How Is Halloween Celebrated In Scotland?

[Pleater]

Turnip lantern - take the largest turnip you can buy, cut off a slice so you can get at the inside and chop out the flesh as close to the skin as possible - make the inevetable gashes into eyes, nose and grinning mouth, pierce two small holes to take a string then place a stub of candle inside, ignite it through the nose hole, replace the original slice as a lid and then try to ignore the smell of charring turnip as it hangs by the string from some convenient suport.

Turnips are quite hard and the carving out is not easy nor quick.

The supermarkets set out pumpkins and Halloween tat these days and try to make a big thing of it, but it is only in the last four or five years that we have had anyone come to the door 'trick or treating'. They have battery powered orange plastic pumpkin shaped lights these days.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[Lallans]

Here in Canada Halloween was one of the primary children's days, an evening when, as soon as you were older than six and not older than twelve, you could pick you own costume and get really scary looking (with a little help) and go out in the dark on your own (with friends) and rampage around in a mostly harmless fashion- and get a dozen pounds of candy to eat through the fall to boot. Now your parents wrap you in shrink wrap to keep the germs off and take you around under close supervision and so the fun has mostly been sucked out of it.

[EHCAlum]

And the parents would always bogart and steal all the good candy when they went through your stash looking for dangers.

[Bugbear]

Thanks, Pleater.

And thanks everyone else.

Do you all eat pumpkins in Scotland/UK?

[skauwt]

Sounds like fun.

What kind of grub? And what is "cider and blackcurrant like?
Also, if anyone still does, how do you carve your turnip lanterns?

the grub tends to be mostly stewed meat/sausage and sausage rolls... crisps also the usual vegetable soup peanuts etc. enough party food to fill a empty stomach that's for sure and well cider and blackcurrant...... hard to explain really its almost like drinking a softdrink nice strong drink with a pleasant after-taste, cordial blackcurrant is best used and any cider works at all ,i like my dry cider myself never been one for the sweeter scrumpy

oh and mind use the spare turnip for the veggie soup

[be da veva]

And the parents would always bogart and steal all the good candy when they went through your stash looking for dangers.

Yeah, My parents did that... Plus, I'm the last of six, so the older sibblings always had to check to make sure the parents didn't miss anything...

But I'm a parent now.....

[Bugbear]

Thanks, skauwt, that's interesting.

[artificer]

Here in Canada Halloween was one of the primary children's days, an evening when, as soon as you were older than six and not older than twelve, you could pick you own costume and get really scary looking (with a little help) and go out in the dark on your own (with friends) and rampage around in a mostly harmless fashion- and get a dozen pounds of candy to eat through the fall to boot. Now your parents wrap you in shrink wrap to keep the germs off and take you around under close supervision and so the fun has mostly been sucked out of it.

Too true. Nearly everywhere in America it's the same way nowadays.

It's a real downer, as when I was a lad we'd rampage through the whole neighborhood and end up tired, wet (it nearly ALWAYS rained on the big day), jagged up on sugar, and come home with a HUGE lot of candy.

Nearly everywhere now has their Halloween DURING the DAY!@! on the Sunday closest to the actual day. Now, where in the heck is the fun in THAT!?

I'm a parent of a little boy, so I understand people's paranoia, but at the same time, the insane 'safety' mindset really sucks the life out of nearly everything these days.

When I was young enough to 'be in danger' my da would always accompany us (it was a pretty big neighborhood), usually 1/4 block ahead or behind. Then, when we'd notice that he wasn't around he'd wait a few more minutes until we got good and nervous and then jump out, with his face lit from beneath by the flashlight he'd carry and scare the bejesus out of us ... good times Nothing got the blood pumping quite as much as being so scared you nearly widdled your costume.

[Ryan Ross]

Turnip lantern - take the largest turnip you can buy, cut off a slice so you can get at the inside and chop out the flesh as close to the skin as possible - make the inevetable gashes into eyes, nose and grinning mouth, pierce two small holes to take a string then place a stub of candle inside, ignite it through the nose hole, replace the original slice as a lid and then try to ignore the smell of charring turnip as it hangs by the string from some convenient suport.

Turnips are quite hard and the carving out is not easy nor quick.

The supermarkets set out pumpkins and Halloween tat these days and try to make a big thing of it, but it is only in the last four or five years that we have had anyone come to the door 'trick or treating'. They have battery powered orange plastic pumpkin shaped lights these days.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

I understand (or so I hear) that the Celts had a harvest festival to mark the end of summer, and they thought that the barrier between this world and the Otherworld was thin at this time; both good and evil spirits could cross into our world at this time, and while good spirits were welcomed, folks dressed in scary costumes to ward off the evil ones(hence, perhaps, why we dress in costumes at Halloween). As part of the Samhain festivities and rituals, the Druids would light bonfires in the hills. It was considered good luck to light the fire in your hearth with an ember from the druid's fires, so the families that lived in the area would carry a coal home with them. According to the story, they used a hollowed out turnip to contain the burning coal. From there, we get the modern carved pumpkin.

Of course, there's the decidedly more modern tale of Stingy Jack, who never did a really decent or generous thing in his life, and who tricked the devil into promising never to take his soul into hell. When he died, Saint Peter told him that he wasn't worthy to enter Heaven, but when he went into the darkness to find his resting place in Hell, the devil remembered his promise; he wasn't allowed to enter Hell either. The devil turned him away, but Jack said that it was too dark, and that he couldn't see to leave. The devil then tossed him a cinder of hellfire to light his way. Moving back, I suppose, to the prior story, he carried that cinder of hellfire in a hollowed out turnip lantern. So there's Jack O'Lantern.

A bit of a digression, I guess, but food for thought.

...speaking of food and British Halloween traditions, I made soul cakes the other day.


I don't suppose they're made (or even thought of) often at all, in the modern day, but I understand they used to be given out on All Souls Day(November 2). Children and beggars would go door to door, offering to pray for the release of the Poor Souls from Purgitory, in exchange for a soul cake(they're kind of like spiced shortbread, stamped with a cross). I guess we get Trick or Treating from that tradition.

[macwilkin]

...for learning about how Lowland Scots celebrated All Hallow's Eve in days of yore is Robert Burns' Halloween:

http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/halloween.html

It is interesting to compare this work with a collection such as Vance Randolph's Ozarks Magic and Folklore, and once again note the contributions of the Scots to what we consider to be "traditional" American folklore.

T.