Thanks again to George of the Irish Heritage Newsletter. Samhain Tales Halloween was also a very important festival, a throwback to pagan times with its own rituals and traditions. Mrs. McEneaney, Castleblayney remembers, her Mother rubbing salt and oatmeal into her hair to protect her from the fairies. Maggie Malone, Carrickmacross remembers that champ was the traditional meal. "We used to put the champ out for the fairies to please them. Some poeple put it on the piers of the gate or on the doorstep. You see this was the time when the fairies moved from one fort to another." It was told that no fruit should be picked after Halloween because it has been diseased by a spirit called Puca. Michael Joe Murphy, Crossmaglen, in his book "A Slieve Gullions Foot" tells the story of a blacksmith named Willy who made a deal with the devil on the Hallow Eve to get money for drink. His fate was to wander the region with a wisp of light til the end of time. The legend of Willy-the-Wisp is still alive today preserved in a game played by many local people in their youth. "He was running around the mountain one night. If it was dark I'd show you Willy-the-Wisp, you can see him out there on the mountain. He's be running along the mountain. If I said I saw Willy-the-Wisp, people would be blessing themselves and they'd be in an awful state. I used to do it myself. You'd want some looking glasses. They'd make a reflection of you, move one of them and the light would run along the side of the mountain." -James Murphy, Mullaghbawn Halloween was generally a time of fun and celebration; "At Halloween we put two hazel nuts in the ashes and give them the name of a boy and girl. If the two burn together they will be married and if one shoots out they will separate." "Many games are played on Hallow'eve night. One is to tie an apple with a cord to the ceiling. They all get their hands tied behind their backs and they try in turn to catch the apple with their teeth. Another game for that night is to put an apple swimming on a tub of water and all try to see who could take the apple out with his teeth." "On Halloween night young girls would go blindfolded to corn sacks, pull out a stalk of corn and count the prickles. This was believed to be the number of years till they would get married." "Mostly all the tricks played refer to weddings, the person who is sweeping will be married to whoever takes the brush from the first person. To look into a looking glass in the name of the devil and whoever you are to marry will appear in the glass." "In Ireland it was thought that the fairies and the dead were very close to each other. Finvara, one of the fairy kings, was also King of the Dead, and it was thought to be very dangerous to be out after nightfall on Hallowes Eve and for a month after it, till the end of November." -Katherine Briggs, The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends. Pantheon Books,1978. "It is especially dangerous to be out on the last night of November, for it is the close of the season of revels-the last night when the dead have leave to dance on the hill with fairies, and after that thery must all go back to lie in the chill, cold earth without music or wine till the next November comes round, when they all spring up again in their shrouds and rush out into the moonlight with mad laughter." - Lady Wilde, Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms and Superstitions of Ireland. London, 1887. According to the old tradition, still observed in Ireland, by which each calendar day begins at sunset, the last day of November would end at sunset on our November 30. This makes the night of our November 29 to be the last night night of Gaelic November. The customs of disguise and itinerant begging have long been associated with Samhain, probably going back at least as far as the Druids. It has been speculated that Celtic priests disguised themselves as spirits on Samhain night to walk among the ancestors and learn from them. In Ireland, in the area of Ballycotton and Trabolgan, a pagan "trick or treat" ritual survived until the early 1900s. Local youths would gather and parade from farmhouse to farmhouse, led by a man in a white robe with a horse-head mask. The leader was known as Lair Bhan (the White Mare), and the group would ask each farmer for gifts for "Muck Olla". This name is often assumed to be a distortion of a forgotton pagan god-name, but I believe it is more likely a Gaelic term of abuse, similar to the Manx expression "muc ooillagh", meaning greasy pig. The Muck Olla followers recited a long string of verses, threatening dire consequences if the farmers did not shell out the goodies, and the party would return home well-laden with gifts of farm produce. -- Pat Connors, currently visiting Albany NY