Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for October 23, 2012

Petey knows!

Peter Otterloop, Sr., you know the story about Halloween, but you don’t want to frighten your daughter!

Petey knows the kind of story that will help Alice go to sleep; apparently Peter does not….

“Petey! Stop going to bed with the zombies. I mean…”

You’d think that Petey would have a later bed time.

I want to hear the story again, and a glass of water, Please

Don’t listen to Petey.

Peteys partially correct, it does placate Zombies, but let’s not forget that dreadful “Uh-Oh” baby . .!!

On my day to day today, Miss Bliss is taking the children to Old McGhoulish’s Haunted Farm Corn Maze.

Of course it has a story. Christians have a holiday to honor all the saints of yore, called “All Saints’ Day”, or alternatively “All Hallows’ Day”. The evening before, in a holdover from the Jewish practice of beginning a day at sunset the night before, was called “All Hallows’ Eve” (just as Christmas Eve is the evening before Christmas). Through common usage, it went through “All Hallows’ E’en” to “Hallowe’en”

: )

And what about “Jack-o’-lantern” ? I think that Halloween doesn’t have A story, it has a lot of stories.

Only one way to placate a Zombie…BRAAAAINS!

Thanks for the ghoul-schooling!

Our modern Hallowe’en stems from Samhain, and one explanation of the traditional pumpkin lanterns is that the Celts once placed the skulls of ancestors outside their doors at this time. The Christians took over the Celtic festival and turned it into All Saints Day. Even the modern English celebration of Guy Fawkes Day has echoes of the ancient fire festival.

SamhainThe Celtic year began with Samhain. Celebrated around 31 October, it was a time of deliberate misrule and contrariness, rather like the Roman Saturnalia. It was also a time when the veil between this world and the Otherworld was thought to be so thin that the dead could return to warm themselves at the hearths of the living, and some of the living – especially poets – were able to enter the Otherworld through the doorways of the sidhe, such as that at the Hill of Tara in Ireland.At Samhain cattle were brought in for the winter, and in Ireland the warrior élite, the Fianna, gave up war until Beltain. It was a sacred time, whose peace was normally broken only by the ritualized battle of board games such as fidchell.

It’s about a man in a strange mask killing people.

Woody Harrelson recommends the double-tap method for placating zombies.

“Through common usage, it went through ‘All Hallows’ E’en’ to‘Hallowe’en.’”Well, that should put her t sleep! Good explanation, though

. . . and Peter could add some yummy details about Mexido’s Day of the Dead, with their candy skeletons, etc. I went through a shop in Santa Fe with all sorts of neat Day of the Dead stuff.

(Gregorian chanting):Hippitus Hoppitus Domine …