31st October is celebrated in Scotland as Halloween and many adults regret the passing of how they would have marked the event in their childhood days. It seems that even in 1863, as this account from The Orkney Herald on 17th November states, Halloween is not as it once was.
Auld Callant writes:
Halloween ! In the days of my boyhood there was magic in the name. Long before the day arrived we hoarded up all the apples, turnips and cabbage stalks we could either steal or beg. It was impossible to sleep on the night preceding the auspicious eve. What glorious groups might be seen on the school green that day! What earnest whisperings! What knowing looks! What bursts of uncontrollable boyish glee!
The proceedings of the evening commenced with the tub and apples. The old folks looked leniently upon the escapades of Halloween and I wonder much if fathers and mothers are so indulgent to their offspring now. The ‘dooking’ went on vigorously and with much uproarious mirth until the floor was flooded , and then the old folks thought it necessary to interfere. A string was next suspended to a ‘cleek’ in the roof, to the lower extremity of which a short stitch was attached, having a piece of candle fixed on one end and an apple on the other. The string was then made to swing backwards and forwards, like a pendulum, or to sweep round in a circle, and many were the mouthfuls of candle and bumps on the nose received by the group of snatchers and biters. The youth who could seize a section of the much abused apple between his teeth was looked upon as a perfect hero.
The turnip lantern was a great affair.
At this point the writer goes on to describe the turnip lantern in what we now quite rightly consider racist terms – so sometimes old traditions and ways of celebrating them benefit from change.
It was the custom of the boys to form in a line…each one armed with a heavy turnip or a strong ‘kail runt’ and as soon as the ring leader gave the word of command, we rushed impetuously onwards, smashing at every door in succession, and making them rattle through all their bolts and bars.
Smeaking: We begged, borrowed or cribbed a good cabbage stalk. This runt or stalk of the cabbage, we hollowed out with our pokcet knives making the aperture wide at one end and narrow at the other. We then stuffed the hollow stalk full of tow, and into this tow we conveyed a hot cinder. …we slipped quietly to the door or window of a house and breathed volumes of stifling smoke through the most convenient aperture we could find.
Halloween has certainly changed – and perhaps for the better.
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