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Halloween Ghost Story

Although we comonly think of Kids going round door to door collecting sweets,
Halloween has a much older and deeper history.
Over here in Ireland it was formerly known as Samhain
(It is still on the Calendar and many calendars over here still have the Irish names for each month -many of which relate to the Wiccan Major Festivals)
Fireworks and bonfires are just one of the celebrations common worldwide
(Although unlicensed private fireworks displays are currently banned in the Republic of Ireland)
Generally nowadays its a time for feasting,drinking and storytelling - ghost stories being really popular.It's also called Pooky Night (Pooky being a local term in many parts of Ireland forSpooky kinds of goings-on ) and it's also comonly know as All Hallows Eve - the night when the Earthly World and the Spirit World merge - and the reports of ghostly happening increase tenfold .
(Of course people EXPECT ghostly happenings on Halloween so maybe thats not surprising)
Lots of people have Costume parties with the traditional bobbing for apples and carving of Jack o'lanterns
(Tesco seem to have cornered the market in plastic ones though and that takes some of the fun out of the proceedings as it used to be a bit of a competition to carve the scariest one !)

Over here it's also traditional to have a Halloween Barm Brack (a kind of fruit loaf) in which a ring or coin wrapped in apiece of rag is hidden and it bring good luck to the recipent... unless he/she breaks a tooth .. and a glass of Poteen !
In Ireland we don't really have the garden displays that they have in the USA - where I've seen fabulous outdoor tableaux of tombs,vampires,skeletons,even whole graveyards and chapels sometimes.
Instead it's more of a family occasion with a slight bonus for Pagans who often use some of the many Stone Circles here for their revels.

Here's my own True Ghost Story for Halloween ...
It was a warm and balmy Late Summer afternoon in Thaxted Churchyard -
the bees lazily droned from flower to flower and a golden light whispered through the trees down to the tombstones below.
It was a pleasant day and a plump robin hopped across the path in his search for insects.
I heard a scratching noise up near the Church and wandered up toward it only to see the figure of an old man kneeling down scrubbing at a gravestone with an old-fashioned scrubbing brush. He was a kindly looking man with a face like a wizened apple and a wry sort of smile.
Dressed in rather old-stylemoleskin trousers and a grandad shirt with red braces and boots he looked every inch a farm worker.
I stood and chatted a while with him about the day and he told me "I'm just scrubbing the Grave - I use vinegar and washing up liquid"
We both agreed that he'd done a fine job and the soap bubbles hung off the graven inscription.
As he struggled to his feet I noticed that he was liberally sprinkled with earth over all of his trousers.
He grinned at me and said - Well that's that job done for this year - I must be off now" and bent over and picked up his zinc bucket and his scrubbing brush.
The Robin flew to the Stone and began to sing.
I watched as he trudged up towards the Church and as he stepped into a pool of golden sunlight under the chestnut tree he seemed to dissolve into millions of golden particles which shimmered and then disappeared.
It wasn't very scary but I did realise that I'd just spent ten minutes talking about how to clean your grave with a real Ghost !

There really was no sign that he'd ever been there - except for a few crumbs of earth on the footpath,soap bubbles on the tombstone and the Robin that continued to sing.

Link posted by Keith @ 6:04 AM