As we creep toward Halloween, Celtic tradition offers us a bit of insight into even our most current practices.
Samhain (pronounced “sow-wen” in Scottish Gaelic) was known as “mischief night” in much of the Celtic world. It was a night when people lived out their shadow sides, if just for a few hours, pulling pranks on neighbors, many of whom were tipsy with the drink celebrating the end of the harvest. These mischief-makers would carry lanterns carved out of turnips, usually in spooky designs.
A fun trick on this night, apparently, was to take apart a drunken neighbor’s cart in the middle of the night and reassemble it, horse and all, inside their front room to be found the next morning. Sometimes they’d put manure on doorknobs, or fill keyholes with honey or treacle.
These pranks were wedded to the custom of going door to door begging for treats like apples, plums, and nuts, now stored up for winter in the cellars. In some towns these troops of mischief-makers would blow trumpets upon entering the streets, causing villagers to run to their cellars to snatch some fruits, dried cakes, or coins and avoid the “tricks.” These treats were called “soul cakes” in later years when Samhain and All Saints Day were butted up together, and these travelers were said to go “a-souling.”
Underlying all of this mischief and treat gathering was a more serious ritual, one found across cultures and continents. These figures a-souling were dressed up like the dead to represent the spirits of the past. To refuse these spirits some sort of treat, some sort of offering, would be to invite them to curse the house or take vengeance on the household. The little mischief, the little tricks, would pale in comparison to the other-worldly tricks of ungenerous homes.
Instead of “trick or treat,” these door-to-door travelers would call for a soul-cake.
“A soul-cake, a soul-cake,
please, good missus, a soul-cake.
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry,
any good thing to make one merry.
A soul-cake, a soul-cake,
please, good missus, a soul-cake.
One for Peter, two for Paul, and three for them who made us all…”
If you want a good rendition of this tune, Sting (on his Christmas album If On a Winter’s Night that is much better than it should be) incorporated it into a Christmas-caroling song. It’s posted below. But there are many other recordings of Halloween versions of the song out there.
