October fun-fest giveaway!

Ghost, goblins, ghouls, witches, zombies, werewolves and vampires. This is the month that all those come out so guess what you better watch out!

Welcome to my blog! For the whole month of October we will get to read some stories, memories of Halloween from many authors. I kindly asked if anyone would like to help me with this event and there were a ton of wonderful, amazing and talented authors who said well sign me up. I also asked them if they would be so kind to donate an e book and of course they didn't hesitate. So please, please lets give all these authors a big thank you for helping me get this blog event going. Because without them it would not have happened.

So I figured on day 1 of the month long event I would do a bit of history on Halloween. Now I decided to go the old fashion way of finding information and I went to my public library in Madisonville, TX, and decided to look up some books. So all my information will be coming from different books about Halloween, how it started and what not. If there is any information that is not correct I do apologize. So let's get this all started! Happy Halloween ya'll.

Halloween is celebrated to release body and soul from life's torments, and is one of the most spectacular of all yearly festivities. You have your ghouls, ghost, goblins, witches, vampires. I remember being a kid and we always had to have the scary costume, now a days it is more like ladybugs, and fairies, Mario, angry birds little things like that. I liked that on Halloween you wanted to be scared, but now a days it is all about looking either cute or sexy. Now I say this but being a mom I am not sure I could handle my little girl being scary ha ha. But there are no scary costumes for her size so this year she gets to be a ladybug (that is just because I have the costume already) now my son I would love for him to embrace the dark-side of Halloween and be terrifying but he sees the costumes in the store and decides no he wants to be a dragon or a star wars character. Though I was proud of him last year being SCREAM! Even though he could hardly breath through the mask.

Halloween means “holy or hallowed evening, and it was named because it was the day before All Hallows or All Saints' Day, which is November 1^st.

Now the information is found from the book The Pagan Book of Halloween by Gerina Dunwich and All About American Holidays by Maymie R. Krythe.

Halloween originated in Pagan Ireland as the Samhain (sow-in) festive. And for the Christians it became known as All Hallow's Eve. Two thousand years ago, the Celtic people who also had Druidism as their religion, observed their calendar as a beginning and ending with their New Year's Eve festival, it was October 31/November 1. This festival that was celebrated by the Celtic was called Samhain which means “summer's end.” It marked the “death” of the old year and the “birth” of the new year. Halloween is also known as the day of the dead. During this day fairy fold and gods were more active and the festival was to celebrate the harvest.

The Celts believed there was an invisible veil that existed which separated the worlds of the living and the dead. At sunset on the last day of the year which was October 31, this veil would be at its thinnest and the living and the dead could make contact with each other.

The inhabitants of pre-Christian Ireland believed that during Samhain dark-skinned goblin-like creatures with powers would come from their secret hiding places and cause as much mischief as possible. They were very upset that the humans took over their land. So according to a legend, every seven years these goblin's would steal either human infants or small children then sacrifice them to their God.

During this time it was believed that witches rode broomsticks, as they were the women who sold themselves to the Devil. The Druids happens to believe this and believed that on Halloween these witches would dance with goblins and imps on the hilltops while the Devil would play the castanets made from dead men's bones.

With this being the night of a full yellow moon black cats, bats, elves, and fairies were about and you needed to watch out.

Once people wore masks and robes for the protection for the practitioners and the magick evolved in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Now it is known as “guising” and it originated in Scotland and that is where we go house to house for trick or treating.

Here is an old folk song that people went door to door singing while begging for apples and nuts.

Soul! Sou! A soul-cake!

I pray, good missis, a soul-cake!

An apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us merry.

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

Up with the kettle, and down with the pan,

Give us good alms, and we'll be gone.

If these guiders didn't get a “treat” than they would retaliate with a prank known as a “trick”

Different kind of tricks that were used in England, blowing smoke through keyholes, stopping up the chimneys, and smashing bottles against walls.

In some parts of Ireland, people still call Halloween the Oidhche Shamhna (the Vigil of Samhain). There is still a saying that goes “All the gods of this world were worshiped on this day, from sunrise and sunset.”

There is tons and tons of information out there about Halloween or Day of the Dead. You just have to go out and search. After reading some of these books I have learned so much, and it makes my love Halloween a bit more than I normally did.

I hope you all enjoy some of the information I posted. And please come back every day for a new post from different authors. There will be one one author a day, and there is a month long rafflecopter going on.

Happy Halloween!!!

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