Arcadia Discussion Zone

Is this the new trend? I mean whenever an approaching holiday comes up there is a spate of gore-splat fliks to enhance the day in question.

Here are some samples for hollow weenie...
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3477583/t ... e_trailer/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3539161/t ... nt_clip_8/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3513275/z ... lip_clown/
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3449499/s ... e_trailer/

or this sort of stuff..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cshjRyIg ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuyIxKrw ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zF4sCKE ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiPr7G83 ... re=related

myths of babylon perhaps?...
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16653
http://www.rense.com/general87/tower.htm
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1130

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2792023/a ... r_21_2012/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and- ... is-coming/
http://books.google.se/books?id=Qr6_q-c ... q=&f=false
http://blog.beliefnet.com/apagansblog/2 ... anism.html

http://www.controverscial.com/In%20Wors ... 0Trees.htm

do treehuggers have more fun?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0qU8Xvb ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pru3feQ ... re=related

One modern development of Halloween I'm not happy with is the practice to mimic the American practice and use pumpkins for Halloween lanterns rather than the traditional turnip (neep) ones. The neep heid lanterns go back to time immemorial, and there is a wonderful aroma from burnt turnip.


When chapman billies leave the street,

&

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn

&

"Weel done, Cutty-sark !"

&

Ah, Tam ! Ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'
In Hell they'll roast thee like a herrin !

Burns - Tam O' Shanter

I've never heard of turnip lanterns before but I shall bring back the tradition to my windowsill this Hallowe'en - thank you!

VAM

Hi Pilrig,

The turnip was not used when I was a kid, 'cuz during WW2 what was not sold commercially went to hog farmers. The pumpkin took over by default, plus the pumpkin pie trend took off like a rocket when I was young. Many other so-called lowly vegetables were 're-discovered' during the depression years in the U.S.

Apple pie is always tasty, but pumpkin pie is more filling. It created a big seasonal demand and the hollowed out pumpkin allowed for more fanciful face carving. Even here in Sweden where Halloween is being pushed by the retailers to encourage folk to go back to this 'lost' vestige of their pagan past.

Even tho' Roscoe waxes on 'boot how olde the pagan traditions supposedly are in Sweden, only the maypole+ bonfire stuff remains. Quite a few older generation here are complaining bitterly 'boot having an amareekin folk tradition jammed down Swedish throats. Roscoe will bill quite upset to come here and fond that Norwegians + some trendy Danes are more active when it comes to pagan revelry.

A Scottish tradition, as is the childhood Halloween practice of guising (disguising) or as our friends across the Atlantic refer to it 'trick or treat'. Except the guisers are expected to sing a song or tell a joke for their pennies (or pounds now, inflation being as it is).

So it's old, mean and stingy Jack of the Turnip in Purgatory taking advise from the Devil?
Somehow the Hessian rider in Sleepy Hollow with his turnip head in hand doesn't rate the same fear factor as a pumpkin but I've never seen a carved turnip.

http://www.pumpkinnook.com/facts/jack.htm

I don't know if Monsanto geneticized the lowly turnip to meet standardized EU size + shape regulations regarding agricultural produce, but turnips grown locally would not lend themself to being hollowed out, a candle set in place, a face image carved in. It'd have to be done by somebody who specializes in miniaturization.

Even the amount of greenery sprouting out of a turnip today does not match what I saw as a kid. If Scotland is still able to keep the seeds of these large turnips, they should take out a patent on them before Monsanto does, if they haven't already done so.

Teeny-bops here use hollow-weenie time as an excuse to get drunk + rowdy, to vandalize at will 'cuz they say its expected, yeah, sure. So much for selecting in the bad parts and tossing out the good parts like the baby in the bath water.

Perhaps I can quote from Alistair Moffat's learned book of 1999, Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms ?

The night before the Feast of All Souls is better known as Hallowe'en and still known in Gaelic as Oidhche Shamhna which takes place on 31 October. The remnants of the Celtic feast of Samhuinn thankfully persist, particularly in Scotland where children still dook for apple, trying to pull them out of tubs of water with only their teeth. Sticky buns are hung on threads and children coat their cheeks with sugar trying to bite them, again without using their hands. The great bonfires of Samhuinn have been historically moved four days later to accomadate Guy Fawkes, but the most potent symbol of all is still reserved exclusively for Hallowe'en. Turnip lanterns are the direct descendants of Druid ghost fences. As the darkness of winter closed in the Celts places the skulls of the dead on poles to drive away evil. Now children light candles inside hollowed vegetables to keep that tradition unbroken.

As far as I'm aware Monsanto don't sell their muck here. Might be wrong though, the world awaits the firdt genetically modified haggis ! There's already a vegetarian version

Drunk and rowdy on Hallowe'en and of course thye get their legs over ! As you see some traditions persist since time immemorial !

I'll remember this for 'new age celt loving' kin that insist otherwise when I tell them of rampant human sacrifice, going into battle nude with only a helmet, torque and sword belt on and returning home with fresh heads strung on their horses bridles.



As usual we tend to over do things here in all ways...



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Night

Jake is correct concerning our shrunken and impotent turnips. I may be able to squeeze small birthday candles into some and market them since we're still on a pseudo 'celtic pride' and ancestry trip here.

Sounds like Edinburgh's Lothian Road every Saturday night

Nuffink pseudo at this end of the keyboard. Tell it as it was and if that upsets the New Agers and the Holy Wullies...tough !


Strap yourself to the tree with roots

Bob Dylan - You Aint Goin' Nowhere

I never met a Scandinavian ever mention a Celtic background here, even tho' they did wander thru the lower stretches. Locals here insist only Goths got here and kept everybody else away. These Goths were yer garden variety tree hump pagan heathens, ya know the deal- Freja adoration.

The Vikings + berserkers came later on but adsorbed all ye olde gothic pagan-heathen traditions of their forebearers which remarkably 'nuff resemble what a garden variety Celt indulged in. A variety of animals, who knows, maybe tribal enemies were sacrificed on these festival daze here way back when.

I will have to check some so-called local 'pagans', usually metal music freaks and ask them what they get into on hollow-weenie nite, besides gettin' drunk, somethin' they do every weekend anyway. I asked the missus what did her neighbors do in Gothenburg when she was a lil' kid on Samhain. She said they get drunk + rowdy, the same as if thy were on their way to a soccer match.

Goin' berserk is more the tradition here than anything else, It helps to have inherited a predilection for Borderline Personality. The psychiatric assessment for Sweden, done by the Swedish answer to Freud, Johan Cullberg is 40-45% which they interpret as 'normal' since it reps nearly 1/2 of the native pop.

Since this aberrant viking bloodline was adsorbed into mainstream UK over 1,000 years ago, this predilection for Borderline Personality berserkers fits CHAVs and the hooligan krowd perfectly.

My maternal grandma was a Gunn from Caithness, and Clan Gunn are descended from the Vikings - as are lot of the natives in that county - but beserking ? Not guilty yer Honour !

Correction: maternal GREAT-grandma

Its amazing what a consistent diet of Scots food can do to tame them thar vikings. Here in Scandinavia going back to Viking times, a basic diet consisted of coarse bread, watery soups with what ever could be foraged. Vikings were not 'zakly into being yeoman ploughboys. They lived on the coast and what ever fish they caught went into the stew pot.

They drank mead and a primitive cider. There was game to be hunted, but in winter that was not so easy. Killing a moose with just a bow and arrow took considerable skill, unless there were many hunters. Then the hauling of a 1 ton carcass home was the next daunting task.

Since there were no roads in winter at that time, hacking out a clear path in the woods, clambering over boulder strewn ground was not for the timid. Swedish coastal areas can be quite rugged.

Smoked, salted fish year round, yum, yum, yeah sure. I'd go berserk if that was all I could look forward to, no wonder they preferred plundering places like Ireland + Scotland. At least they got haggis + baggis, hehehe

But ... the judge might just drop scottish whiskey over your head, fast and unseen, then turn you around and say: "Convict this man, he's drunk."

Noooooo!!

VAM

???

T'was the smoothest malt ever twixt my gums.

http://scotchwhisky.net/distilleries/isle_of_jura.htm

Hey TCJ its a straight shot over to North Ireland via the Giants Causeway to that Scots distillery, on the Irish side on the road leading up to the causeway is Bushmills Distillery. I wonder if they have a pipeline 'tween them.

Could be, never been there but a relative claims the locals told him that with a calm sea state a person can easily row to Ireland so maybe a few casks go back and forth.

I'll get there one day to but until then will keep sampling the stock brought home from his 'kin' visit.

Scottish whisk[b]E[b]y ??? It's our Irish and American friends who add the 'E' on to the, to be honest, gut rot they distill.
Nope, it's WHISKY.

Slainte mhath !

The pride of Caithness http://www.scotchwhisky.net/malt/old_pulteney.htm

On another tipple...there's a world of a difference between the Guinness brewed in Dublin ( and sold in Ireland) and the Guinness foisted on the rest of the world.

Indeed - I've heard tell it actually tastes good in Ireland!

VAM