12 | Steel Notes Magazine steelnotesmagazine . com | October 2014
night , “ Bogies ” ( ghosts ), influencing Robert Burns ’ “ Halloween ” ( 1785 ). Elements of the autumn season , such as pumpkins , corn husks and scarecrows , are also prevalent . Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween . Halloween imagery includes themes of death , evil , and mythical monsters . Black , orange , and sometimes purple are Halloween ’ s traditional colors .
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween . Children go in costume from house to house , asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money , with the question , “ Trick or treat ?” The word “ trick ” refers to “ threat ” to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given . The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming , which is closely related to souling ( discussed above ). John Pymm writes that “ many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church .” These feast days included All Hallows ’ Eve , Christmas , Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday . Mumming , practised in Germany , Scandinavia and other parts of Europe , involved masked persons in fancy dress who “ paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence .” Their “ basic narrative framework is the story of St . George and the Seven Champions of Christendom .”
4 Trick-or-Treating and Guising
In England , from the medieval period , up until the 1930s , people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween , which involved groups of soulers , both Protestant and Catholic , going from parish to parish , begging the rich for soul cakes , in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends . In Scotland and Ireland , guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins – is a traditional Halloween custom , and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips , visit homes to be rewarded with cakes , fruit and money . The practice of guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911 , where a newspaper in Kingston , Ontario reported children going “ guising ” around the neighborhood .
Souling was a Christian practice carried out in many English towns on Halloween and Christmas
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book length history of Halloween in the US ; The Book of Hallowe ’ en ( 1919 ), and references souling in the chapter “ Hallowe ’ en in America ”:
The taste in Hallowe ’ en festivities now is to study old traditions , and hold a Scotch party , using Burns ’ poem Hallowe ’ en as a guide ; or to go a-souling as the English used . In short , no custom that was once honored at Hallowe ’ en is out of fashion now .
In her book , Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic ; “ Americans have fostered them , and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas . All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries ”. While the first reference to “ guising ” in North America occurs in 1911 , another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears , place unknown , in 1915 , with a third reference in Chicago in 1920 .
The earliest known use in print of the term “ trick or treat ” appears in 1927 , from Blackie , Alberta , Canada :
Hallowe ’ en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun . No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels , gates , wagons , barrels , etc ., much of which decorated the front street . The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “ trick or treat ” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing .
The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating . The editor of a collection of over 3,000 vintage Halloween
12 | Steel Notes Magazine steelnotesmagazine . com | October 2014