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- [00:00]
OnDeck Advertiser
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- [00:33]
Don Wildman
Long before squealing trick or treaters gathered chocolate bars and candied apples before leering Jack o' Lanterns cast their orange glow on suburban porches. Halloween was a more mythical matter for Celtic cultures. The gossamer veil between the living and the dead could become perilously thin in the deep days of autumn. So donning masks and costumes, practicing annual rituals, they sought to fool the wandering spirits of the not so dearly departed. When Irish immigrants crossed the ocean to America, they carried this mythical baggage along those ghostly customs which found purchase in the American psyche, blossoming into our favorite night of mayhem and make believe. When tricks turn to treats, fear becomes fun and mischief is magical. And Boo. Did I scare you? No, I expect not. Well, here we are again in that season of fear when we all get spooked on purpose. Some folks turn in their front yards into horror movie sets. Eight foot skeletons, very popular this year. I noticed others just going for the costumes. Equal parts macabre and outlandish. My personal best costume effort was back in the 1990s. Plain gray suit, muskback hair, little slump to the shoulders. I was middle management, had the nameplate and everything. Seemed very clever at the time back in the day. Greetings listening faithful. Thank you for joining this spirited conversation on the what, where, when and why of Halloween. Halloween. How did this wonderfully colorful and honestly weird holiday wash up on the shores of our otherwise God fearing nation? And then how did we, in typical American fashion, make it our own? Our guest today is Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald, head of the School of Irish Celtic Studies and Folklore at University College Dublin. Truly the ideal guide for this transatlantic conversation. Dr. Fitzgerald is an American born scholar who makes her home in Ireland. So we are about to dig down into Halloween's cross cultural roots. Past, present and spiritual. Hello Kelly. If I had a creaking door effect, I'd use it now. Happy Halloween. Please enter the chamber of Horrors.
- [02:54]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Happy Halloween to you as well.
- [02:57]
Don Wildman
Yes, it's funny you know, most other major holidays have this clear Origin story, Christmas and Easter, story of Christ, of course, Passover, the release from Egyptian slavery. Halloween and why it exists is utterly lost on most Americans. It's just an occasion. But this was not the case back in Ireland with the prehistoric festival called Help Me Samhain. Samhain, yes.
- [03:22]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
The night. Kind of the night of the end of summer.
- [03:26]
Don Wildman
Okay, so right off the bat, if we say Halloween is of Irish origin, is that proper and correct? Yeah.
- [03:32]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Or if we could even just say it's. It is a very early time. It is from Europe, definitely.
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Don Wildman
Well, Ireland didn't exist. Of course, I'm saying Irish Ireland did.
- [03:40]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Exist in that regard. But we also see aspects we find in. In Ireland are really grounded here, but yet you can find parallels across Europe.
- [03:51]
Don Wildman
Yeah. When you. When you read about it, it's sort of Scottish Irish, you know, land masses, anyway. And.
- [03:57]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
And. And then we use that. We tend to use the term Celtic now.
- [04:01]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. Celtic origins. Okay, so Samhain referred to what exact festival?
- [04:06]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes. So if we think of again, in that very agrarian, agricultural sense of understanding the world, the year was broken up into four quarters. And this is really the end of those four quarters as we're going from the lightness into the dark time of the year here in the northern hemisphere. So we see at the beginning at the first of February, which is now St Brigid's Day here in Ireland, that's the beginning of spring. We then have the 1st of May, which is exactly halfway from where we are now until then. And all of that is to deal with animal husbandry, milk profit, all of that in terms of your farming Life. Then the second half of the year from the 1st of August is the beginning of the harvest. And then in Irish, September is Manfover, the middle of the harvest. October is Darrafover, the end of the harvest. And then Samhain is the month of November in Irish. So we see the agricultural calendar kind of underpinning everything that we're looking at here. And then you could only imagine at the end of the harvest, you need to. I mean, it's hard work, so you need to let off a little bit of steam and have a bit of fun. And this is what we see happening at this time.
- [05:23]
Don Wildman
You know, I once did a story in the bottom of Lake Michigan, which was finding where prehistoric tribes had met for hunting purposes. And it was all very practical. There was the marker stone. It was in 40ft of water. And what the guy mentioned to me, which is so fascinating, was not only were these important moments for, of course, Collecting food and so forth, harvesting food, but also for meeting each other, because these wandering tribes never saw each other. So you had to have these events that would get people together, you know, for no other reason than meeting each other to get married, you know.
- [05:56]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Exactly. And we see that here in Ireland as well. You can imagine the life of a, you know, a farming communities. They're very ice. You know, your work is quite alone quite a lot of the time. And then you all come together for the harvest, because that's a lot of work. And there's no grocery store to go to. I mean, like, this is for survival. If you don't have a good harvest of potatoes, as we've seen in Ireland, what happens when that doesn't happen? You're not going to have a good year ahead of you. So I think some of that gets lost when we think about this now. But then some of the other elements of why it was important to previous communities in society here in Ireland or wherever we see it still important today. You know, Halloween parties somewhere seems a long time ago. It is wonderful to get an invite now to go to some kind of fancy dress costume party now. It's really the time that you want to get out and be social again.
- [06:50]
Don Wildman
They get married to each other. Yeah. So time has everything to do with this. Obviously, when not farming, you have festivals. Any chance to get together this time of year. Of course, with winter coming on, death is in the air, or dying is in the air. And this is kind of a festival about that, right?
- [07:08]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Absolutely. Again, it's very much connected to nature. What other time of the year here in the northern hemisphere would you want to dedicate to death? Everything around us. The leaves are falling off the trees, the darkness is coming in. It is the absolute kind of ideal time to kind of spend reflecting on those who have passed before us. Where are they now? All of that is coming into this time of year.
- [07:36]
Don Wildman
What's so interesting is that there's this switch from prehistoric pagan religion to Christianity. And you begin that whole, you know, they kind of appropriate all these old festivals into Christianity, don't they?
- [07:48]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
I think it's quite interesting. And I think one of the biggest, you know, kind of debates or trying to understand what happened here in Ireland is that conversion of what was pre Christian into what is Christianity. And I think sometimes we make that a bit too binary, as if you wake up one morning and you are this. And then you wake up the next morning and your life is exactly, you know, changed in what you. Your behaviors and what you do. So I think it's a little bit more subtle and I think it's really important people think about how culture and how we take on culture is very subtle. It's slow, it takes time. It's not that you just wake up one morning and everything changes. So conversion is more of an act of time. So we can see that Christianity would have, you know, the liturgy, it is a very, you know, it is a very set religion due to the Bible and the written word. And the core of that of course is Jesus Christ. Now how you spend the rest of the year, that's the church shaping that. And it's quite interesting, you see this push and pull of what the church wants and what the people want. So it's a little bit more nuanced than just thinking a quick change has happened. Yeah.
- [09:05]
Don Wildman
What would be the advantage to the Christian church taking this All Hallows Eve day over? I mean that's basically what they do is create a three day festival, right?
- [09:15]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
They do and it's quite interesting. So the Hallows like, like All Hallowed Halls is, I think of, I'm trying to think of the term hallow we use perhaps more and we don't think of it, that, that is the meaning of it in the English term. You know, the, the double E N is evening. So it's like a conjunction, you know, contraction of that. So All Hallows Evening, it's the sacred evening and that is very much the church coming through in that term and particularly All Saints Day. So you have All Saints Day and All Souls Day. So you have the evening. And in the Celtic calendar everything starts the night before. So we think of the holiday being the 31st of October, but it's really the evening of the 31st. And then on the 1st we have All Saints Day and the 2nd day, All Souls Day. So all of that is coming together. So absolutely we see the church giving its dates to coincide with the calendar and how it was already looked at.
- [10:16]
Don Wildman
It's so fascinating because you find the similarities between Christmas and all the Easter, all those other holidays. Holidays are basically pre Christian holiday festival times appropriated into it, which makes perfect practical sense. They're trying to, you know, encourage people to, you know, come to church and understand, well, of course you're going to do this on the same calendar that they're used to. Plus it fits again with the agrarian culture that we live in here. But very similar traditions are practiced.
- [10:44]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes, yes, and so we see that. And I suppose what makes it really interesting in Ireland, particularly for Halloween, the quarter days in General, you do have that supernatural element. So you have the world of the dead, you have the supernatural, and then you have the world of the living. So that kind of triad is what really makes Halloween very strong here in Ireland. So when I speak of May Day on the 1st of May, the supernatural is really strong on that day as well. But we don't have those other elements. So that hasn't really carried off into the way in which we kind of look at our calendar customs today as. So as much as Halloween has and that connection to the dead.
- [11:25]
Don Wildman
Yeah, let's talk about the customs. So we have very similar to modern times, people dressing in costumes. There are even carved pumpkins or other vegetables as well. Turnips done. How did the. What was the function of these customs in terms of communicating with the dead? Why did the church want us to do this?
- [11:48]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Well, the church wanted. I don't know. Again, the church would want you to come into church. As a child growing up in Chicago, I had to come home and take off my costume and go to mass on Halloween because the next day was a holy day of obligation. So you do see, the church does have that. Now, interestingly enough, in the secular calendar in America, it's never been a day off like other holidays, so it's never received that status in America, but yet it still exists really strongly. So we see that the customs, a lot of it in the Irish tradition is that engagement with the supernatural and then other customs are involved, engaging with the world of the dead and those that have come before us. So the dead side in Ireland was a much more kind of cleaning the house, kind of preparing for those who may be coming back, visiting gravesides, similar to the Day of the Dead, as we have in Mexico. The supernatural side is trying to dress so that you're protecting yourself. Like the other world are not like happy little fairies that are not going to mess with you. They will absolutely spend time at. Kind of giving you a hard time at what you can do and what can happen. And the whole concept in Irish tradition of the changeling, that your kind of spirit, your, you know, what makes you you, is stolen by the other world. And a changeling of a fairy person has been left inside the human body that you have. So you're warding that off.
- [13:25]
Don Wildman
Yeah. You're talking about the different categories of the dead.
- [13:29]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes. And just to say the supernatural are not the dead. And I think that's what's really hard in America to understand, is that the supernatural. Now, there are other. There are theories in where the supernatural come from in Ireland, you know, this kind of otherworldly, the mythological cycle, you know, are they fallen angels that are never going to make it into heaven? And in a way, so they're not the dead as such. They are like a third category that gets lost in America and it really becomes a much more binary thing of the living and the dead. And then particularly in America, going through the kind of Victorian Gothic period, that horror element comes through. And also in American tradition, that fear of hell and damnation, that is now how we see Halloween in America, but that is not how you see Halloween in Ireland. That kind of binary is not as strong here. Now. It may be here much stronger because American culture is coming back and influencing Irish culture and how we see things. But earlier traditions would not have had that here. And that when we think of that, it's so 18th century America, is it not? You know, you're being damned. You're, you know, the whole how you need to behave, you know, conforming to society, all of that is coming through. And the threat of Halloween and the threat of hell is what is really emphasized in America.
- [15:03]
Don Wildman
It's so interesting. And of course, we have to get to the talk about the dynamic of immigration. I mean, this all happens because of the gigantic amount of immigration that happens in the 1800s primarily, but even before that. And so that's where these traditions are first coming from. On Moss, I just want to back up a little bit because I think we've skipped over an important fact and that this end of harvest time is treated in such a way that the realm of the dead and the supernatural, as you're saying, is closest at this time to the human realm. What do they mean by that?
- [15:34]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Again? I think so that is this sense so against why we see in Irish tradition the sense of divination is stronger than other times of the year because of that connection. And this is that, you know, you keep on hearing this kind of phrase, that the veil is very thin between this world and the other world. And then the return of the dead at this time of the year kind of is another layer that adds to making what could be an ordinary day of the year much more extraordinary. So similar to that, that supernatural side of things, why we need to protect ourselves from the supernatural is because of that. And then why we are so engaged with the dead is because of this time of the year as well. So again, it's kind of in Irish tradition, those two realms are kept very separately. But that wasn't carried over into America.
- [16:34]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it's Very fascinating because you have to consider the pre scientific period, you know, even today, you know, in our very scientific period, we're walking around, it's just. It's colder, the grass dies, the leaves fall off, the. You know, all these sort of mysterious events are happening, and we still consider them rather magical, even though we know exactly why they're happening. So now transport yourself back into the mind of someone who doesn't have those reference points, any of that education. And they are just dealing with like, am I going to die in this winter? Are my children going to die? You know, what can I do to protect myself against this incredibly overwhelming period that we're about to go through where it's cold and there's no heat. You're burning, Pete, just to stay alive. All that stuff is going to happen for the next six months. And we better figure out, you know, some sort of communication with these. These spirits that are affecting us this way. Am I saying it right?
- [17:25]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
You're saying it right. And then I also think when you talk about America, like, think of it, an autumn in New England is amazing.
- [17:32]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [17:33]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Because the leaves are so much brighter in America than they are in Europe. And I always try and think of, like, New England, hence its name. Feels very much like Europe. But then what is different? And autumn or fall, Fall in New England feels really different. Like, it's so intense and the colors just. You would feel like you're at home, but it's slightly different. So I think it's quite interesting that it is that season in America that has still kind of captured that magic that we think of from the pre American period, from the European kind of experience.
- [18:14]
Don Wildman
Yes. When we come back after this break, we're going to talk about how this all becomes very spooky. There's a whole cultural reason for that as well, not to mention commercial.
- [18:30]
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- [19:02]
Matt Lewis
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- [19:07]
Holly Nielsen
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- [19:09]
Matt Lewis
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- [19:15]
Holly Nielsen
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- [19:32]
Matt Lewis
To the rise and fall of a pirate republic.
- [19:37]
Holly Nielsen
So grab your hidden assassin's blade and.
- [19:39]
Matt Lewis
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- [19:55]
Don Wildman
Okay, we're back with Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald talking about Halloween. So with the Irish immigration over the centuries comes the tradition. You know, we're moving over to North America now for real. Halloween, which was an annual pre Christian turned Christian festival, happens after the harvest winter coming on now. As more and more Irish come to America, the ideas and traditions of Samhain come with them, but they alter in profound ways in this period of time. And I'm talking about the early 19th century, primarily religiously. America is a very intense place, particularly in this period. We're in the second Great Awakening at this moment. Along come these Irish with these sort of mythical crazy ideas and magical things with fairies and all the rest. They don't kid around about the afterlife. And suddenly you're combining this with the American religiosity. Talk about that period of time as we transition.
- [20:49]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
It's a really interesting time when we think of that because of course were looking at this is the Roman Catholicism coming into America in a way that it hadn't been prior to that. So the role of the saints and the role in which Roman Catholics practice their religion is coming through. So you have that side of it that's really shaping America in a certain way. And then you have also that other side of it where the kind of more secular legends associated with looking at Jack o' Lantern and the importance of having these kind of lanterns to either whether we want to look at them from the religious side of things or if we're looking at them in that kind of more spirited, fun engagement with that time of the year.
- [21:40]
Don Wildman
Yeah, well, we already mentioned this in the previous part. Suddenly deadness becomes a big deal as opposed to the mythical side of this. And that's what just to review. I mean, there are two separate worlds here for the Irish that arrive in America or any of these Celtic religion types who are looking at two sort of mythical worlds with fairies and so forth. And then there's this sort of dead quality.
- [22:05]
Matt Lewis
I don't Know how to say it?
- [22:06]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes.
- [22:07]
Don Wildman
And in America, it really shifts heavy duty onto the dark side.
- [22:11]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Right, onto the dark side. And we could see this happening in England. So it's almost. The Anglo world is very. If you think if Victorian Gothic horror, that's what's really coming to the fore, also the growth of the occult and the engagement with the occult. So again, the occult activities in the 19th century that we think of with the occult is trying to prove that the supernatural exists. Right. So it's again, as science is growing and we can prove that things exist, when we think of the seances and we think of all of this kind of coming on, on stream in the 19th century, they're trying to prove that the supernatural can be proven to exist like any other type of scientific experiment. So it's a really interesting time in terms of science and in terms of beliefs and in terms of people having fun.
- [23:06]
Don Wildman
Isn't it interesting how we're still sort of in this wiggly period where we're kind of still getting used to this science taking over and giving up on this mythical. I mean, you see it on television with these ghost hunters and all that. It's still this, this. This desire to believe in this world, which is in direct conflict with all the scientific explanation. And Halloween sits right in the middle of that, doesn't it?
- [23:29]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Absolutely, it sits right in the middle of that. And we see then again, all like proving that the ghosts exist. And also from a Roman Catholic point of view, the ghosts are very strong because purgatory is very strong. So purgatory wouldn't been a big thing in America because Protestant faiths tend to not engage with purgatory. You know, all of that is kind of being cleaned up, but they do engage with hell, and you are going to go to hell. So even when we see those kind of switches in how religious perspectives happen, we see that having an influence on this kind of magical side of things. So the growth. And also think of it, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, all of that that's coming on stream in the 19th century through literature and other aspects of culture, is having its impact on the vernacular ways in which people are experiencing the calendar year.
- [24:25]
Don Wildman
Well, the famous American author Washington Irving does his own number with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He's very much picking up on this Victorian idea, isn't he?
- [24:33]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Absolutely. Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I don't. That is, when we think of it, and it's quite interesting when we think of American Gothic horror, it is Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It's kind of this Cortex. And interestingly enough, with the growth of literacy, the growth of the short story in America, it is interesting that it's not an oral tradition that's really shaping culture, but it's the impact of a short story or this collection of short stories and something from it. So we're seeing the ways in which transmission of culture and knowledge is changing in America, but yet the message is still very similar into what people would have been engaging with in previous kind of ways, in which media would have been circulated.
- [25:16]
Don Wildman
Give that the backdrop of the mercantile era of America, which I'm constantly talking about on this series, which is the first half of the 19th century, as people realize they can change their life by making money. And that changes American culture forever. And so all kinds of thrilling ideas like death and gore and the entertainment value of fear is embraced. And that becomes a way of selling short stories, publishing things, and eventually selling candy is really where this all goes to, isn't it?
- [25:47]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Selling candy and selling costumes. I guess in America growing up, you wouldn't. We wouldn't have had as many homemade costumes. It was always you'd buy your costume. And again, here in Ireland, you make do with what you have. And I think really interesting, why people are kind of interested in Halloween and going back to previous times is because it has that less commercial side to it. But absolutely. I mean, the American market today for Halloween is massive.
- [26:13]
Don Wildman
Yeah.
- [26:14]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Decorations alone is huge.
- [26:16]
Don Wildman
Well, we'll get to that in a moment. I do want to circle back to what you mentioned, the Day of the Dead. It's a really good connection there to make with our Mexican neighbors, that they have their own day of that. That is exactly the same idea that you're connecting with the dead, that you're connecting with this other realm. Not necessarily in a terrible, fearful way, but at least, but in a way that's helping your own life. There's a holistic aspect to it, isn't there?
- [26:39]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
It's holistic. And again, that Mexican. That Roman Catholic influence on the Mexican traditions for it is how you see it in Ireland as well. It's very parallel. So really, when we think of Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and the way in which they engage with the ancestors is the way we could see it happening in Ireland as well. You know, it may not have had as much. You know, again, the Day of the Dead have so much kind of material culture that's been created with it. It is such an iconic imagery. You know, you see any of that and you. You know it straight away. So again, it's kind of interesting in that way in the new world how all of that material culture and creating stuff is really to the fore really, really strongly.
- [27:25]
Don Wildman
Let's look at a few staples of the American Halloween celebration. The idea of dressing up, as mentioned, goes straight back to Ireland. We didn't really define why so much those costumes sort of saved, served the same purpose as these other symbols. Basically a communication with the dead. And the crazier the costume, the more protection you had, is that right?
- [27:46]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Well, and not so much with the dead, but warding off the supernatural, the whole, you don't want to be stolen, you don't want to be taken into the other world. So again, the landscape here in Ireland is, you know, you see quote unquote, fairy forts everywhere that people would have believed that that was like a fairy wrath or a fairy fort that could take you into the other world, you know. And think of how many stories throughout human history do we have of engagement with the underworld or another world are being taken there so parallel to that. So that's why we have this kind of guising or this mumming or dressing up is that kind of protective side of it. But then when we think of in America, that dressing up is almost to engage with the dead in a very different way because we have skeletons and we have ghosts and we have. So again, the American imagery really plays into the dead and creates the dead to take on this kind of more magical side of things than would have originally been there. So, yeah, the dancing skeleton, case in point, you know, that is a very new world. Whether it's Day of the Dead or American Image, it's very strong.
- [29:04]
Don Wildman
I'll be back with more more American history after this short break.
- [29:11]
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- [29:41]
Matt Lewis
Ever wondered what it was like to plot the assassination of Julius Caesar?
- [29:46]
Holly Nielsen
To stage the Boston Tea Party?
- [29:48]
Matt Lewis
Or to orchestrate Blackbeard's final stand on the high seas? I'm Matt Lewis.
- [29:55]
Holly Nielsen
I'm Holly Nielsen and we're the hosts of Echoes of History, the podcast that goes behind the scenes of the iconic game series Assassin's Creed, we're on a mission to uncover just how the game creators recreate all of the most nail biting pivotal moments in history. From the bloody ides of March to.
- [30:12]
Matt Lewis
The rise and fall of a pirate republic.
- [30:17]
Holly Nielsen
So grab your hidden assassin's blade and.
- [30:19]
Matt Lewis
Blueprint and join us every week on Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit.
- [30:34]
Don Wildman
Well, it's so heavily commercialized now, we're basically talking about comic book characters. But really there is something more subtle going on here, which is the big message of this whole episode is to say this all dates back to a very subtle and very sophisticated effort among civilizations, pre Christian civilizations, to deal with the mystery of death, to communicate with those that they believed were there, and to try to preserve your own life in a, in a very healthy way. It was very interesting. There are pictures of all sorts of young boys would cross dress to trick the fairies. You know, who are these traditionally sort of feminine characters?
- [31:09]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yeah. So again, it would have been seen that the other world favored boys over girls. So quite often you see young boys in dresses to try and trick the other world.
- [31:18]
Don Wildman
They were afraid of the spirits taking them to the other world. Therefore you disguise yourself in order to stop the unfriendly spirits from recognizing them. That's the heart of the matter with this whole costuming, which I love the word I just learned in this mumming and guising. I guess those are two adjectives that are saying, you know, basically dressing up in costume. But mumming is interesting because I'm from Philadelphia and the, the mummers parade is every, you know, after Christmas and these guys dress up in these crazy feather costumes and play banjos. And it was all part of the same effort basically to fool the other world.
- [31:53]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes. So here in Ireland, Halloween is like the beginning of the mumming tradition. And as you go on into the year, you have the Christmas mummers, you have the day after Christmas here, St. Stephen's Day. So you're catching the rand. So you're dressing up then. And really up until the 1st of February for the bitty boys, there's mumming or fancy dress in Irish tradition in this dark half of the year.
- [32:17]
Don Wildman
What's a bitty boy?
- [32:19]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Bitty named for Bridget. So her boys, they dress up for St Bridget. So they're the Bitty Boys on the 1st of February.
- [32:26]
Don Wildman
Now, trick or treating roots from something called souling. Is that correct?
- [32:30]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Again, we have trick or treating and the soul cakes or the souling. Again, it's quite interesting how the Christian element and the sense of charity has really come through. And this homos, you know, the alms are being paid to pray for people's souls. You know, something that, you know, that sense of charity and poor people would take on this sense of praying. So again, soul cakes being given out being very much connected to that Christian side of it. And then the whole side of the trick or treat is again, when we see in this world, people are kind of threatening, so the other world exists. And then this gives license for the natural world to behave as if the other world behaves right. So if the other world is going to play tricks on us, then we too in the natural world can threaten to play tricks. And whether that's pouring water down someone's chimney, pulling up the cabbages, all the different ways tricks would have been given out to members of the community for not giving a bit of apples or nuts or what have you in the house.
- [33:41]
Don Wildman
My understanding, though, I had it written down on some piece of paper that souling was a visitation from house to house back in the day.
- [33:49]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes, sorry, souling again. But in that Christian. So the soul cakes is connected to that? Yes, souling is, and it's a very Christian thing.
- [33:58]
Don Wildman
I want to talk about where the mischief aspect comes into this. Now, my hometown, southern New Jersey, we would have Mischief Night for a long time. When I was a kid that was really kind of embraced and everybody kind of got into the fun of it. And then the cops got really mad at us and we stopped allowing us to throw rocks at people's houses and stuff like that, and it got a little ugly. So they shut down Mischief Night in my youth, which was so tragic. But that was part of what you're talking about, the pouring down of water in the chimneys. It was part of the festival, right?
- [34:27]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yes. And when was Mischief Night?
- [34:29]
Don Wildman
The night before Halloween.
- [34:30]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Oh, interesting.
- [34:31]
Don Wildman
It had to do with the fact that the football game was also thrown on that if it happened to be a Friday night, which was great, it was a great night.
- [34:38]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
It's a fantastic. And again, I love it because I think it's really interesting when society allows people to behave in a way that's not accepted on the everyday. You kind of get it out you can do, you know, within reason. Obviously the police force in southern New Jersey weren't happy. But it's really interesting that it allows, particularly young kids or young boys, a bit of tomfoolery, a bit of getting up to mischief. And I think it's really interesting. Yes, it's a purge.
- [35:10]
Don Wildman
It was kind of a purge. And you looked forward to it.
- [35:13]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
I didn't want to use that term.
- [35:14]
Don Wildman
No. But you focused all your efforts on that night and everybody knew it was all tongue in cheek. If you were, you know, toilet papering your neighbor's tree, it was all because you're friends. It was okay. It was a goofy thing to do.
- [35:24]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
And that's really interesting how you brought kind of American football into this as well, because think of the, like, around homecoming time this time, the harvest, the house is being TP'd. All of that sense of mischief is really interesting to see. So are these remnants of previous times that this was the time of year for that to happen?
- [35:43]
Don Wildman
It's really interesting, but we've already staked our ground here that the fact is that the American culture absorbs this Irish tradition and therefore then commercializes eventually, which is what America does. It's about making money. And that's when all this Victorian imagery becomes very, very useful and valuable and we move into Hollywood area. And that's where the mummy comes into it, the zombies come into it. Everything becomes a useful element of the Halloween. It's year round, of course, people are getting scared and movies all the time, but Halloween becomes a sort of anchor point to it all, doesn't it?
- [36:19]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Yeah. And we think of it, if we think of again, Dracula and the early images in film of the, you know, the growth of vampires and Dracula, Frankenstein within the film industry, it's really interesting. That's one form of medium. But again, if you think of the end of the 19th century and the kind of color lithograph plates, you know, the imagery and circulating, cheap imagery is becoming really strong. So if you think of it, those Christmas cards at the end of the 19th century that are really colorful and we're still really tied to that imagery in terms of how we celebrate these times of the year. It's quite interesting to see how technology, when that kind of advances, if we want to use that term, or changes, can have such an impact that over 100 years later, we're still relating to that imagery.
- [37:12]
Don Wildman
Isn't it interesting, though, in our age, all these three holidays, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas have all been mashed together. And now your church is your Lowe's hardware store. And you go in and it's like it's Christmas already, even a week before Halloween. But that's kind of symbolic in an interesting cultural way, because many of us don't go to church as much as we used to. And so you didn't have these Specific festivals being celebrated the same way. And so it's all been mercantile together. And that's the world we live in today.
- [37:40]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
And it's kind of interesting just in some ways, people who do go to church. Church is very specific for what you do there. It can be quite binary in that sense. So you have this kind of much more secular way in which you have all these other elements that would have been religious to you originally. So whether you're religious or not, you have this much more secular commercial engagement with it now.
- [38:02]
Don Wildman
Yeah, exactly. Well, it's important, though, to keep in mind in the back of our heads as our children go out onto the streets, that they're taking part in an ancient tradition. It's fascinating and rather lovely, too.
- [38:12]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
It's really important and it's quite interesting even now within communities. What day is such a strong day for the community where all the kids are out, parents come out, the neighborhood looks very different. It's not a religious holiday in America, so it's not like Christmas or, you know, again, it's quite interesting in that secular way that it's been absorbed.
- [38:36]
Don Wildman
Absolutely right. So all of this being said about the origination, is Ireland Halloween much different than American Halloween today?
- [38:43]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
It's quite interesting when we look at Halloween in Ireland today. It's wonderful because I've never done any fieldwork in a community that doesn't have Halloween happening there. I do think that the. The supernatural has kind of become a bit more downplayed. And this more binary of this world and the world of the dead, as we see in America, is much stronger here. But here in Ireland, it's the time of year for fireworks. So again, in America, you have the fourth of July. In Ireland, fireworks happen at Halloween. And again, it makes sense because you can actually light fireworks at a time because it's becoming so dark. So the evening time allows it. It is quite interesting in America that we use fireworks on fourth of July when it's like the longest day of the year. Around that time.
- [39:33]
Don Wildman
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald is the head of the School of Irish Celtic Studies and Folklore, a University college, Dublin. Boy, am I jealous of your career. That must be fun. Thank you so much for joining us, Kelly. Really appreciate it.
- [39:43]
Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald
Thank you. Thank you.
- [39:46]
Don Wildman
Hey, thanks for listening to American history hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out. Which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American history. Hit with me. Don Wildman, so grateful for your support.