All Hallows' Even

Today, the 31st is Halloween. While the holiday originates from the USA, it is popular all over the world these days.

Halloween means Hallows Eve (the eve before the Day of the Dead, on the 1st of November), and its origins are Celtic. 2,500 years ago the Celtic people from what is now the UK celebrated New Years Eve at the end of the summer, not in December, and for them this day was the 31st of October. For some reason, the Celts thought that on this day the spirits would come out of their tombs and walk the earth. To scare off the spirits, people decorated their houses with bones and other scary objects that would ward off the spirits. 

Nowadays, Halloween is most celebrated in Anglo-saxon cultures where people dress up like monsters and fantasy creatures and do Trick-or-Treating.  Most homes, put a Jack-o-lantern outside on the doorstep (I have 6!)

Halloween is now popular in many other countries thanks to movies and TV shows that have shown this fun holiday. Really, it is pretty fun to dress up like a witch, a zombie, or a vampire! I do it every year and it's about a month of planning and cracking the head as to what to dress up as.  I chose to be the Dark Widow this year :0) Why?  I just thot it was sexy :)

Hey if dressing up and trolling about isn't your thing you could always just get together with friends and watch horror flicks.  The Shining, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Chucky...! Since I'm a scardy cat to all degrees when it comes to watching horror flicks, the earlier is so much less of a hassle.  I remember watching 3/4 of Jaws from under the seat! Heaven only knows how i survived the Haunted Forest on Thursday nite. I kid you not, when i say that more adults had the crap scared outta them than the kids...*shudders* 


And now I leave you to go create mayhem with other ghosts, ghouls, goblins, demons, witches, vampires. To stand around a couldron, mix and chant and down its poisons...HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

      Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
       Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.
       Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!
        Round about the caldron go;
    In the poison'd entrails throw.—
    Toad, that under cold stone,
    Days and nights has thirty-one;
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot! 

       Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

       Fillet of a fenny snake,
    In the caldron boil and bake;
    Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
    Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
    Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
    Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
    For a charm of powerful trouble,
    Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

       Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

       Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
    Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
    Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
    Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;
    Liver of blaspheming Jew;
    Gall of goat, and slips of yew
    Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;
    Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
    Finger of birth-strangled babe
    Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,—
    Make the gruel thick and slab:
    Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
    For the ingrediants of our caldron. 

      Double, double toil and trouble;
    Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

       Cool it with a baboon's blood,
    Then the charm is firm and good.