit by a faint moonlight; a third showed her splendidly attired in evening costume, with jewels in her hair and ears, and sparkling on her snowy bosom. The expressions were as various as the poses; now it was demure penetration, now a subtle inviting glance, now burning passion, and again a look of elfish and elusive mockery. In whatever phase, the countenance possessed a singular and poignant fascination, not of beauty merely, though that was very striking, but of character and quality likewise.
“Did you find this model abroad?” I inquired at length. “She has evidently inspired you, and I don’t wonder at it.”
Ken, who had been mixing the punch, and had not noticed my movements, now looked up, and said: “I didn’t mean those to be seen. They don’t satisfy me, and I am going to destroy them; but I couldn’t rest till I’d made some attempts to reproduce — What was it you asked? Abroad? Yes — or no. They were all painted here within the last six weeks.”
“Whether they satisfy you or not, they are by far the best things of yours I have ever seen.”
“Well, let them alone, and tell me what you think of this beverage. To my thinking, it goes to the right spot. It owes its existence to your coming here. I can’t drink alone, and those portraits are not company, though, for aught I know, she might have come out of the canvas to-night and sat down in that chair.” Then, seeing my inquiring look, he added, with a hasty laugh, “It’s November-eve, you know, when anything may happen, provided its strange enough. Well, here’s to ourselves.”
We each swallowed a deep draught of the smoking and aromatic liquor, and set down our glasses with approval. The punch was excellent. Ken now opened a box of cigars, and we seated ourselves before the fireplace.
“All we need now,” I remarked, after a short silence, “is a little music. By-the-by, Ken, have you still got the banjo I gave you before you went abroad?”
He paused so long before replying that I supposed he had not heard my question. “I have got it,” he said, at length, “but it will never make any more music.”
“Got broken, eh? Can’t it be mended? It was a fine instrument.”
“It’s not broken, but it’s past mending. You shall see for yourself.”
He arose as he spoke, and going to another part of the studio, opened a black oak coffer, and took out of it a long object wrapped up in a piece of faded yellow silk. He handed it to me, and when I had unwrapped it, there appeared a thing that might once have been a banjo, but had little resemblance to one now. It bore every sign of extreme age. The wood of the handle was honey-combed with the gnawings of worms, and dusty with dry-rot. The parchment head was green with mold, and hung in shriveled tatters. The hoop, which was of solid silver, was so blackened and tarnished that it looked like dilapidated iron. The strings were gone, and most of the tuning-screws had dropped out of their decayed sockets. Altogether it had the appearance of having been made before the Flood, and been forgotten in the forecastle of Noah’s Ark ever since.
“It is a curious relic, certainly,” I said. “Where did you come across it? I had no idea that the banjo was invented so long ago as this. It certainly can’t be less than two hundred years old, and may be much older than that.”
Ken smiled gloomily. “You are quite right,” he said; “it is at least two hundred years old, and yet it is the very same banjo that you gave me a year ago.”
“Hardly,” I returned, smiling in my turn, “since that was made to my order with a view to presenting it to you.”
“I know that; but the two hundred years have passed since then. Yes; it is absurd and impossible, I know, but nothing is truer. That banjo, which was made last year, existed in the sixteenth century, and has been rotting ever since. Stay. Give it to me a moment, and I’ll convince you. You recollect that your name and mine, with the date, were engraved on the silver hoop?”
“Yes; and there was a private mark of my own there, also.”
“Very well,” said Ken, who had been rubbing a place on the hoop with a corner of the yellow silk wrapper; “look at that.”
I took the decrepit instrument from him, and examined the spot which he had rubbed. It was incredible, sure enough; but there wee the names and the date precisely as I had caused them to be engraved; and there, moreover, was my own private mark, which I had idly made with an old etching point not more than eighteen months before. After convincing myself that there was no mistake, I laid the banjo across my knees, and stared at my friend in bewilderment. He sat smoking with a kind of grim composure, his eyes fixed upon the blazing logs.
“I’m mystified, I confess,” said I. “Come; what is the joke? What method have you discovered of producing the decay of centuries on this unfortunate banjo in a few months? And why did you do it? I have heard of an elixir to counteract the effects of time, but your recipe seems to work the other way — to make time rush forward at two hundred times his usual rate, in one place, while he jogs on at his usual gait elsewhere. Unfold your mystery, magician. Seriously, Ken, how on earth did the thing happen?”
“I know no more about it than you do,” was his reply. “Either you and I and all the rest of the living world are insane, or else there has been wrought a miracle as strange as any in tradition.
“How can I explain it? It is a common saying — a common experience, if you will — that we may, on certain trying or tremendous occasions, live years in one moment. But that’s a mental experience, not a physical one, and one that applies, at all events, only to human beings, not to senseless things of wood and metal. You imagine the thing is some trick or jugglery. If it be, I don’t know the secret of it. There’s no chemical appliance that I ever heard of that will get a piece of solid wood into that condition in a few months, or a few years. And it wasn’t done in a few years, or a few months either. A year ago to-day at this very hour that banjo was as sound as when it left the maker’s hands, and twenty-four hours afterward — I’m telling you the simple truth — it was as you see it now.” The gravity and earnestness with which Ken made this astounding statement were evidently not assumed. He believed every word that he uttered. I knew not what to think. Of course my friend might be insane, though he betrayed none of the ordinary symptoms of mania; but, however that might be, there was the banjo, a witness whose silent testimony there was no gain-saying. The more I meditated on the matter the more inconceivable did it appear. Two hundred years — twenty-four hours; these were the terms of the proposed equation. Ken and the banjo both affirmed that the equation had been made; all worldly knowledge and experience affirmed it to be impossible. What was the explanation? What is time? What is life? I felt myself beginning to doubt the reality of all things. And so this was the mystery which my friend had been brooding over since his return from abroad. No wonder it had changed him. More to be wondered at was it that it had not changed him more.
“Can you tell me the whole story?” I demanded at length.
Ken quaffed another draught from his glass of whisky and water and rubbed his hand through his thick brown beard. “I have never spoken to any one of it heretofore,” he said, “and I had never meant to speak of it. But I’ll try and give you some idea of what it was. You know me better than any one else; you’ll understand the thing as far as it can ever be understood, and perhaps I may be relieved of some of the oppression it has caused me. For it is rather a ghastly memory to grapple with alone, I can tell you.”
Hereupon, without further preface, Ken related the following tale. He was, I may observe in passing, a naturally fine narrator. There were deep, lingering tones in his voice, and he could strikingly enhance the comic or pathetic effect of a sentence by dwelling here and there upon some syllable. His features were equally susceptible of humorous and of solemn expressions, and his eyes were in form and hue wonderfully adapted to showing great varieties of emotion. Their mournful aspect was extremely earnest and affecting; and when Ken was giving utterance to some mysterious passage of the tale they had a doubtful, melancholy, exploring look which appealed irresistibly to the imagination. But the interest of his story was too pressing to allow of noticing these incidental embellishments at the time, though they doubtless had their influence upon me all the same.
“I left New York on an Inman Line steamer, you remember,” began Ken, “and landed at Havre. I went the usual round of sight-seeing on the Continent, and got round to London in July, at the height of the season. I had good introductions, and met any number of agreeable and famous people. Among others was a young lady, a countrywoman of my own — you know whom I mean — who interested me very much, and before her family left London she and I were engaged. We parted there for the time, because she had the Continental trip still to make, while I wanted to take the opportunity to visit the north of England and Ireland. I landed at Dublin about the 1st of October, and, zigzagging about the country, I found myself in County Cork about two weeks later.
“There is in that region some of the most lovely scenery that human eyes ever rested on, and it seems to be less known to tourists than many places of infinitely less picturesque value. A lonely region too: during my rambles I met not a single stranger like myself, and few enough natives. It seems incredible that so beautiful a country should be so deserted. After walking a dozen Irish miles you come across a group of two or three one-roomed cottages, and, like as not, one or more of those will have the roof off and the walls in ruins. The few peasants whom one sees, however, are affable and hospitable, especially when they hear you are from that terrestrial heaven whither most of their friends and relatives have gone before them. They seem simple and primitive enough at first sight, and yet they are as strange and incomprehensible a race as any in the world. They are as superstitious, as credulous of marvels, fairies, magicians, and omens, as the men whom St. Patrick preached to, and at the same time they are shrewd, skeptical, sensible, and bottomless liars. Upon the whole, I met with no nation on my travels whose company I enjoyed so much, or who inspired me with so much kindliness, curiosity, and repugnance.
“At length I got to a place on the sea-coast, which I will not further specify than to say that it is not many miles from Ballymacheen, on the south shore. I have seen Venice and Naples, I have driven along the Cornice Road, I have spent a month at our own Mount Desert, and I say that all of them together are not so beautiful as this glowing, deep-hued, soft-gleaming, silvery-lighted, ancient harbor and town, with the tall hills crowding round it and the black cliffs and headlands planting their iron feet in the blue, transparent sea. It is a very old place, and has had a history which it has outlived ages since. It may once have had two or three thousand inhabitants; it has scarce five or six hundred to-day. Half the houses are in ruins or have disappeared; many of the remainder are standing empty. All the people are poor, most of them abjectly so; they saunter about with bare feet and uncovered heads, the women in quaint black or dark-blue cloaks, the men in such anomalous attire as only an Irishman knows how to get together, the children half naked. The only comfortable-looking people are the monks and the priests, and the soldiers in the fort. For there is a fort there, constructed on the huge ruins of one which may have done duty in the reign of Edward the Black Prince, or earlier, in whose mossy embrasures are mounted a couple of cannon, which occasionally sent a practice-shot or two at the cliff on the other side of the harbor. The garrison consists of a dozen men and three or four officers and non-commissioned officers. I suppose they are relieved occasionally, but those I saw seemed to have become component parts of their surroundings.
“I put up at a wonderful little old inn, the only one in the place, and took my meals in a dining-saloon fifteen feet by nine, with a portrait of George I (a print varnished to preserve it) hanging over the mantel-piece. On the second evening after dinner a young gentleman came in — the dining-saloon being public property of course — and ordered some bread and cheese and a bottle of Dublin stout. We presently fell into talk; he turned out to be an officer from the fort, Lieutenant O’Connor, and a fine young specimen of the Irish soldier he was. After telling me all he knew about the town, the surrounding country, his friends, and himself, he intimated a readiness to sympathize with whatever tale I might choose to pour into his ear; and I had pleasure in trying to rival his own outspokenness. We became excellent friends; we had up a half-pint of Kinahan’s whisky, and the lieutenant expressed himself in terms of high praise of my countrymen, my country, and my own particular cigars. When it became time for him to depart I accompanied him — for there was a splendid moon abroad — and bade him farewell at the fort entrance, having promised to come over the next day and make the acquaintance of the other fellows. ‘And mind your eye, now, going back, my dear boy,’ he called out, as I turned my face homeward. ‘Faith, ’tis a spooky place, that graveyard, and you’ll as likely meet the black woman there as anywhere else!’
“The graveyard was a forlorn and barren spot on the hill-side, just the hither side of the fort: thirty or forty rough head-stones, few of which retained any semblance of the perpendicular, while many were so shattered and decayed as to seem nothing more than irregular natural projections from the ground. Who the black woman might be I knew not, and did not stay to inquire. I had never been subject to ghostly apprehensions, and as a matter of fact, though the path I had to follow was in places very bad going, not to mention a hap-hazard scramble over a ruined bridge that covered a deep-lying brook. I reached my inn without any adventure whatever.
“The next day I kept my appointment at the fort, and found no reason to regret it; and my friendly sentiments were abundantly reciprocated, thanks more especially, perhaps, to the success of my banjo, which I carried with me, and which was as novel as it was popular with those who listened to it. The chief personages in the social circle besides my friend the lieutenant were Major Molloy, who was in command, a racy and juicy old campaigner, with a face like a sunset, and the surgeon, Dr. Dudeen, a long, dry, humorous genius, with a wealth of anecdotical and traditional lore at his command that I have never seen surpassed. We had a jolly time of it, and it was the precursor of many more like it. The remains of October slipped away rapidly, and I was obliged to remember that I was a traveler in Europe, and not a resident in Ireland. The major, the surgeon, and the lieutenant all protested cordially against my proposed departure, but, as there was no help for it, they arranged a farewell dinner to take place in the fort on All-halloween.
“I wish you could have been at that dinner with me! It was the essence of Irish good-fellowship. Dr. Dudeen was in great force; the major was better than the best of Lever’s novels; the lieutenant was overflowing with hearty good-humor, merry chaff, and sentimental rhapsodies about this or the other pretty girl of the neighborhood. For my part I made the banjo ring as it had never rung before, and the others joined in the chorus with a mellow strength of lungs such as you don’t often hear outside of Ireland. Among the stories that Dr. Dudeen regaled us with was one about the Kern of Querin and his wife, Ethelind Fionguala — which being interpreted signified ‘the white-shouldered.’ The lady, it appears, was originally betrothed to one O’Connor (here the lieutenant smacked his lips), but was stolen away on the wedding night by a party of vampires, who, it would seem, where at that period a prominent feature among the troubles of Ireland. But as they were bearing her along — she being unconscious — to that supper where she was not to eat but to be eaten, the young Kern of Querin, who happened to be out duck-shooting, met the party, and emptied his gun at it. The vampires fled, and the Kern carried the fair lady, still in a state of insensibility, to his house. ‘And by the same token, Mr. Keningale,’ observed the doctor, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, ‘ye’re after passing that very house on your way here. The one with the dark archway underneath it, and the big mullioned window at the corner.
ye recollect, hanging over the street as I might say –‘
“‘Go ‘long wid the house, Dr. Dudeen, dear,’ interrupted the lieutenant; ‘sure can’t you see we’re all dying to know what happened to sweet Miss Fionguala, God be good to her, when I was after getting her safe up-stairs –‘
“‘Faith, then, I can tell ye that myself, Mr. O’Connor,’ exclaimed the major, imparting a rotary motion to the remnants of whisky in his tumbler. ‘
“‘Tis a question to be solved on general principles, as Colonel O’Halloran said that time he was asked what he’d do if he’d been the Dook O’Wellington, and the Prussians hadn’t come up in the nick o’ time at Waterloo. ‘Faith,’ says the colonel, ‘I’ll tell ye –‘
“‘Arrah, then, major, why would ye be interruptin’the doctor, and Mr. Keningale there lettin’ his glass stay empty till he hears — The Lord save us! the bottle’s empty!’
“In the excitement consequent upon this discovery, the thread of the doctor’s story was lost; and before it could be recovered the evening had advanced so far that I felt obliged to withdraw. It took some time to make my proposition heard and comprehended; and a still longer time to put it in execution; so that it was fully midnight before I found myself standing in the cool pure air outside the fort, with the farewells of my boon companions ringing in my ears.
“Considering that it had been rather a wet evening indoors, I was in a remarkably good state of preservation, and I therefore ascribed it rather to the roughness of the road than to the smoothness of the liquor, when, after advancing a few rods, I stumbled and fell. As I picked myself up I fancied I had heard a laugh, and supposed that the lieutenant, who had accompanied me to the gate, was making merry over my mishap; but on looking round I saw that the gate was closed and no one was visible. The laugh, moreover, had seemed to be close at hand, and to be even pitched in a key that was rather feminine than masculine. Of course I must have been deceived; nobody was near me: my imagination had played me a trick, or else there was more truth than poetry in the tradition that Halloween is the carnival-time of disembodied spirits. It did not occur to me at the time that a stumble is held by the superstitious Irish to be an evil omen, and had I remembered it it would only have been to laugh at it. At all events, I was physically none the worse for my fall, and I resumed my way immediately.
“But the path was singularly difficult to find, or rather the path I was following did not seem to be the right one. I did not recognize it; I could have sworn (except I knew the contrary) that I had never seen it before. The moon had risen, though her light was as yet obscured by clouds, but neither my immediate surroundings nor the general aspect of the region appeared familiar. Dark, silent hill-sides mounted up on either hand, and the road, for the most part, plunged down-ward, as if to conduct me into the bowels of the earth. The place was alive with strange echoes, so that at times I seemed to be walking through the midst of muttering voices and mysterious whispers, and a wild, faint sound of laughter seemed ever and anon to reverberate among the passes of the hills. Currents of colder air sighing up through narrow defiles and dark crevices touched my face as with airy fingers. A certain feeling of anxiety and insecurity began to take possession of me, though there was no definable cause for it, unless that I might be belated in getting home. With the perverse instinct of those who are lost I hastened my steps, but was impelled now and then to glance back over my shoulder, with a sensation of being pursued. But no living creature was in sight. The moon, however, had now risen higher, and the clouds that were drifting slowly across the sky flung into the naked valley dusky shadows, which occasionally assumed shapes that looked like the vague semblance of gigantic human forms.
“How long I had been hurrying onward I know not, when, with a kind of suddenness, I found myself approaching a graveyard. It was situated on the spur of a hill, and there was no fence around it, nor anything to protect it from the incursions of passers-by. There was something in the general appearance of this spot that made me half fancy I had seen it before; and I should have taken it to be the same that I had often noticed on my way to the fort, but that the latter was only a few hundred yards distant therefrom, whereas I must have traversed several miles at least.
As I drew near, moreover, I observed that the head-stones did not appear so ancient and decayed as those of the other. But what chiefly attracted my attention was the figure that was leaning or half sitting upon one of the largest of the upright slabs near the road. It was a female figure draped in black, and a closer inspection — for I was soon within a few yards of her — showed that she wore the calla, or long hooded cloak, the most common as well as the most ancient garment of Irish women, and doubtless of Spanish origin.
“I was a trifle startled by this apparition, so unexpected as it was, and so strange did it seem that any human creature should be at that hour of the night in so desolate and sinister a place. Involuntarily I paused as I came opposite her, and gazed at her intently. But the moonlight fell behind her, and the deep hood of her cloak so completely shadowed her face that I was unable to discern anything but the sparkle of a pair of eyes, which appeared to be returning my gaze with much vivacity.
“‘You seem to be at home here,’ I said, at length. ‘Can you tell me where I am?’
“Hereupon the mysterious personage broke into a light laugh, which, though in itself musical and agreeable, was of a timbre and intonation that caused my heart to beat rather faster than my late pedestrian exertions warranted; for it was the identical laugh (or so my imagination persuaded me) that had echoed in my ears as I arose from my tumble an hour or two ago. For the rest, it was the laugh of a young woman, and presumably of a pretty one; and yet it had a wild, airy, mocking quality, that seemed hardly human at all, or not, at any rate, characteristic of a being of affections and limitations like unto ours. But this impression of mine was fostered, no doubt, by the unusual and uncanny circumstances of the occasion.
“‘Sure, sir,’ said she, ‘you’re at the grave of Ethelind Fionguala.’
“As she spoke she rose to her feet, and pointed to the inscription on the stone. I bent forward, and was able, without much difficulty, to decipher the name, and a date which indicated that the occupant of the grave must have entered the disembodied state between two and three centuries ago.
“‘And who are you?’ was my next question.
“‘I’m called Elsie,’ she replied. ‘But where would your honor be going November-eve?’
“I mentioned my destination, and asked her whether she could direct me thither.
“‘Indeed, then, ’tis there I’m going myself,’ Elsie replied; ‘and if your honor ‘ll follow me, and play me a tune on the pretty instrument, ’tisn’t long we’ll be on the road.’
“She pointed to the banjo which I carried wrapped up under my arm. How she knew that it was a musical instrument I could not imagine; possibly, I thought, she may have seen me playing on it as I strolled about the environs of the town. Be that as it may, I offered no opposition to the bargain, and further intimated that I would reward her more substantially on our arrival. At that she laughed again, and made a peculiar gesture with her hand above her head. I uncovered my banjo, swept my fingers across the strings, and struck into a fantastic dance-measure, to the music of which we proceeded along the path, Elsie slightly in advance, her feet keeping time to the airy measure. In fact, she trod so lightly, with an elastic, undulating movement, that with a little more it seemed as if she might float onward like a spirit. The extreme whiteness of her feet attracted my eye, and I was surprised to find that instead of being bare, as I had supposed, these were incased in white satin slippers quaintly embroidered with gold thread.
“‘Elsie,’ said I, lengthening my steps so as to come up with her, ‘where do you live, and what do you do for a living?’
“‘Sure, I live by myself,’ she answered; ‘and if you’d be after knowing how, you must come and see for yourself.’
“‘Are you in the habit of walking over the hills at night in shoes like that?’
“‘And why would I not?’ she asked, in her turn. ‘And where did your honor get the pretty gold ring on your finger?’
“The ring, which was of no great intrinsic value, had struck my eye in an old curiosity-shop in Cork. It was an antique of very old-fashioned design, and might have belonged (as the vender assured me was the case) to one of the early kings or queens of Ireland.
“‘Do you like it?’ said I.
“‘Will your honor be after making a present of it to Elsie?’ she returned, with an insinuating tone and turn of the head.
“‘Maybe I will, Elsie, on one condition. I am an artist; I make pictures of people. If you will promise to come to my studio and let me paint your portrait, I’ll give you the ring, and some money besides.’
“‘And will you give me the ring now?’ said Elsie.
“‘Yes, if you’ll promise.’
“‘And will you play the music to me?’ she continued.
“‘As much as you like.’
“‘But maybe I’ll not be handsome enough for ye,’ said she, with a glance of her eyes beneath the dark hood.
“‘I’ll take the risk of that,’ I answered, laughing, ‘though, all the same, I don’t mind taking a peep beforehand to remember you by.’ So saying, I put forth a hand to draw back the concealing hood. But Elsie eluded me, I scarce know how, and laughed a third time, with the same airy, mocking cadence.
“‘Give me the ring first, and then you shall see me,’ she said, coaxingly.
“‘Stretch out your hand, then,’ returned I, removing the ring from my finger. ‘When we are better acquainted, Elsie, you won’t be so suspicious.’
“She held out a slender, delicate hand, on the forefinger of which I slipped the ring. As I did so, the folds of her cloak fell a little apart, affording me a glimpse of a white shoulder and of a dress that seemed in that deceptive semi-darkness to be wrought of rich and costly material; and I caught, too, or so I fancied, the frosty sparkle of precious stones.
“‘Arrah, mind where ye tread!’ said Elsie, in a sudden, sharp tone.
“I looked round, and became aware for the first time that we were standing near the middle of a ruined bridge which spanned a rapid stream that flowed at a considerable depth below. The parapet of the bridge on one side was broken down, and I must have been, in fact, in imminent danger of stepping over into empty air. I made my way cautiously across the decaying structure; but, when I turned to assist Elsie, she was nowhere to be seen.
“What had become of the girl? I called, but no answer came. I gazed about on every side, but no trace of her was visible. Unless she had plunged into the narrow abyss at my feet, there was no place where she could have concealed herself — none at least that I could discover. She had vanished, nevertheless; and since her disappearance must have been premeditated, I finally came to the conclusion that it was useless to attempt to find her. She would present herself again in her own good time, or not at all. She had given me the slip very cleverly, and I must make the best of it. The adventure was perhaps worth the ring.
“On resuming my way, I was not a little relieved to find that I once more knew where I was. The bridge that I had just crossed was none other than the one I mentioned some time back; I was within a mile of the town, and my way lay clear before me. The moon, moreover, had now quite dispersed the clouds, and shone down with exquisite brilliance. Whatever her other failings, Elsie had been a trustworthy guide; she had brought me out of the depth of elf-land into the material world again. It had been a singular adventure, certainly; and I mused over it with a sense of mysterious pleasure as I sauntered along, humming snatches of airs, and accompanying myself on the strings. Hark! what light step was that behind me? It sounded like Elsie’s; but no, Elsie was not there. The same impression or hallucination, however, recurred several times before I reached the outskirts of the town — the tread of an airy foot behind or beside my own. The fancy did not make me nervous; on the contrary, I was pleased with the notion of being thus haunted, and gave myself up to a romantic and genial vein of reverie.
“After passing one or two roofless and moss-grown cottages, I entered the narrow and rambling street which leads through the town. This street a short distance down widens a little, as if to afford the wayfarer space to observe a remarkable old house that stands on the northern side.
“The house was built of stone, and in a noble style of architecture; it reminded me somewhat of certain palaces of the old Italian nobility that I had seen on the Continent, and it may very probably have been built by one of the Italian or Spanish immigrants of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The molding of the projecting windows and arched doorway was richly carved, and upon the front of the building was an escutcheon wrought in high relief, though I could not make out the purport of the device. The moonlight failing upon this picturesque pile enhanced all its beauties, and at the same time made it seem like a vision that might dissolve away when the light ceased to shine. I must often have seen the house before, and yet I retamed no definite recollection of it; I had never until now examined it with my eyes open, so to speak.
“Leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the street, I contemplated it for a long while at my leisure. The window at the corner was really a very fine and massive affair. It projected over the pavement below, throwing a heavy shadow aslant; the frames of the diamond-paned lattices were heavily mullioned. How often in past ages had that lattice been pushed open by some fair hand, revealing to a lover waiting beneath in the moonlight the charming countenance of his high-born mistress! Those were brave days. They had passed away long since. The great house had stood empty for who could tell how many years; only bats and vermin were its inhabitants.
“Where now were those who had built it? and who were they? Probably the very name of them was forgotten.
“As I continued to stare upward, however, a conjecture presented itself to my mind which rapidly ripened into a conviction. Was not this the house that Dr. Dudeen had described that very evening as having been formerly the abode of the Kern of Querin and his mysterious bride? There was the projecting window, the arched doorway. Yes, beyond a doubt this was the very house. I emitted a low exclamation of renewed interest and pleasure, and my speculations took a still more imaginative, but also a more definite turn.
“What had been the fate of that lovely lady after the Kern had brought her home insensible in his arms? Did she recover, and were they married and made happy ever after; or had the sequel been a tragic one? I remembered to have read that the victims of vampires generally became vampires themselves. Then my thoughts went back to that grave on the hill-side. Surely that was unconsecrated ground. Why had they buried her there? Ethelind of the white shoulder! Ah! why had not I lived in those days; or why might not some magic cause them to live again for me? Then would I seek this street at midnight, and standing here beneath her window, I would lightly touch the strings of my bandore until the casement opened cautiously and she looked down. A sweet vision indeed! And what prevented my realizing it? Only a matter of a couple of centuries or so. And was time, then, at which poets and philosophers sneer, so rigid and real a matter that a little faith and imagination might not overcome it? At all events, I had my banjo, the bandore’s legitimate and lineal descendant, and the memory of Fionguala should have the love-ditty.
“Hereupon, having retuned the instrument, I launched forth into an old Spanish love-song, which I had met with in some moldy library during my travels, and had set to music of my own. I sang low, for the deserted street re-echoed the lightest sound, and what I sang must reach only my lady’s ears. The words were warm with the fire of the ancient Spanish chivalry, and I threw into their expression all the passion of the lovers of romance. Surely Fionguala, the white-shouldered, would hear, and awaken from her sleep of centuries, and come to the latticed casement and look down! Hist! see yonder! What light — what shadow is that that seems to flit from room to room within the abandoned house, and now approaches the mullioned window? Are my eyes dazzled by the play of the moonlight, or does the casement move — does it open? Nay, this is no delusion; there is no error of the senses here. There is simply a woman, young, beautiful, and richly attired, bending forward from the window, and silently beckoning me to approach.
“Too much amazed to be conscious of amazement, I advanced until I stood directly beneath the casement, and the lady’s face, as she stooped toward me, was not more than twice a man’s height from my own. She smiled and kissed her finger-tips; something white fluttered in her hand, then fell through the air to the ground at my feet. The next moment she had withdrawn, and I heard the lattice close.
“I picked up what she had let fall; it was a delicate lace handkerchief, tied to the handle of an elaborately wrought bronze key. It was evidently the key of the house, and invited me to enter. I loosened it from the handkerchief, which bore a faint, delicious perfume, like the aroma of flowers in an ancient garden, and turned to the arched doorway. I felt no misgiving, and scarcely any sense of strangeness. All was as I had wished it to be, and as it should be; the medieval age was alive once more, and as for myself, I almost felt the velvet cloak hanging from my shoulder and the long rapier dangling at my belt. Standing in front of the door I thrust the key into the lock, turned it, and felt the bolt yield. The next instant the door was opened, apparently from within; I stepped across the threshold, the door closed again, and I was alone in the house, and in darkness.
“Not alone, however! As I extended my hand to grope my way it was met by another hand, soft, slender, and cold, which insinuated itself gently into mine and drew me forward. Forward I went, nothing loath; the darkness was impenetrable, but I could hear the light rustle of a dress close to me, and the same delicious perfume that had emanated from the handkerchief enriched the air that I breathed, while the little hand that clasped and was clasped by my own alternately tightened and half relaxed the hold of its soft cold fingers. In this manner, and treading lightly, we traversed what I presumed to be a long, irregular passageway, and ascended a staircase. Then another corridor, until finally we paused, a door opened, emitting a flood of soft light, into which we entered, still hand in hand. The darkness and the doubt were at an end.
“The room was of imposing dimensions, and was furnished and decorated in a style of antique splendor. The walls were draped with mellow hues of tapestry; clusters of candles burned in polished silver sconces, and were reflected and multiplied in tall mirrors placed in the four corners of the room. The heavy beams of the dark oaken ceiling crossed each other in squares, and were laboriously carved; the curtains and the drapery of the chairs were of heavy-figured damask. At one end of the room was a broad ottoman, and in front of it a table, on which was set forth, in massive silver dishes, a sumptuous repast, with wines in crystal beakers. At the side was a vast and deep fire-place, with space enough on the broad hearth to burn whole trunks of trees.
No fire, however, was there, but only a great heap of dead embers; and the room, for all its magnificence, was cold — cold as a tomb, or as my lady’s hand — and it sent a subtle chill creeping to my heart.
“But my lady! how fair she was! I gave but a passing glance at the room; my eyes and my thoughts were all for her. She was dressed in white, like a bride; diamonds sparkled in her dark hair and on her snowy bosom; her lovely face and slender lips were pale, and all the paler for the dusky glow of her eyes. She gazed at me with a strange, elusive smile; and yet there was, in her aspect and bearing, something familiar in the midst of strangeness, like the burden of a song heard long ago and recalled among other conditions and surroundings. It seemed to me that something in me recognized her and knew her, had known her always. She was the woman of whom I had dreamed, whom I had beheld in visions, whose voice and face had haunted me from boyhood up. Whether we had ever met before, as human beings meet, I knew not; perhaps I had been blindly seeking her all over the world, and she had been awaiting me in this splendid room, sitting by those dead embers until all the warmth had gone out of her blood, only to be restored by the heat with which my love might supply her.
“‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ she said, nodding as if in answer to my thought. ‘The night was so late — our one night of the year! How my heart rejoiced when I heard your dear voice singing the song I know so well! Kiss me — my lips are cold!’
“Cold indeed they were — cold as the lips of death. But the warmth of my own seemed to revive them. They were now tinged with a faint color, and in her cheeks also appeared a delicate shade of pink. She drew fuller breath, as one who recovers from a long lethargy. Was it my life that was feeding her? I was ready to give her all. She drew me to the table and pointed to the viands and the wine.
“‘Eat and drink,’ she said. ‘You have traveled far, and you need food.’
“‘Will you eat and drink with me?’ said I, pouring out the wine.
“‘You are the only nourishment I want,’ was her answer. ‘This wine is thin and cold. Give me wine as red as your blood and as warm, and I will drain a goblet to the dregs.’
“At these words, I know not why, a slight shiver passed through me. She seemed to gain vitality and strength at every instant, but the chill of the great room struck into me more and more.
“She broke into a fantastic flow of spirits, clapping her hands, and dancing about me like a child. Who was she? And was I myself, or was she mocking me when she implied that we had belonged to each other of old? At length she stood still before me, crossing her hands over her breast. I saw upon the forefinger of her right hand the gleam of an antique ring.
“‘Where did you get that ring?’ I demanded.
“She shook her head and laughed. ‘Have you been faithful?’ she asked. ‘It is my ring; it is the ring that unites us; it is the ring you gave me when you loved me first. It is the ring of the Kern — the fairy ring, and I am your Ethelind — Ethelind Fionguala.’
“‘So be it,’ I said, casting aside all doubt and fear, and yielding myself wholly to the spell of her inscrutable eyes and wooing lips. ‘You are mine, and I am yours, and let us be happy while the hours last.’
“‘You are mine, and I am yours,’ she repeated, nodding her head with an elfish smile. ‘Come and sit beside me, and sing that sweet song again that you sang to me so long ago. Ah, now I shall live a hundred years.’
“We seated ourselves on the ottoman, and while she nestled luxuriously among the cushions, I took my banjo and sang to her. The song and the music resounded through the lofty room, and came back in throbbing echoes. And before me as I sang I saw the face and form of Ethelind Fionguala, in her jeweled bridal dress, gazing at me with burning eyes. She was pale no longer, but ruddy and warm, and life was like a flame within her. It was I who had become cold and bloodless, yet with the last life that was in me I would have sung to her of love that can never die. But at length my eyes grew dim, the room seemed to darken, the form of Ethelind alternately brightened and waxed indistinct, like the last flickerings of a fire; I swayed toward her, and felt myself lapsing into unconsciousness, with my head resting on her white shoulder.”
Here Keningale paused a few moments in his story, flung a fresh log upon the fire, and then continued:
“I awoke, I know not how long afterward. I was in a vast, empty room in a ruined building.
Rotten shreds of drapery depended from the walls, and heavy festoons of spiders’ webs gray with dust covered the windows, which were destitute of glass or sash; they had been boarded up with rough planks which had themselves become rotten with age, and admitted through their holes and crevices pallid rays of light and chilly draughts of air. A bat, disturbed by these rays or by my own movement, detached himself from his hold on a remnant of moldy tapestry near me, and after circling dizzily around my head, wheeled the flickering noiselessness of his flight into a darker corner. As I arose unsteadily from the heap of miscellaneous rubbish on which I had been lying, something which had been resting across my knees fell to the floor with a rattle. I picked it up, and found it to be my banjo — as you see it now.
“Well, that is all I have to tell. My health was seriously impaired; all the blood seemed to have been drawn out of my veins; I was pale and haggard, and the chill — Ah, that chill,” murmured Keningale, drawing nearer to the fire, and spreading out his hands to catch the warmth — “I shall never get over it; I shall carry it to my grave.”
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The carved pumpkin is perhaps the global symbol of the modern Halloween celebration. But where did this custom come from and what does the Jack-o’-Lantern really represent?
The eerie glow of a carved pumpkin, flickering from a toothy grin, has become an iconic symbol of Halloween on a global scale. Known as the “jack-o’-lantern,” this tradition has its roots deep in ancient folklore where they celebrated Samhain, blending tales of wandering spirits, old-world customs, and the haunting specter of Stingy Jack.
The Jack-o’-lantern is carved mostly from pumpkins these days as the Americans started doing their own versions of the carving tradition brought over by the Irish, Cornish, Scottish and other Celtic cultures. But also other root vegetables like mangelwurzel, rutabaga or turnip have been used over the years.
The carved faces in the vegetables used to be a way of warding off spirits during the old festivals like Samhain when the door between the living and the dead was especially thin as the summer passed over to winter. The lanterns also helped guide the people doing the Samhain ritual of going house to house for food and drink, the prelude to the modern Trick and Treat.
The Old Tradition of Jack-o’-Lantern: Image from The Book of Hallowe’en. Caption “No Hallowe’en without a Jack-o’-Lantern.” This picture is from around 1919. // Source
The Art of Carving Vegetable
Although the tradition of pumpkin carving as we know it today dates perhaps a couple of centuries back, the act of cutting out faces in fruits and vegetables dates back millennials, and is a thing around the world. In the northern European Celtic cultures, some speculate that it was a way to symbolize the severed head of your enemies before its connection to Samhain.
It is worth noting as well, the making of the lanterns was also a practical and cheap way of making use of what you had to shield the lights you lit up in the dark nights. And the faces were a practical and decorative way to make the light shine through, sort of what we do today as well.
Ghost Turnip: This old carved turnip can be found in the National Museum of Ireland. In 1943 a schoolteacher, Rois Ní Braonáin,teaching near Fintown, Co. Donegal. According to here, they always made them like this around 1900. This plaster-cast model was created and painted by the museum artist, Eileen Barnes. Candles were placed inside the turnips and they were used to frighten people on the night of 31 October. // Source
The Magical Lights of the Will-o’-the-wisps
There are many origin stories about the Jack-o’-lantern as a more supernatural item. Perhaps the oldest ones are connected with the will-o’-the-wisps lights with a lot of legends attached to it. The will-o’-the-wisp, also known as ignis fatuus (foolish fire), is one of the most enduring and mysterious legends across cultures. These eerie, flickering lights appear in marshes, forests, and other desolate places, often just out of reach, luring travelers into danger.
In European folklore, will-o’-the-wisps are ghostly lights that hover just above the ground, often leading those who follow them astray. The name itself comes from “Will of the wisp,” referring to a man named Will or Jack who carried a flickering torch, or wisp, through the night. According to some tales, these lights are the souls of those denied entry to both Heaven and Hell, doomed to wander the Earth in limbo. Their ethereal glow lures the unsuspecting traveler deeper into treacherous bogs and dark woods, where they lose their way or meet their demise.
In England, the will-o’-the-wisp is thought to be a malevolent fairy or spirit, delighting in leading travelers off the safe path and into the depths of the wild. In other versions, the lights are said to be the souls of the dead, restless spirits who died untimely deaths and now seek company in the living. Many old English tales speak of people following the lights, only to end up stranded in dangerous swamps or falling into unseen pits.
Will-o-the-wisp and Snake: A painting from 1823 by Hermann Hendrich (31 October 1854 in Heringen, Thuringia – 18 July 1931), a German painter. The legend of the ignis fatuus lights have spurred many legends, one of them leading up to the Halloween pumpkin lantern.
Other cultures have their own interpretations of these haunting lights. In Scandinavia, they’re called irrbloss, believed to be the spirits of unbaptized children or the souls of treasure guardians trying to protect their hoards. In Japan, the hitodama are floating flames representing the souls of the recently deceased, drifting away from the body.
In scientific terms, the phenomenon may be explained by the combustion of gasses such as methane and phosphine released by decaying organic matter in marshes. These gasses can spontaneously ignite, producing the flickering lights that have inspired such widespread fear and fascination.
The Story of Stingy Jack
The will-o’-the-wisps soon merged with the story of the lantern, but so did another one that gave its name. The story of the jack-o’-lantern also originates from Irish myth from the mid 18th century. He has also been called Jack the Smith, Drunk Jack and Flakey Jack But who was Jack? In the 17th century, it was common to call men you didn’t know, Jack, in Britain. So a man working at night as a watchman would be known as Jack-of-the-lantern for instance.
According to legend, a man known as Stingy Jack was a trickster who managed to deceive the Devil himself. Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him, but when it came time to pay, Jack convinced the Devil to turn into a coin to cover the cost. Instead of using the coin to pay, Jack pocketed it next to a silver cross, trapping the Devil. In exchange for his release, Jack made the Devil promise not to take his soul for ten years.
Ten years later, the Devil returned for Jack, but the cunning man tricked him once again, this time by asking the Devil to climb a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While the Devil was in the tree, Jack carved a cross into the bark, once again trapping him. In exchange for his freedom, the Devil promised never to take Jack’s soul.
However, when Jack eventually died, Heaven refused him entry due to his sinful life, and the Devil, true to his word, wouldn’t claim him either. Left to wander the Earth as a lost soul, Jack was given only a single ember by the Devil to light his way. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed-out turnip, using it as a makeshift lantern as he roamed the afterlife.
In Ireland, people began carving their own turnips and placing candles inside them to ward off Jack’s wandering spirit and other evil entities, Seán na Gealaí’ as it jack-o’-lanterns are called in Irish. This practice, brought to America by Irish immigrants in the 19th century, evolved as the native pumpkin—larger and easier to carve—became the preferred choice for jack-o’-lanterns.
The Jack-o’-Lantern Lights Today
With the rise of electric lights, the tales of Stingy Jack and what happened in the darkness started to fade as the imagination of it was lit up. The custom of cutting out Jack-o’-Lantern for Halloween still persist though. Today, the eerie glow of jack-o’-lanterns is a familiar sight during Halloween, their carved faces a reminder of Stingy Jack’s eternal punishment. Each flickering light serves as a beacon, keeping the spirits at bay while honoring a haunting tale that stretches back through the centuries.
In Somerset, England, a local tradition called Punkie Night in October has many similarities with different Halloween traditions today. A procession of lanterns go through the villagers every year, searching for sweets.
It’s Punkie Night tonight It’s Punkie Night tonight Adam and Eve would not believe It’s Punkie Night tonight
As Halloween approaches with its ghosts, ghouls, and pumpkins we see in the modern age, few are aware of much older, and eerier traditions being celebrated in other places in the world. In the West Country of England, deep in the rural villages of Somerset, an old festival takes place: Punkie Night. The name has many speculations to its origin. Some say it is an old name for lantern or timber, perhaps derived from pumpkin or even the term spunky, used in Somerset to mean the ghost of a young child.
The festival has been celebrated at various sites including Castle Neroche in the Blackdown Hills, Long Sutton, Drayton, Somerset and, more commonly, at Hinton St George and the neighboring village of Lopen. It seems that the celebration used to move around the calendar a bit more, but has now mostly been celebrated as the last Thursday in October. But what is this local tradition really, and how is it connected with the Halloween celebration of today?
Jack o’lantern: The Halloween pumpkin, commonly known as a “jack-o’-lantern,” traces its origins to ancient Celtic traditions. Originally, turnips and other root vegetables were hollowed out and carved with grotesque faces to ward off evil spirits during Samhain, a festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. When Irish immigrants brought this tradition to America in the 19th century, they found that the native pumpkin, larger and easier to carve, was a perfect substitute. Over time, the pumpkin became synonymous with Halloween, symbolizing the spooky spirit of the holiday.
The Tradition of Punkie Night
The tradition of Punkie Night dates back centuries, rooted in local lore and shrouded in mystery. On this night, children and adults alike carry carved turnip or a type of beet called mangel wurzels lanterns, called “punkies,” through the streets, often wearing costumes. Today the pumpkin lantern has perhaps taken over, but there are still contest of and prizes of the best punkie.
Punkie Night Lanterns: Today we are more used to see lanterns being carved from pumpkins. But on punkie night the lanterns is carved from a beet called Mangelwurzel, were developed in the 18th century as a fodder crop for feeding livestock. // Source: Punkie Night/Facebook
The eerie glow from the hollowed-out turnips casts ghostly shadows as they sing the traditional Punkie Night song, demanding small offerings from their neighbors. Over the centuries, the tradition of Punkie Night has mellowed, becoming a quirky local celebration, with children dressed in costumes going door to door, punkie lanterns in hand, reciting their chilling rhyme:
“Punkie Night tonight, Give us a candle, give us a light, If you don’t, you’ll get a fright!”
This compares and possibly relates to the custom of Trick or Treat most known from modern Halloween celebrations in the US today. The sight of the procession is enough to make one’s skin crawl, as these turnip-faced ghouls wind their way through the villages, keeping an unsettling link to the past alive.
The History Behind Punkie Night
But Punkie Night is more than just a quaint, local celebration—it carries a dark history according to local lore. Some claim that the night is an ancient one, but is it really? The most popular legend traces its origins to a group of men from the village of Hinton St George, who ventured to a nearby fair in the neighboring village Chiselborough. This is said to have happened at the start of the 1800s. The organized way of celebrating though didn’t really happen until the first decades of the 1900s.
After a night of drinking and revelry, the husbands of the village became lost on their way home, although only a few miles away. The cold October night was dark and treacherous, the countryside devoid of light, and the men, without lanterns, found themselves wandering aimlessly, unable to get home.
Their wives, worried and frustrated, took to the streets, carving punkies out of turnips or mangelwurzels because of the windy night and setting out to find their wayward husbands. The very word Punkie is sometimes thought to be an old English word for a lantern. When the men first saw the lanterns they thought they were will o’the wisps and were scared. Some also said that they thought they were “goolies” which are the restless spirits of children who had died before they were baptized, and they reportedly fled in terror. It’s also said that the flickering lights from these punkies were the only thing that guided the men back home.
But some say there’s a more sinister side to the tale.
Cross at Hinton St. George: The start of Punkie night is often said to have started when the women of Hinton St. George lit up lanterns to guide their husband safely home. // Source: Nick Chipchase/Wikimedia
The Older Punkie Night
The custom has been seen in the last century, and the mangel-wurzel was introduced in England in the late 18th century. But it seems that the concept of Punkie night has existed long before the story of the wayward men.
According to older, whispered versions of the legend, Punkie Night marks a time when the veil between the living and the dead thins, and those lost souls who have wandered too far from the world of the living come back to find their way home as a local continuation of the Samhain celebrations. There is a similar Irish celebration called Púca Night, ‘púca’ meaning fairies or sprites with a similar tradition, so possibly the tradition comes from the same Celtic folklore.
The turnip lanterns were not just to guide the living, but also to ward off the spirits of the dead who roam the dark countryside. The sight of a “punkie” lantern, glowing in the hands of a child, is said to keep these spirits at bay—or at least confuse them into thinking they’ve found their way back to the afterlife. They were also said to be placed in the windowsill to ward off evil spirits, much like the jack-o’-lanterns of Halloween today.
So, if you find yourself in Somerset on the last Thursday of October, beware of the glowing turnips and the haunting songs that fill the night. You might just stumble upon an ancient tradition where the line between the living and the dead blurs, and the past reaches out to touch the present.
The first day of winter is called Kalan Gwav in Cornish and their version of Halloween. The celebration is called Allantide and the main focus is the big Allan Apple and trying to predict the future.
Allantide, known as “Kalan Gwav” in Cornish, is the traditional Cornish celebration of Halloween, which marks the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Cornwall is one of the Celtic nations in South West England from the Atlantic Ocean to Devon and the English Channel.
Taking place on October 31, it shares similarities with Samhain and other Celtic festivals like the Welsh Calan Gaeaf or the Hop-tu-Naa on the Isle of Man of it being a beginning of winter festival. But one thing that differs is how much they focus on the dead, the spooky, the otherworld and ghosts. Allantide is much more harvest focused than what we think of Halloween today, although it has some of the same games and customs as its more spooky counterparts.
The Christian name, Allantide or Feast of St Allan comes from the bishop of Quimper in modern day France, in the sixth century, if he ever existed at all. He is venerated in Brittany and his name lives on in this holiday, although for obscure reasons. This has also made the celebration very christian as an important part of the festival is ringing the church bells.
Apple Harvest for Allantide: The apples are said to have been brought to the British Isles by the Romans, and soon, celts cultivated them on their own. Traditionally they have been seen as a sign of love and fertility as well as symbols for the gods and goddesses of the otherworld.
The Allan Apples From Harvest
A notable feature of Allantide is the gifting of large, bright apples called “Allan apples,” which symbolize good luck for the coming winter. In this sense, this version of “Halloween”, as it were, is a much brighter version with focus on apples, harvests and predicting the future. Other Halloween versions have often had a more supernatural and spooky atmosphere with ghosts, witches and monsters coming at night.
In the days leading up to Allantide, Allan Markets were held to buy the big apples. These apples were often used in games of divination, predicting future romances or fortunes. Women would place the apples under their pillows in hopes of dreaming of their future husband.
Snap Apple: A cross with four candles were put on and Allan apples would hang down was a game they played. The goal was to catch the apples in your mouth. The hot wax from the candles was penalty when it fell down on you.
Bonfires and Jack-o-lanterns
In the past, families would light bonfires, gather together, and use various forms of divination to foresee the winter ahead. The most popular future was of course to do with your love life. If you threw walnuts into the fire you could predict how faithful your partner was.
Stories told during these gatherings often involved ancestors and spirits, emphasizing the thinning of the veil between worlds. As with the other Celtic celebration, this was the time the dead and passed loved ones were closest to the living.
Melting of metal was also a way to predict the future. They melted it down to a liquid before throwing it in cold water and reading the shape of it, showing future partners or the future husband’s job.
There were also jack-o-lanterns made, but of the local turnip growing there. Although if it had the same spooky connotation
The End of Allantide Festivities
Today, Allantide has largely merged with modern Halloween celebrations, and the traditional Allan markets are gone. But traces of its ancient customs remain alive in Cornwall, where the gifting of the apples is still a central thing to the celebration and bonfires are lit to create community.
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
