Tomorrow the 1st November is All Saints Day, making the 31st of October ‘All Saints or All Hallows Eve’; this has been elided to give us the name Halloween. The 2nd of November is All Souls Day when we remember all who have died, but most particularly our departed friends and family.
There are a wide range of customs liked to these festivals including: visiting family graves at this time, to decorate with flowers or lighted candles; watching over family graves through the night; taking food to the graveyards for a family picnic but with provision also being made for the needs of the dead; or leaving food out in your own home for any deceased relatives who make use of the this time of year to visit their old haunts.
Aspects of these grew out of older pagan traditions, including the Celtic Samhain, the night of the 31st October when it was believed that the doors between this world and the next were open so that the dead could return during the hours of darkness.
An associated British tradition is the telling of ghost stories and tales of the supernatural. There are a number of local ghost stories: there are the various ghosts of highwaymen on the A515, usually Dick Turpin, associated with the old Newhaven Inn and the Bull i’the Thorn; there are ‘the things that go bang’ in the night at Hallgates in Parwich; there is the mysterious horseman at Two Dales Barn; there is the mysterious beast of Carsington (sightings started in the 1990s); and even UFOs over Minninglow. Do feel free to add your ghost stories as comments below, or email them to parwich@hotmail.co.uk to be made into separate posts.
‘Trick or Treating‘ is a modern phenomenon, though paralleling other the much older traditions including the British ‘Mischief Night’ which many of our less young readers will remember. Feel free to add any Mischief Night stories as comments below or email them to parwich@hotmail.co.uk. Trick or Treating seems to have started in the USA in the 1930s and it was only in the 1980s and 90s that it spread to Britain, and the rest of the world, perhaps the result of increased exposure to American films and TV. Here we have children disguised as the dead or other world creatures demanding special food (ideally sweets) from the living.
Well I had better stop as I need to go to a supermarket to stock up on libations and offerings for the local other world beings.
PARWICH.ORG 
In 2003 we had an evening of ghost stories, some of which the Society published in our Newsletter, here is one of these from from our website relating to Gardener’s Cottage:
Whether it was the promise of a storm hanging heavy in the air or the time of year or the recent conviviality, conversation and drink but Ken is clear about what he actually saw. He is clear about the time and the person stood there on the front stairs.
We had risen early, at 5.30 in the morning, on Whit Monday to go to Bampton in Oxfordshire where each year the Morris Dancers weave in and out the houses for the whole of the Monday; a ritual that has gone on for hundreds of years.
Ken was quieter than usual as we motored through a quiet bank holiday midland countryside and quieter still as we enjoyed our first pint with a cooked breakfast at 8.30 am in a Bampton pub. It was not until later in the day that he gave a matter of fact account of what he has seen earlier that morning. As he came down the stairs he had to pass a man who was standing stock still. He was wearing mole-skin trousers, gaiters, rough type of coat and a swarthy complexion. Ken had to squeeze past him and could almost feel the warmth of his breath.
Ken told the story to me almost as if describing the morning milk delivery. There was no sense of drama in his account, just a rather surprised and wistful pondering on the mystery of things. When he related this to me we were watching Bampton Morris dancing on the same lawn as they had for hundreds of years. Ken was merely recounting his strange experience as a way of illustrating how time past can occasionally impress itself onto our present experience – of how sometimes the two seem to become muddled.
It was only months later when looking at the census returns for 1841 that we discovered, living in our cottage at that time, was a Samuel Johnson. Could there be any connection? I doubt it, but when I phoned this information through to Ken Johnson I think I detected a silence at the other end of the phone just for one muddled moment.
Here is a Halloween ghost story from a bit further a field:
The island of South Uist in the Outer Hebrides is still Roman Catholic and some of the older traditions lasted longer here. The tradition of watching over the graves of departed family members on Halloween is now completely lost in Britain, though still found in some southern European and South American countries.
Well it was not that long ago that it died out in South Uist, and one year an old woman hating to see the old customs disappear completely set to spend the night in the ancient cemetery of Howmore all alone.
She sat with here back against the ruined medieval chapel, burial place of the Clan Chiefs, built on a Neolithic burial mound. Not wanting to waste the time she had brought here spinning, just a distaff and weights for hand spinning. However as the darkness deepened she was not to get much spinning done.
All round her people of all shapes and sizes and all styles of dress and undress arose from their graves. They certainly made a weird throng because the burial ground has been in use for over five thousand years. The woman huddled frozen while the ghostly crowd dispersed.
As the night wore on, one by one the spirits returned. The old woman could not move for terror; she had never believed the stories told to her as a child about Halloween. The hours passed and eventually they had all returned, but no one grave was still empty.
The empty grave was not far from where the old woman sat, and gradually her curiosity began to get the better of fear. As the first sign of dawn appeared over the mountains she cautious put her distaff across the grave.
Then suddenly the spirit of a young woman stood there unable to enter the grave. Now the old woman lost all restrained and out came a torrent of questions: “What is happening? Why did all the ghosts leave their graves? Where did they all go? Who are you and why are you so much later than everyone else?”
The young woman answered:
“On All Hallows Eve, the spirits of the dead return to earth, rise from their graves and visit the places that in life they knew and loved. I was buried here hundreds of years ago.”
“I was the maid of Norway and the King my father had promised my hand to the King of Scotland. Although late in the year we set out by boat from Oslo to meet the Scottish court at Iona for the wedding. We had fine weather passed the Northern Isles and Cape Wroth, but off the Western Isles a wild Atlantic storm drove us onto the cruel rocks of Skier How. Dashed against the rocks, our boat fell apart and I was drowned. The monks buried here by the ancient monastery.”
“And you know it’s an awful long way to traipse to back to Norway, which is why I always get back so much later than everyone else.”