As an American, hearing that the Brits, the Irish, the Welsh, and everyone else across the pond are in a snit about American Halloween celebrations feels a bit like having your parents sitting around complaining about where the !$@*! you learned those f$@*! swear words.
Boring people who don't want to give out sweets are in a snit. People who like Halloween think America is doing a great job and Pumpkin's are both easier to carve and cuter! I'd love it if we had those big fancy garden displays.
Welsh are Brits too. In fact they are the original Britons. They were called Welsh/British interchangeably by the invading Anglo-Saxons (English). If you are going to refer to Irish, Welsh, Scottish as singular nationalities, the one left over is the English - not Brits or British, that is everyone on the island of Great Britain. The people in England are called English, first and foremost.
I’m in Canada, watching this video while handing out chocolate bars to the ~100 children I expect at my door this evening, dressed as a (non-historically-accurate) pirate. I love Hallowe’en, especially for the fun and joy and generosity of the night. I was taken aback when I was visiting a friend in the UK on Hallowe’en 2019 and she was very snobbish about the season as an “American celebration of greed and gluttony” - we had to stay at the pub until the “risk of kiddies demanding sweets” was over. I’m very tempted to send her this video…
When I spent a trimester at a college in very small town in the U.S., I participated in what they called "Trick or Charity". Instead of collecting sweets for themselves, the students collected canned food and donated it to charity in the nearby city to feed the homeless and other people in need. I really love this take on Halloween!
I think Halloween is evolving in a beautiful way in the United States, since I was a kid. People have started having firepits in driveways, and there's a friendly, communal atmosphere of everyone getting out and meeting or communing with neighbors. Considering how much of life is online, and how many Americans don't know their neighbors, it's a wonderful development. And I love that it's just part of the 250 years of development since many of us left our homeland in the British Isles.
I remember bonfires on Halloween, the adults at around 8 o clock would make us all run home and hide in bed before the hwch ddu caught us, but let's be real, it was just an excuse to send all the kids home, so the adults could start getting absolutely hammered.
I named one of my cats Calan Gaef! She was a feral who showed up at my back door on Nov 1, 2015. I planned on trap, spay, return, but they botched tipping her ear and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I kept her isolated from my other cats in the bathroom until she healed enough to go back outside. And she refused. She still refuses to go anywhere near an outside door! So, yeah. She played quite the trick on me and now I have the treat of a shy, former feral who occasionally allows me to pet her.
When people say they have a problem with "American" Halloween, they really mean the consumerist aspects of it. Suddenly all this plastic tat appears in the shops and ... it seems so forced from above. That's how it's viewed in Australia anyway. We had no history of it twenty years go and now it's everywhere! Before I get grumped at, yes we do celebrate it in my household, my kids love it.
As a fellow Australian, it feels like an opportunity to shops to sell random bits of plastic that will be thrown away straight after Halloween. I moved to Melbourne this year and I saw more people in costume than I had in the rest of my life.
Yes, exactly. We have our traditions ( I’m from Germany) let’s practice them. St Martin is prevalent here, probably used to correlate with Samhain but Halloween has no tradition here. Why do the sell that stuff and people buy it🤦♀️
I fully support Jimmy in a jumper. Suits outside is a nice combo but cozy inside with a tea is a different type of nice. Also you in a jumper also supports other creators, who can't do fancy suits or outside. Making it normal and okay is a great way to support people with disabilities or have different financial priorities. 🤍🎶Love the outro music choice. Happy spooky and cozy season to you all! 🕊️
I was slightly confused by that part of the video because I have definitely been perceiving the suits outdoors as a new and rather startling development on this channel, and the jumper inside as the normal I am used to.😀
Edit: also, Mhara Starling is a Welsh pagan author who's written a lot on the topic I'd highly recommend checking out (she's written a book too). I celebrate it as Samhain, but yeah, the history behind it is always fun to point to whenever fundies or just boomers get red-faced over it. Blessed harvest festival to all, however you celebrate it.
In Portugal we have the 'santorinho', which is a tradition in which kids go door to door on the 31st Oct and all saints day (not just at night) and ask for gifts, which in my part of the country were traditionally nuts (which are in season now), cakes, and coins. My grandma also gave us chocolate. And we also visit and clean family graves on all saints day, which is a national bank holiday. Now I live in the UK I miss doing this, so sometimes I light a candle and reflect on those that have passed.
Grandmas are always the best for sneaky treats! What a lovely tradition in Portugal, I hope your new tradition brings you joy in rememberance and not too much of the bittersweet sadness that accompanies memories of our loved ones who have passed.
60 years ago, on the Isle of Man we used to go round the houses on Hop-tu-Naa. we dressed up and went with turnip (actually swede) lanterns singing "Jinny the Witch is in your house, give us a penny, we'll chase her out"
You are probably the only person who has talking head videos that I can watch straight through. Not only is your content great but it's just soothing and joy enducing to listen to you.
I might, respectfully, add a FOURTH tradition to the "syncretic mix' that you rightly point out: the New World's own Day of the Dead. While I doubt it gets wide observance in Edinburgh, it's a big enough deal here in Texas that we've actually GOT an altar erected at my workplace, today and tomorrow!
@@Caprabone Ummm….yeah: that’s where we picked it up from, obviously.🙄 My point was to talk about how well-accepted it is as a tradition even here in an “Anglo” stare like ours: doesn’t that mean I g go without saying?
I will never get over the fact that there is a Finnish harvest festival which has traditions that are incredibly similar to Samhain! The Finnish festival is called kekri and its roots are in peasant culture. During kekri it was believed that evil spirits as well as spirits of loved ones were moving around. It was also a transition time between the old year and the new year. There's also a tradition of young people dressing up and going door to door asking to have something from people's feasts, and threatening to do a prank if they didn't get it. Lanterns and bonfires were also important here because of course, we are in the north and nights are getting very dark this time of year. I don't think think there would have been much contact between Finnish and Celtic peasants in pre-modern society so I think it's fascinating how similar they really are! It's incredible how peasants all over the world have observed nature and come up with similar traditions. Of course, the impact of the church also shaped traditions in Finland, and common people held onto Catholic traditions for centuries after the reformation. That can also explain similarities.
Are the roots of these customs farther back maybe? Was it Celts that used to be allover Europe long ago? Some custom from that long ago that then evolved with some differences in different places? Or maybe everyone did it. Mexicans have a custom that’s clearly indigenous but corralled into All Saints’ Day by the church, so now it’s a mix. They didn’t fear the dead, they gave them food and drinks. Maybe all these customs are related to harvest being over and shorter days, making people think of the dead.
@@bmiles4131 I think it’s definitely because people followed nature very closely. Shorter days and nature ”dying” (preparing for winter) probably made people associate this time of year with death. It makes sense that there’s similar traditions all around the world, so cool!
Why not start your own autumn festival and do something different in spring like giving Halloween Ice cream cakes parties for friends in october, and make Mayday a time to dress up and scare people instead?
@@lucie4185 There probably springtime/autumn celebrations in southern hemisphere countries, that were suppressed by european colonization. We do have our own celebrations.
I have lived in enough countries to know "send the kids out of the house with a homemade lantern and/or costume" was an international thing, but the most interesting Halloween fact I learned this year was that the Romans celebrated Vestalia around this time of year and (among other, more Vestal things) dressed up donkeys with flowers and bread buns. And that feels like a too-far-apart-historically-and-geographically kind of thing to be related to Mari Lwyd and bara brith, but apparently that's just part of the vibe humanity gets this time of year.
I have to think pumpkins taking over from turnips isn't just they're easier to carve, but if you grow any sort of squash, you're desperate to find somewhere to put them or something to do with all of them at this time of year. Pumpkins are prolific, but not very cold-hardy. Where I live in the US, no-one would have turnips to carve in October because we just planted them (they're a fall crop in a lot of places here, and often left in the fields over winter), but there are pumpkins EVERYWHERE. There is something about this time of year for a lot of cultures--my people's pre-colonial calendar starts around the autumnal equinox, but we celebrate the Feast of the Dead at this time of year, which would have been right before the main long-distance hunt got underway. Effectively, this was the last major community event before everyone split off for a month or two to their hunting camps. Our Feast of the Dead is a little like Dia de los Muertos, but no so much the modern commercialized version. We tend graves before harsh winter weather sets in, it would be the main time to add a new layer to mortuary mounds/inter bones from the ossuary, and the time of the final ceremonial mourning event for family who had lost anyone during the past year. It would have been like a state fair, All Saints', the last day of school, and Memorial Day all rolled into one.
Not sure when or where or how it started, but I love how many areas now have a simple unspoken rule that any decorated property is signed up for the local variant of trick-or-treat/guising/mummers, but the undecorated ones are left in peace. Also, it's a brilliant video as always, a splendid jumper, and no excuses needed to be made...
I grew up with Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. Neither of which are from my genetic heritage, but we’re both firmly ensconced in the community I grew up in. Now I love the opportunity to dress up and then cook my painted pumpkins over the next few weeks. Thanks for this vid! I love the history of the weird things we do now.
Love the hair, love the jumper, you're looking ravishing. And you're speaking 3 languages again. I never knew Halloween made some Brits grumpy!😆It's my favorite holiday, when I actually get to celebrate it. Hard to do properly in Florida but back home in the way north we would do all these things -- self-harvest at U-Pick orchards, bonfire out in the woods drinking spiked (American) cider, corn dollies and all the rest. I took it for granted that everyone knew the history of Halloween. More importantly, I never knew the Celtic tradition of the day starting the night before. Daylight savings confounds me; I'll be driven to distraction by the Celtic calendar for weeks now. At least I'll be learning something. I'm shocked about the damned pig! There has been a baby black wild boar (no tail) running all over my neighborhood at night for a month..👁🐽👁Good thing I'm not superstitious. However no one wants to approach the thing because we're all afraid of where its mom might be. It seems happy enough; it's always playing in the yards and looks well fed. About your recipe, two questions: 1) Is the fruit fresh or dried? I've never seen a bara brith. And 2) Can you use any black tea? Sorry but it has to be done -- as a retired chef I have a thing for historic foods. I did try to carve a turnip once. Never again. And that zombie horse of yours is absolutely terrifying. Glad to see you around again, Jimmy!💜
Dried fruit (sultanas and raisins) is trad, so if you’re soaking it in the tea it swells up and gets a bit tea-y, and usually the only option would be “whatever tea the local grocer carried”, so I usually opt for a breakfast tea :) Beware the hwch!
In the Americas, the indigenous people have a late fall tradition of honoring the ancestors that fits right in with All Saints in parts of the US, we go to the cemeteries to clean and tidy and celebrate those that passed. Huge festive social occasion. Native people go to their cemeteries at night and light up the place with hundreds of candles and torches, we go in the daytime. There may have been some regional merging there… But late October is perfect for such, you’re in the mood. But everybody has a fall festival about death and a spring one about rebirth, a Mardi Gras of some sort. Even in Africa. This goes back millennia.
My problem with Halloween as a Czech, from your (very interesting!) point of view is that we have loads of such mummery-like traditions at this rough time of year but not at this exact point and not quite like that. So it definitely does feel like an import - wherever exactly it comes from. Especially because we also, meanwhile, had a lot of similar (though not the same) "guarding against evil spirits" traditions at the other division between seasons, in spring.
You're just awesome! We played a joke on the neighborhood by throwing a huge Christmas party for Halloween this year. Trick-or-treaters got photos with Santa Claus.
I was not aware of similar traditions in Germany (turns out, they don´t exist in my region), so I learned something new today - thank you! For us, carneval season officially also starts soon, on the 11th of November, so that´s where the costumes come in. On the same day, younger children will wander through the streets with lanterns, in honour of St. Martin (sometimes let by a rider in costume representing the saint). Although the throw toilet paper at someones house/car/whatever thing traditionally is done on the night before the 1st of May ...
Thank-You for this video. Im on the West Coast in America and we're locally pretty influenced by Day of the Dead, which is of course a mixture of indigenous as well as Spanish traditions.
The sad thing is that trick or treating seems to be less common where I live in California. My children used to have an annual Halloween party where we would have a parade, dunk for apples, and then go off trick or treating. ( My oldest is now 44 so it's been awhile). We buy some candy just in case but last year we didn't get any kids in costume and just a couple of teenagers who got most of our candy. I used to live in the Yucatan and the Maya celebrate Hanal Pixan and it's amazing. You don't see trick or treating there because the normal celebration is better.
first... damn I'm soooo behind on your videos... O____O I didn't notice at all! oh well, it's nice to binge watch while doing homework... or exams... let's not talk about exams xD I'm from Peru, so Halloween is not "native" to us, BUT, since I have family from the US I grew up with that celebration. Way before it gained popularity my Godfather would make a Halloween party, it was amazing! he would always use a gorilla suit that was so realistic, it was scary for a child like me, hehehe. It was lovely. Through the years of course, Halloween has changed for me, cause as an adult you don't really go trick or treating, but I also learned what other amazing traditions I could do, and the traditions of other countries and cultures too. To me Halloween is my favorite event, second to none. : D
I live in Australia and when it comes to Halloween I often hear people say things like 'It's American' and refusing to have any fun. As a bunch of mostly English descended peoples getting sunburned and looking for any excuse to drink beer I'm surprised more people wont get into a bit of dressing up goofing around.
I have found the increasing commercialisation of it and how it's something that pops up in shops and online in AUGUST a bit tough to deal with. For me it takes away some of the specialness and the good qualities of it (for me it is both a cosy spooky silly thing but also a time to honour and connect with dead loved ones). When it's drawn out for so long it looses a lot of that magic of one or two nights a year and I get over saturated with it. Plus I hate how it's just something else to spend money on, and treated as if if you aren't buying all the spooky things for two entire months you aren't really "getting into the spirit" of it. (also I think some of this might be being Autistic and struggling to cope with an event not taking place in it's designated time frame) OTOH I appreciate that for a lot of people it makes them happy, and especially living through such rough times, it's understandable to grasp onto anything you feel comforting as long as possible and I am glad that Halloween is something that people can get enjoyment and comfort from and that they want to make the most of it.
I'm also autistic, but have learned to avoid the over commercialization of all our holidays. Halloween in our family means deciding on our alter ego and then hitting the resale shops and pulling out the sewing machine. This Halloween we spent $25 on cowboy boots from a resale shop, real boots that he's already started wearing to school. The middle one wanted to be a plague doctor so spent $10 for that mask and found a robe in resale, and sewed a triceratops costume for the dinosaur crazed little one, using fabric culled from resale shops. Pillowcases instead of plastic buckets. Each holiday is what you make it, not what Walmart wants to make it. Being autistic, I'm used to not doing what everyone else is doing.
I feel like there could be some parallels with the Norse Álfablót, perhaps, as well. Particularly the idea of making offerings and sacrifices to the elven spirits, possibly including beer, and the associations with ancestor worship...though we admittedly know little of the specifics involved. Probably for the best that we mostly keep up the drinking of beer these days, lol.
It's so nice to see someone talking about it being an Irish/European tradition! I'm from ireland and thought it was just from ireland with the Jack'o'lantern! It's so interesting to hear its not just ours 😅 in the irish language halloween is Oiche Shamhna. Which is a conjugation of Samhain
My problem with Slovaks celebrating Halloween is that there is a time when our people (especially children) used to go door-to-door and ask for treats. And it's not Halloween. In fact, it's a very somber holiday here; the main tradition is to visit graves and lit candles there. Going door-to-door was for Christmas, New Year and Epiphany, when you had people dressed as angels or the Three Wise Men and instead of playing pranks, they sung carols or recited these little poems in which they wished people a merry Christmas and a happy new year or what have you. Well, nominally. It was mostly kids, so pranks absolutely were part of the proceedings. Then there's dressing up in costumes, which is typically a Mardi Gras tradition. It marks the END of winter, not the beginning. I think the reason why Halloween (not trick-or-treating, but Halloween-themed parties, certainly) is so popular here is just because All Hallow's Eve (or Dušičky) is frankly mostly dull and sad. You load your family into a car, drive them to the nearest cemetery, light candles, put some fake flowers there, and... That's it. That's the entire celebration. No wonder Halloween seems to attractive in comparison. That said, while I am sad that local traditions are being forgotten, I also have to roll my eyes hard at the whole "satanic holiday" rhetoric. Like, c'mon, guys. Is people watching scary movies and partying in stupid masks really the worst threat Christianity faces?!
Transplant this into Czechia almost word-to-word. Except for the "threat to Christianity" part (well... we do have the occasional nutter... and I do say this as a Christian) because, well, Czechia. We're mostly just annoyed that it's yet another foreign import. ETA: Should also clarify that people seem to be latching onto it all the same precisely because it's a fun thing to do with children at a dull part of the year. It's rather interesting how, even though it's an import, it's subtly taking on a local flavour... like lantern parades. And latching onto bats far, far more than witches, because we already have a local witch tradition in spring.
Oh the evil laugh at the end!! more please. Love how it aal boils down to the inate wish of people to be right ( and thus others being wrong) just for the sake of living in the selfcreated state of rightsiousness.
Americans tend to commercialize, expand & exploit everything, but I’ve never really thought of Halloween as American. We have thanksgiving false narratives about the founding of the country & we have the 4th of July, just like many nations celebrate anniversaries of independence. But there’s not much for truly American holidays. That said, we put so much of ourselves into it that our celebrations could be unrecognizable to the native countries. St. Patrick’s day is particularly warped from the Irish celebration. The seasons changing is a beautiful thing to celebrate. It doesn’t have to have religious meaning, but it can. I always take a moment to step outside, feel the cool air in the early afternoon darkness of October. I imagine what it would be like if I didn’t have a heated home (without smoke or fire) with hot & cold running water and refrigeration… the dark months going into winter seem to beg for gathering together and expressing fears. I love fall & winter, but might not have appreciated them if I were born in another era.
In Parts of Germany there is Matten Herren, wich is similar; kids singing for candy, but no Pranks and no spooky stuff and the reason why people in my village are very spiteful of halloween is because during the last 10 years halloween has been superseding our own, familiar tradition and replaced it in some places with unsatisfied kids throwing Eggs at your house instead of peacefully singing and i suspect our own tradition will be fully gone quite soon. Its kinda sad because it marks a dwindling of tradition and identity for our village. If you don't have the connection to the old village, maybe you even just moved there, you are probably gonna send your kids out for halloween. You are more connected to people continents away and what they concerned withe than the traditions next door. Its sort of sad and stupid
My mates and I used to use cotton satchels of colored corn starch instead of eggs. The idea was courtesy of the LARP community after a few eggs broke windows...
A group of kids said " trick or treat!". I said, " Ok then. Trick. You get three questions. For every one you get right, you get two extra peices of candy.-". I then asked " why do we carve Jack o' lanterns? What did Dracula's Transilvanian twist turn into after the Crypt Keeper 5 got ahold of it? In the first version of Pokemon games, what were the only 3 ghost types names?". All of them failed, so all of them got tricked out of getting extra candy.
They should have gotten one extra piece of candy for your gaffe however - The spooky vocal group in question is the "Crypt Kicker Five", not "Keeper" 😉
@@TalesFromTheHauntedLibrary much obliged for the reminder. As for extra candy, we usually are decent with dealing out candy, l just give them the opportunity to get more of a haul. I'll consider consolation prize candy as an option for next year though.
Good grief, Charlie Brown! Time is candy! Those street lights come up early and a kid's gotta hit blocks and blocks of houses. Luckily I had no trick-or-treaters this year so I get to keep all the candy.🙀My neighborhood's gotten too dangerous.😒
Hope you're able to at least get to the pub for a Guiness tonight ?! Thanks, for posting. Great video. Liked the jumper ! You could wear a sack & look fantastic ! 😊 Liked the term "melange", very fitting. History, being concerned with humans, is MESSY !
In North West England we have mischief night the night before Halloween. Loved it when was a kid. Also, anyone, like me, who has carved a turnip, knows it is an Irish tradition. My Grandma helped me do my first one. Then pumpkins started to be grown in Britain. I have not carved a turnip since. Halloween has got more family friendly over the years. Which in some ways is a good thing.
I am celebrating my Samhain by doing homework that I should have done yesterday. Anyway, appreciate this video as someone whose spiritual path is very syncretic (in terms of very contemporary American Christianity and Paganism) and gets very tired of hearing Christians and pagans argue about who owns various holiday, and who stole what from who, and blah-dee-doodle yakamole. (I don't know what those words are. Just seemed appropriate to type some nonsense.) It happens around Easter/Spring Equinox too, but it's especially annoying at this time of year all the way through to Christmas/Winter Solstice.
Another interesting vid and nice to see you looking relaxed, even if a little tired :) One more thing to note - the business of days beginning at sunset rather than midnight in the old traditions (and it's not just Celtic) is the reason for Christmas Eve being such a big thing in many parts of the world. It's literally the start of the first day of the Christmas celebrations. The reason why it was done this way is simply because, before clocks, it was easier to mark sunset than work out the mid point of the night.
I love you, man. Always wonderfully balanced, precise without being stuffy, and just a joy to listen to. Happy Hallowe'en, warm Nos Calan Gaeaf, and a Blessed Samhain to you, sir!
Jimmy, you do a great creepy voice and expression there! Made me feel a bit scared. My boyfriend and I are handing out candy and watching Halloween themed videos, we are in Ontario. Yours was the first and was a great surprise to see when we opened youtube.
I usually binge watch old classic b&w “horror” movies on Halloween. I do enjoy greatly Danny Elfman’s Music Score to “Nightmare before Christmas” and I have added that to my Halloween enjoyment.
Fidio bendigedig, fallai ddylet ti wneud fidio Nadolig fel hyn. Bydd hwna'n bendigedig hefyd! Great video, maybe do Christmas video like this? . Would be great!
Oh I see, the Celts counting the start of the day at dusk on the previous day is really just the same old "it's not tomorrow until I wake up" argument from the other side
Blessed Samhain, Jimmy. I celebrated by visiting the local 19th century cemetery that was founded by Welsh settlers. No one leaves them flowers anymore so that's my new tradition.
Halloween being seen a new import is extra funny when you consider Calan Mae & Gŵyl Ifan and their global equivalents, and yr Hen Calan, and the Christmas traditions like the Mari and the Lord Of Misrule, all are recognisably similair to Halloween. Humans just really like bonfires, costumes and an opportunity to make mischief, and I think our ancestors over here would be very disappointed to see that we ONLY do it on Halloween/Calan Gaeaf.
What a wonderful treat to come home from celebrating Halloween with my family to find that Jimmy posted a video😊 as an irish-american I am proud to honor my ancient ancestry by celebrating this holiday
Scotland has the tradition of guising. Going round houses and asking for a penny for the guy (a stuffed person shaped thing) that gets burnt on Bonfire night.
My petty bugbear is when welsh events (like with Museums or Cadw) use Samhain instead of Calan Gaeaf or when Samhain is used as THE word for old Halloween. It doesn't matter that much but it feels flattening.
Thanks Jimmy 🎃 Love your way of putting it all together- as an American I can say we don’t dig too deeply into Halloween history IMHO but it’s fascinating ❗️ Rest well and thanks again 👻!
There is also Día de los Muertos. We don't celebrate it very much here in the southern hemisphere which I imagine is down to the weather, as we're heading full tilt into spring at this time of year. I'd be very interested in hearing more about the mummery you spoke of. I've heard the term in Terry Pratchett novels and know from there that it's about acting but yes - if you were ever at want for a video topic I throw that idea into the cauldron 😊
Interesting that Calan Gaeaf means first day of winter because there's a theory that the word Samhain is derived from Old Irish Samfuin meaning 'summers end'.
For the first time, I have some legit scholarly knowledge to add in the comments! I studied carnival traditions quite a bit in undergrad. While traditionally, Carnival is associated with Catholicism (Christmas, Twelfth Night, Carnival/ Mardi Gras, Lent, then Easter,) pre-Catholic traditions absolutely influenced the development of European carnival traditions like parades, costumes, plays, pranks and mischief, and a reversal of "high" and "low" or just the idea of turning the world upside down. Some scholars include festivals like May Day and Halloween/ Samhain in their analysis of European carnival, as well! My favorite part of carnival studies is modern-day carnival traditions, mostly in the Americas, because the celebrations are such a wonderful mixture of cultures and traditions (frequently a way for Black slaves and indigenous peoples to continue their own cultural traditions under the guise of colonial Catholicism.) I love the idea that modern European Halloween traditions are also an amalgamation of traditions!!! And specifically in the British Isles (that's the term for UK + Ireland, right?), where the English did a fair amount of colonizing, as well. Gosh, I wish I got a graduate degree in International Arts and Culture. This would be such a cool thesis topic!!!!! (However, I can now be an Accountant(tm) and make money and have health care, so there's that.) Anyways, thanks for making a particularly cool video :D!
I live in Toronto. Hallowe`en used to be the big Gay holiday since it was the only day that it was legal to be publically in drag. There used to be street parties and costume balls, There are many reasons it's gone away. Quite relevant the temperature is roughly the freezing point and there's cold rain with a bit of snow. Not ideal to be outside in a costume - especially a sexy costume. 🥶
7:47 or at least use your Halloween decorations year after year, buy sturdy ones that will last and can withstand being in your attic for most of the year. (and of course most people keep the decorations up for a month or two not just the day of Halloween lol).
Moving to the North-woods works wonders, fifteen years and not one Trick-or-Treater has knocked on the door. The most important tradition the world has ever known.
I love both the fun of dressing up and enjoying spooky stuff, to the way it carries a spiritual emphasis on both honoring the dead and acknowledging our mortality. Halloween is my favorite 💜
LOL I love it when "Christians" throw a fit about Halloween because it's "satanic" and "evil" when in fact it's actually about the only truly Christian holiday in origin. Like any cultural anything, it's been influenced by many various indigenous traditions wherever Christianity has spread. But Halloween is still about the only Christian holiday that started out Christian - not that too many Christians are that familiar with their own religious history. (Depending on how you define "holiday" in the context of limited historical evidence, Halloween may actually predate Christmas as a Christian holy day. Nevermind the futzed up mess that is Easter 😂) I'm also entertained when I see all the memes on social media trying to convince people that Dia de los Muertos is not Halloween - srsly, it's the same holiday (All Saints Day / All Hallows Day), Mexico just celebrates it differently because their holiday was influenced by different traditions (Spanish & Aztec ) than Northern Europe (Gaelic) or the USA.
Have you heard the one where Halloween "actually means Hell-will-win"? Our priests (Romanian Orthodox) LOVE saying this every October as a reminder that we should not celebrate foreign holidays because they are evil... XD Ignorance is creepy, so I guess it fits Halloween? XD
Ive Heard Versions of that too in Germany. But decorating spring twigs with painted eggs and Baking bunny shaped cakes is perfectly fine for easter, even though it's very obviously a leftover pagan Thing. I guess it's fine If the non-christian influence is homemade?😂😂
The word Hallowe'en is a contraction of "All Hallow's Eve", the night before All Hallow's (Hallowed means holy) or All Saint's Day. Your Romanian Orthodox priests were _profoundly_ ignorant if they didn't even know that, or they were simply taking the opportunity to fear-monger more religious garbage to their captive audience.
@@DrachenGothik666 I assume it's fear mongering, but many of them are also ignorant and spread all kinds of conspiracy theories because they're paranoid and disconnected from reality.
I love Halloween. It's my next favourite time of year after the period from Christmas to New Year. This year I'm celebrating with some bramble gin I had floating around.
A lot of ppl complain here in mainland Europe because Halloween as it is now (consumerist nightmare which is only used for one night and then ends up in landfills) has totally supplanted Martinmas. The lanterns that kids carry and go from door to door and getting sweets after singing St Martin songs is basically also a part of the whole Samhain/Halloween tradition. I can still remember that the lanterns were originally carved from sweet beet and only later made out of papier mache etc.
Happy Halloween Jimmy! Thanks for the video always informative and funny. I do like the bit about the first day of winter. Had a right nice snowstorm this afternoon and maybe 5 inches total from the snow. I was out walking about my new little town with just a silly smile on my face while everyone else looked all pissy (angry). Anyway, thanks again and have a wonderful night.
Hope you had a spooktacular Halloween! You think the UK and EU is mad about trick or treating and the American Halloween, now, wait til you guys get Trunk or Treats. Now, those are straight from Satan lol Great video, as usual. 👻
I have a video idea for you Jimmy. A indepth look at all your historical reenactment clothing, kit and equipment, of all the periods you've reenacted, talking about the clothing and kits pros, cons things you would change or keep ect. And maybe tell us all how you got started in reenactment, why you decided to takeup this amazing hobby. Just an idea that I've been wanting to, mention to you for awhile feel free to ignore it.
I like to celebrate Halloween by making a costume and going trick-or-treating, and because today is All Saints Day, I'm going to church this evening. My mom made soul cakes, and they are delicious. That should be a tradition. I want to make some apple cider. I also want to make pumpkin soup, but I haven't done either yet because I am busy.
I got it, Jimmy. This year I'll continue the tradition of taking the wheels off my neighbor's cart unless he gives me treats.
As an American, hearing that the Brits, the Irish, the Welsh, and everyone else across the pond are in a snit about American Halloween celebrations feels a bit like having your parents sitting around complaining about where the !$@*! you learned those f$@*! swear words.
Boring people who don't want to give out sweets are in a snit. People who like Halloween think America is doing a great job and Pumpkin's are both easier to carve and cuter!
I'd love it if we had those big fancy garden displays.
@@gota7738Happy Halloween from an American! ❤
@@therewillbecatswithgwenhwyfar Calan Gaeaf Llawen o Gymru! 🎃
(Happy Halloween from Wales)
Welsh are Brits too. In fact they are the original Britons. They were called Welsh/British interchangeably by the invading Anglo-Saxons (English). If you are going to refer to Irish, Welsh, Scottish as singular nationalities, the one left over is the English - not Brits or British, that is everyone on the island of Great Britain. The people in England are called English, first and foremost.
@@leod-sigefastsorry, I get confused by who is considered British (and who considers themselves British, which is maybe not always the same thing?).
I’m in Canada, watching this video while handing out chocolate bars to the ~100 children I expect at my door this evening, dressed as a (non-historically-accurate) pirate. I love Hallowe’en, especially for the fun and joy and generosity of the night. I was taken aback when I was visiting a friend in the UK on Hallowe’en 2019 and she was very snobbish about the season as an “American celebration of greed and gluttony” - we had to stay at the pub until the “risk of kiddies demanding sweets” was over.
I’m very tempted to send her this video…
Oh go on - do it!
And let us know how she reacts LOL 😀
@@darriendastar3941 lol - alas, I would like to preserve the friendship.
😀@@draig2614
When I spent a trimester at a college in very small town in the U.S., I participated in what they called "Trick or Charity". Instead of collecting sweets for themselves, the students collected canned food and donated it to charity in the nearby city to feed the homeless and other people in need. I really love this take on Halloween!
I think Halloween is evolving in a beautiful way in the United States, since I was a kid. People have started having firepits in driveways, and there's a friendly, communal atmosphere of everyone getting out and meeting or communing with neighbors.
Considering how much of life is online, and how many Americans don't know their neighbors, it's a wonderful development.
And I love that it's just part of the 250 years of development since many of us left our homeland in the British Isles.
I remember bonfires on Halloween, the adults at around 8 o clock would make us all run home and hide in bed before the hwch ddu caught us, but let's be real, it was just an excuse to send all the kids home, so the adults could start getting absolutely hammered.
I named one of my cats Calan Gaef! She was a feral who showed up at my back door on Nov 1, 2015. I planned on trap, spay, return, but they botched tipping her ear and it wouldn't stop bleeding. I kept her isolated from my other cats in the bathroom until she healed enough to go back outside. And she refused. She still refuses to go anywhere near an outside door! So, yeah. She played quite the trick on me and now I have the treat of a shy, former feral who occasionally allows me to pet her.
When people say they have a problem with "American" Halloween, they really mean the consumerist aspects of it. Suddenly all this plastic tat appears in the shops and ... it seems so forced from above. That's how it's viewed in Australia anyway. We had no history of it twenty years go and now it's everywhere! Before I get grumped at, yes we do celebrate it in my household, my kids love it.
As a fellow Australian, it feels like an opportunity to shops to sell random bits of plastic that will be thrown away straight after Halloween. I moved to Melbourne this year and I saw more people in costume than I had in the rest of my life.
Yes, exactly. We have our traditions ( I’m from Germany) let’s practice them. St Martin is prevalent here, probably used to correlate with Samhain but Halloween has no tradition here. Why do the sell that stuff and people buy it🤦♀️
I fully support Jimmy in a jumper.
Suits outside is a nice combo but cozy inside with a tea is a different type of nice. Also you in a jumper also supports other creators, who can't do fancy suits or outside. Making it normal and okay is a great way to support people with disabilities or have different financial priorities. 🤍🎶Love the outro music choice. Happy spooky and cozy season to you all! 🕊️
The colour is a good choice, so yeah. Nothing wrong with blokes in jumpers
I was slightly confused by that part of the video because I have definitely been perceiving the suits outdoors as a new and rather startling development on this channel, and the jumper inside as the normal I am used to.😀
Edit: also, Mhara Starling is a Welsh pagan author who's written a lot on the topic I'd highly recommend checking out (she's written a book too).
I celebrate it as Samhain, but yeah, the history behind it is always fun to point to whenever fundies or just boomers get red-faced over it. Blessed harvest festival to all, however you celebrate it.
@@HeidiGelling I... think you've got the wrong comment.
In Portugal we have the 'santorinho', which is a tradition in which kids go door to door on the 31st Oct and all saints day (not just at night) and ask for gifts, which in my part of the country were traditionally nuts (which are in season now), cakes, and coins. My grandma also gave us chocolate. And we also visit and clean family graves on all saints day, which is a national bank holiday. Now I live in the UK I miss doing this, so sometimes I light a candle and reflect on those that have passed.
Grandmas are always the best for sneaky treats!
What a lovely tradition in Portugal, I hope your new tradition brings you joy in rememberance and not too much of the bittersweet sadness that accompanies memories of our loved ones who have passed.
60 years ago, on the Isle of Man we used to go round the houses on Hop-tu-Naa. we dressed up and went with turnip (actually swede) lanterns singing "Jinny the Witch is in your house, give us a penny, we'll chase her out"
You are probably the only person who has talking head videos that I can watch straight through. Not only is your content great but it's just soothing and joy enducing to listen to you.
I might, respectfully, add a FOURTH tradition to the "syncretic mix' that you rightly point out: the New World's own Day of the Dead. While I doubt it gets wide observance in Edinburgh, it's a big enough deal here in Texas that we've actually GOT an altar erected at my workplace, today and tomorrow!
It is celebrated in Mexico as well.
@@Caprabone Ummm….yeah: that’s where we picked it up from, obviously.🙄
My point was to talk about how well-accepted it is as a tradition even here in an “Anglo” stare like ours: doesn’t that mean I g go without saying?
And All Soul’s Day from the RC/CofE traditions mixing in as well.
I will never get over the fact that there is a Finnish harvest festival which has traditions that are incredibly similar to Samhain! The Finnish festival is called kekri and its roots are in peasant culture. During kekri it was believed that evil spirits as well as spirits of loved ones were moving around. It was also a transition time between the old year and the new year. There's also a tradition of young people dressing up and going door to door asking to have something from people's feasts, and threatening to do a prank if they didn't get it. Lanterns and bonfires were also important here because of course, we are in the north and nights are getting very dark this time of year.
I don't think think there would have been much contact between Finnish and Celtic peasants in pre-modern society so I think it's fascinating how similar they really are! It's incredible how peasants all over the world have observed nature and come up with similar traditions. Of course, the impact of the church also shaped traditions in Finland, and common people held onto Catholic traditions for centuries after the reformation. That can also explain similarities.
Ooh fascinating!
Are the roots of these customs farther back maybe? Was it Celts that used to be allover Europe long ago? Some custom from that long ago that then evolved with some differences in different places? Or maybe everyone did it. Mexicans have a custom that’s clearly indigenous but corralled into All Saints’ Day by the church, so now it’s a mix. They didn’t fear the dead, they gave them food and drinks. Maybe all these customs are related to harvest being over and shorter days, making people think of the dead.
@@bmiles4131 I think it’s definitely because people followed nature very closely. Shorter days and nature ”dying” (preparing for winter) probably made people associate this time of year with death. It makes sense that there’s similar traditions all around the world, so cool!
Being in the southern hemisphere, Halloween always feels a bit odd with its autumnal themes when it's spring.🌷🐨
Why not start your own autumn festival and do something different in spring like giving Halloween Ice cream cakes parties for friends in october, and make Mayday a time to dress up and scare people instead?
@@lucie4185 There probably springtime/autumn celebrations in southern hemisphere countries, that were suppressed by european colonization. We do have our own celebrations.
I have lived in enough countries to know "send the kids out of the house with a homemade lantern and/or costume" was an international thing, but the most interesting Halloween fact I learned this year was that the Romans celebrated Vestalia around this time of year and (among other, more Vestal things) dressed up donkeys with flowers and bread buns. And that feels like a too-far-apart-historically-and-geographically kind of thing to be related to Mari Lwyd and bara brith, but apparently that's just part of the vibe humanity gets this time of year.
I have to think pumpkins taking over from turnips isn't just they're easier to carve, but if you grow any sort of squash, you're desperate to find somewhere to put them or something to do with all of them at this time of year. Pumpkins are prolific, but not very cold-hardy. Where I live in the US, no-one would have turnips to carve in October because we just planted them (they're a fall crop in a lot of places here, and often left in the fields over winter), but there are pumpkins EVERYWHERE.
There is something about this time of year for a lot of cultures--my people's pre-colonial calendar starts around the autumnal equinox, but we celebrate the Feast of the Dead at this time of year, which would have been right before the main long-distance hunt got underway. Effectively, this was the last major community event before everyone split off for a month or two to their hunting camps.
Our Feast of the Dead is a little like Dia de los Muertos, but no so much the modern commercialized version. We tend graves before harsh winter weather sets in, it would be the main time to add a new layer to mortuary mounds/inter bones from the ossuary, and the time of the final ceremonial mourning event for family who had lost anyone during the past year. It would have been like a state fair, All Saints', the last day of school, and Memorial Day all rolled into one.
Not sure when or where or how it started, but I love how many areas now have a simple unspoken rule that any decorated property is signed up for the local variant of trick-or-treat/guising/mummers, but the undecorated ones are left in peace. Also, it's a brilliant video as always, a splendid jumper, and no excuses needed to be made...
ooo...a most excellently spooky chuckle there at the end. Well explained, sir. Thanks!
Mummering is big in Newfoundland as well.
I grew up with Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. Neither of which are from my genetic heritage, but we’re both firmly ensconced in the community I grew up in. Now I love the opportunity to dress up and then cook my painted pumpkins over the next few weeks. Thanks for this vid! I love the history of the weird things we do now.
Love the hair, love the jumper, you're looking ravishing. And you're speaking 3 languages again.
I never knew Halloween made some Brits grumpy!😆It's my favorite holiday, when I actually get to celebrate it. Hard to do properly in Florida but back home in the way north we would do all these things -- self-harvest at U-Pick orchards, bonfire out in the woods drinking spiked (American) cider, corn dollies and all the rest. I took it for granted that everyone knew the history of Halloween.
More importantly, I never knew the Celtic tradition of the day starting the night before. Daylight savings confounds me; I'll be driven to distraction by the Celtic calendar for weeks now. At least I'll be learning something.
I'm shocked about the damned pig! There has been a baby black wild boar (no tail) running all over my neighborhood at night for a month..👁🐽👁Good thing I'm not superstitious. However no one wants to approach the thing because we're all afraid of where its mom might be. It seems happy enough; it's always playing in the yards and looks well fed.
About your recipe, two questions: 1) Is the fruit fresh or dried? I've never seen a bara brith. And 2) Can you use any black tea? Sorry but it has to be done -- as a retired chef I have a thing for historic foods. I did try to carve a turnip once. Never again.
And that zombie horse of yours is absolutely terrifying. Glad to see you around again, Jimmy!💜
Dried fruit (sultanas and raisins) is trad, so if you’re soaking it in the tea it swells up and gets a bit tea-y, and usually the only option would be “whatever tea the local grocer carried”, so I usually opt for a breakfast tea :)
Beware the hwch!
@@TheWelshViking Oh screw that thing 😅
Thanks for the recipe info!
In the Americas, the indigenous people have a late fall tradition of honoring the ancestors that fits right in with All Saints in parts of the US, we go to the cemeteries to clean and tidy and celebrate those that passed. Huge festive social occasion. Native people go to their cemeteries at night and light up the place with hundreds of candles and torches, we go in the daytime. There may have been some regional merging there… But late October is perfect for such, you’re in the mood.
But everybody has a fall festival about death and a spring one about rebirth, a Mardi Gras of some sort. Even in Africa. This goes back millennia.
Everything you wrote is entirely incorrect.
My problem with Halloween as a Czech, from your (very interesting!) point of view is that we have loads of such mummery-like traditions at this rough time of year but not at this exact point and not quite like that. So it definitely does feel like an import - wherever exactly it comes from.
Especially because we also, meanwhile, had a lot of similar (though not the same) "guarding against evil spirits" traditions at the other division between seasons, in spring.
You're just awesome! We played a joke on the neighborhood by throwing a huge Christmas party for Halloween this year. Trick-or-treaters got photos with Santa Claus.
I was not aware of similar traditions in Germany (turns out, they don´t exist in my region), so I learned something new today - thank you!
For us, carneval season officially also starts soon, on the 11th of November, so that´s where the costumes come in. On the same day, younger children will wander through the streets with lanterns, in honour of St. Martin (sometimes let by a rider in costume representing the saint). Although the throw toilet paper at someones house/car/whatever thing traditionally is done on the night before the 1st of May ...
It certainly felt like the first day of winter with snow falling as I'm handing out Twix and candy corn.
Thank-You for this video. Im on the West Coast in America and we're locally pretty influenced by Day of the Dead, which is of course a mixture of indigenous as well as Spanish traditions.
The sad thing is that trick or treating seems to be less common where I live in California. My children used to have an annual Halloween party where we would have a parade, dunk for apples, and then go off trick or treating. ( My oldest is now 44 so it's been awhile). We buy some candy just in case but last year we didn't get any kids in costume and just a couple of teenagers who got most of our candy.
I used to live in the Yucatan and the Maya celebrate Hanal Pixan and it's amazing. You don't see trick or treating there because the normal celebration is better.
first... damn I'm soooo behind on your videos... O____O I didn't notice at all! oh well, it's nice to binge watch while doing homework... or exams... let's not talk about exams xD I'm from Peru, so Halloween is not "native" to us, BUT, since I have family from the US I grew up with that celebration. Way before it gained popularity my Godfather would make a Halloween party, it was amazing! he would always use a gorilla suit that was so realistic, it was scary for a child like me, hehehe. It was lovely. Through the years of course, Halloween has changed for me, cause as an adult you don't really go trick or treating, but I also learned what other amazing traditions I could do, and the traditions of other countries and cultures too. To me Halloween is my favorite event, second to none. : D
Sofa and jumper is perfect for Halloween! 🎃 Thats what I'm doing too, watching your video. 🛋 Dealt with! 😄
Jimmy! You have an AMAZING spooky laugh!!!
I live in Australia and when it comes to Halloween I often hear people say things like 'It's American' and refusing to have any fun. As a bunch of mostly English descended peoples getting sunburned and looking for any excuse to drink beer I'm surprised more people wont get into a bit of dressing up goofing around.
I have found the increasing commercialisation of it and how it's something that pops up in shops and online in AUGUST a bit tough to deal with. For me it takes away some of the specialness and the good qualities of it (for me it is both a cosy spooky silly thing but also a time to honour and connect with dead loved ones). When it's drawn out for so long it looses a lot of that magic of one or two nights a year and I get over saturated with it. Plus I hate how it's just something else to spend money on, and treated as if if you aren't buying all the spooky things for two entire months you aren't really "getting into the spirit" of it. (also I think some of this might be being Autistic and struggling to cope with an event not taking place in it's designated time frame)
OTOH I appreciate that for a lot of people it makes them happy, and especially living through such rough times, it's understandable to grasp onto anything you feel comforting as long as possible and I am glad that Halloween is something that people can get enjoyment and comfort from and that they want to make the most of it.
I'm also autistic, but have learned to avoid the over commercialization of all our holidays. Halloween in our family means deciding on our alter ego and then hitting the resale shops and pulling out the sewing machine. This Halloween we spent $25 on cowboy boots from a resale shop, real boots that he's already started wearing to school. The middle one wanted to be a plague doctor so spent $10 for that mask and found a robe in resale, and sewed a triceratops costume for the dinosaur crazed little one, using fabric culled from resale shops. Pillowcases instead of plastic buckets. Each holiday is what you make it, not what Walmart wants to make it. Being autistic, I'm used to not doing what everyone else is doing.
Halloween for some reason is one of those Holidays with a strange history but we primarily know about it because of the free candy we got
I feel like there could be some parallels with the Norse Álfablót, perhaps, as well. Particularly the idea of making offerings and sacrifices to the elven spirits, possibly including beer, and the associations with ancestor worship...though we admittedly know little of the specifics involved. Probably for the best that we mostly keep up the drinking of beer these days, lol.
Sir - yes Sir - dealing with jumper :)
It's so nice to see someone talking about it being an Irish/European tradition! I'm from ireland and thought it was just from ireland with the Jack'o'lantern! It's so interesting to hear its not just ours 😅 in the irish language halloween is Oiche Shamhna. Which is a conjugation of Samhain
My problem with Slovaks celebrating Halloween is that there is a time when our people (especially children) used to go door-to-door and ask for treats. And it's not Halloween. In fact, it's a very somber holiday here; the main tradition is to visit graves and lit candles there. Going door-to-door was for Christmas, New Year and Epiphany, when you had people dressed as angels or the Three Wise Men and instead of playing pranks, they sung carols or recited these little poems in which they wished people a merry Christmas and a happy new year or what have you. Well, nominally. It was mostly kids, so pranks absolutely were part of the proceedings. Then there's dressing up in costumes, which is typically a Mardi Gras tradition. It marks the END of winter, not the beginning. I think the reason why Halloween (not trick-or-treating, but Halloween-themed parties, certainly) is so popular here is just because All Hallow's Eve (or Dušičky) is frankly mostly dull and sad. You load your family into a car, drive them to the nearest cemetery, light candles, put some fake flowers there, and... That's it. That's the entire celebration. No wonder Halloween seems to attractive in comparison.
That said, while I am sad that local traditions are being forgotten, I also have to roll my eyes hard at the whole "satanic holiday" rhetoric. Like, c'mon, guys. Is people watching scary movies and partying in stupid masks really the worst threat Christianity faces?!
Transplant this into Czechia almost word-to-word. Except for the "threat to Christianity" part (well... we do have the occasional nutter... and I do say this as a Christian) because, well, Czechia. We're mostly just annoyed that it's yet another foreign import.
ETA: Should also clarify that people seem to be latching onto it all the same precisely because it's a fun thing to do with children at a dull part of the year. It's rather interesting how, even though it's an import, it's subtly taking on a local flavour... like lantern parades. And latching onto bats far, far more than witches, because we already have a local witch tradition in spring.
Oh the evil laugh at the end!! more please.
Love how it aal boils down to the inate wish of people to be right ( and thus others being wrong) just for the sake of living in the selfcreated state of rightsiousness.
Americans tend to commercialize, expand & exploit everything, but I’ve never really thought of Halloween as American.
We have thanksgiving false narratives about the founding of the country & we have the 4th of July, just like many nations celebrate anniversaries of independence. But there’s not much for truly American holidays.
That said, we put so much of ourselves into it that our celebrations could be unrecognizable to the native countries.
St. Patrick’s day is particularly warped from the Irish celebration.
The seasons changing is a beautiful thing to celebrate. It doesn’t have to have religious meaning, but it can.
I always take a moment to step outside, feel the cool air in the early afternoon darkness of October. I imagine what it would be like if I didn’t have a heated home (without smoke or fire) with hot & cold running water and refrigeration… the dark months going into winter seem to beg for gathering together and expressing fears.
I love fall & winter, but might not have appreciated them if I were born in another era.
I want to heae more about the spooky black pig!
In Parts of Germany there is Matten Herren, wich is similar; kids singing for candy, but no Pranks and no spooky stuff and the reason why people in my village are very spiteful of halloween is because during the last 10 years halloween has been superseding our own, familiar tradition and replaced it in some places with unsatisfied kids throwing Eggs at your house instead of peacefully singing and i suspect our own tradition will be fully gone quite soon. Its kinda sad because it marks a dwindling of tradition and identity for our village. If you don't have the connection to the old village, maybe you even just moved there, you are probably gonna send your kids out for halloween. You are more connected to people continents away and what they concerned withe than the traditions next door. Its sort of sad and stupid
My mates and I used to use cotton satchels of colored corn starch instead of eggs. The idea was courtesy of the LARP community after a few eggs broke windows...
A group of kids said " trick or treat!". I said, " Ok then. Trick. You get three questions. For every one you get right, you get two extra peices of candy.-". I then asked " why do we carve Jack o' lanterns? What did Dracula's Transilvanian twist turn into after the Crypt Keeper 5 got ahold of it? In the first version of Pokemon games, what were the only 3 ghost types names?". All of them failed, so all of them got tricked out of getting extra candy.
They should have gotten one extra piece of candy for your gaffe however - The spooky vocal group in question is the "Crypt Kicker Five", not "Keeper" 😉
@@TalesFromTheHauntedLibrary much obliged for the reminder. As for extra candy, we usually are decent with dealing out candy, l just give them the opportunity to get more of a haul. I'll consider consolation prize candy as an option for next year though.
Good grief, Charlie Brown! Time is candy! Those street lights come up early and a kid's gotta hit blocks and blocks of houses. Luckily I had no trick-or-treaters this year so I get to keep all the candy.🙀My neighborhood's gotten too dangerous.😒
Excellent scary laugh Jimmy!!
No TP and no eggs.
Jump out and go boo while dressed up as a ghost! 👻
Hope you're able to at least get to the pub for a Guiness tonight ?!
Thanks, for posting. Great video. Liked the jumper ! You could wear a sack & look fantastic ! 😊
Liked the term "melange", very fitting. History, being concerned with humans, is MESSY !
Jimmy is such a treasure; explaining Halloween through the medium of interpretive dance.
In North West England we have mischief night the night before Halloween. Loved it when was a kid.
Also, anyone, like me, who has carved a turnip, knows it is an Irish tradition. My Grandma helped me do my first one. Then pumpkins started to be grown in Britain. I have not carved a turnip since.
Halloween has got more family friendly over the years. Which in some ways is a good thing.
I am celebrating my Samhain by doing homework that I should have done yesterday.
Anyway, appreciate this video as someone whose spiritual path is very syncretic (in terms of very contemporary American Christianity and Paganism) and gets very tired of hearing Christians and pagans argue about who owns various holiday, and who stole what from who, and blah-dee-doodle yakamole. (I don't know what those words are. Just seemed appropriate to type some nonsense.) It happens around Easter/Spring Equinox too, but it's especially annoying at this time of year all the way through to Christmas/Winter Solstice.
Another interesting vid and nice to see you looking relaxed, even if a little tired :)
One more thing to note - the business of days beginning at sunset rather than midnight in the old traditions (and it's not just Celtic) is the reason for Christmas Eve being such a big thing in many parts of the world. It's literally the start of the first day of the Christmas celebrations. The reason why it was done this way is simply because, before clocks, it was easier to mark sunset than work out the mid point of the night.
I always look forward to your videos Jimmy. You have a real gift for telling the story of history.
That’s very sweet of you, diolch!
There really is a double meaning to getting drunk and going round scaring people until they give you stuff being a European tradition.
XD
JIMMY, PLEASE DO SOMETHING FUN FOR HALLOWEEN THIS YEAR IF YOU WANT!
Just wanted to say you have a great spooky cackle, Jimmy!
I love you, man. Always wonderfully balanced, precise without being stuffy, and just a joy to listen to. Happy Hallowe'en, warm Nos Calan Gaeaf, and a Blessed Samhain to you, sir!
Calan gaeaf hapus :) the video was great, glad you found time to post on this topic.
Great video! I’ve watched your previous halloween video from a couple years back every so often, so this was a nice surprise!
Jimmy, you do a great creepy voice and expression there! Made me feel a bit scared.
My boyfriend and I are handing out candy and watching Halloween themed videos, we are in Ontario. Yours was the first and was a great surprise to see when we opened youtube.
I usually binge watch old classic b&w “horror” movies on Halloween. I do enjoy greatly Danny Elfman’s Music Score to “Nightmare before Christmas” and I have added that to my Halloween enjoyment.
Woah!! It’s the first time I’m here for a video so early.
Hope you’re having a wonderful start to the holiday season Jimmy! 🎉
Fidio bendigedig, fallai ddylet ti wneud fidio Nadolig fel hyn. Bydd hwna'n bendigedig hefyd!
Great video, maybe do Christmas video like this? . Would be great!
Oh I see, the Celts counting the start of the day at dusk on the previous day is really just the same old "it's not tomorrow until I wake up" argument from the other side
Spooky time video, HURRAH! Always good to learn about the origins of your favorite holiday! Good fun to watch while handing out candy
Love this so much. Brilliant, informative and also humorous. Thank you!
Blessed Samhain, Jimmy. I celebrated by visiting the local 19th century cemetery that was founded by Welsh settlers. No one leaves them flowers anymore so that's my new tradition.
That's a lovely new tradition and I'm soooo envious you have access to such a special cemetery. 🖤 🕯
Halloween being seen a new import is extra funny when you consider Calan Mae & Gŵyl Ifan and their global equivalents, and yr Hen Calan, and the Christmas traditions like the Mari and the Lord Of Misrule, all are recognisably similair to Halloween.
Humans just really like bonfires, costumes and an opportunity to make mischief, and I think our ancestors over here would be very disappointed to see that we ONLY do it on Halloween/Calan Gaeaf.
What a wonderful treat to come home from celebrating Halloween with my family to find that Jimmy posted a video😊 as an irish-american I am proud to honor my ancient ancestry by celebrating this holiday
I usually bake Irish Apple Tea cake visit my loved ones at the cemetery and take my niece and nephew trick or treating it's such a good time
Happy Halloween from San Jose, California👻
Scotland has the tradition of guising. Going round houses and asking for a penny for the guy (a stuffed person shaped thing) that gets burnt on Bonfire night.
But that's just Guy Fawkes, isn't it ?
@@Loweene_Ancalimon not quite - the guising takes place on Halloween.
Jimmy in a jumper, (spoiler alert) miming, totally made my day. Mime away, dear soul, mime away.
Its really difficult to read about a thing/interact with a questionaire if you don't put the link in somewhere Jimmy
My petty bugbear is when welsh events (like with Museums or Cadw) use Samhain instead of Calan Gaeaf or when Samhain is used as THE word for old Halloween.
It doesn't matter that much but it feels flattening.
I miss the Scottish tradition of 'doing a turn' for Halloween. You have to do something to earn your treat -- usually a song, poem, or joke.
Do respect the hustle! Happy Halloween!
Thanks Jimmy 🎃
Love your way of putting it all together- as an American I can say we don’t dig too deeply into Halloween history IMHO but it’s fascinating ❗️ Rest well and thanks again 👻!
There is also Día de los Muertos.
We don't celebrate it very much here in the southern hemisphere which I imagine is down to the weather, as we're heading full tilt into spring at this time of year.
I'd be very interested in hearing more about the mummery you spoke of. I've heard the term in Terry Pratchett novels and know from there that it's about acting but yes - if you were ever at want for a video topic I throw that idea into the cauldron 😊
Interesting that Calan Gaeaf means first day of winter because there's a theory that the word Samhain is derived from Old Irish Samfuin meaning 'summers end'.
Most excellent spooky laugh.
For the first time, I have some legit scholarly knowledge to add in the comments! I studied carnival traditions quite a bit in undergrad. While traditionally, Carnival is associated with Catholicism (Christmas, Twelfth Night, Carnival/ Mardi Gras, Lent, then Easter,) pre-Catholic traditions absolutely influenced the development of European carnival traditions like parades, costumes, plays, pranks and mischief, and a reversal of "high" and "low" or just the idea of turning the world upside down. Some scholars include festivals like May Day and Halloween/ Samhain in their analysis of European carnival, as well!
My favorite part of carnival studies is modern-day carnival traditions, mostly in the Americas, because the celebrations are such a wonderful mixture of cultures and traditions (frequently a way for Black slaves and indigenous peoples to continue their own cultural traditions under the guise of colonial Catholicism.) I love the idea that modern European Halloween traditions are also an amalgamation of traditions!!! And specifically in the British Isles (that's the term for UK + Ireland, right?), where the English did a fair amount of colonizing, as well.
Gosh, I wish I got a graduate degree in International Arts and Culture. This would be such a cool thesis topic!!!!! (However, I can now be an Accountant(tm) and make money and have health care, so there's that.) Anyways, thanks for making a particularly cool video :D!
I live in Toronto.
Hallowe`en used to be the big Gay holiday since it was the only day that it was legal to be publically in drag. There used to be street parties and costume balls,
There are many reasons it's gone away. Quite relevant the temperature is roughly the freezing point and there's cold rain with a bit of snow. Not ideal to be outside in a costume - especially a sexy costume.
🥶
7:47 or at least use your Halloween decorations year after year, buy sturdy ones that will last and can withstand being in your attic for most of the year. (and of course most people keep the decorations up for a month or two not just the day of Halloween lol).
It's pretty easy to opt out of Halloween, just don't turn your porch light on or decorate your house. Not sure why some folks get so bent over it.
Moving to the North-woods works wonders, fifteen years and not one Trick-or-Treater has knocked on the door. The most important tradition the world has ever known.
I love history. It's interesting to hear what has changed, and it's bloody fascinating to learn what stays the same through centuries.
I love both the fun of dressing up and enjoying spooky stuff, to the way it carries a spiritual emphasis on both honoring the dead and acknowledging our mortality. Halloween is my favorite 💜
LOL I love it when "Christians" throw a fit about Halloween because it's "satanic" and "evil" when in fact it's actually about the only truly Christian holiday in origin. Like any cultural anything, it's been influenced by many various indigenous traditions wherever Christianity has spread. But Halloween is still about the only Christian holiday that started out Christian - not that too many Christians are that familiar with their own religious history. (Depending on how you define "holiday" in the context of limited historical evidence, Halloween may actually predate Christmas as a Christian holy day. Nevermind the futzed up mess that is Easter 😂)
I'm also entertained when I see all the memes on social media trying to convince people that Dia de los Muertos is not Halloween - srsly, it's the same holiday (All Saints Day / All Hallows Day), Mexico just celebrates it differently because their holiday was influenced by different traditions (Spanish & Aztec ) than Northern Europe (Gaelic) or the USA.
Can’t think of Hallowe’en without thinking of Ade Edmondson and Rik Mayall in Bottom.
Melange… nice❤
Have you heard the one where Halloween "actually means Hell-will-win"? Our priests (Romanian Orthodox) LOVE saying this every October as a reminder that we should not celebrate foreign holidays because they are evil... XD Ignorance is creepy, so I guess it fits Halloween? XD
Ive Heard Versions of that too in Germany. But decorating spring twigs with painted eggs and Baking bunny shaped cakes is perfectly fine for easter, even though it's very obviously a leftover pagan Thing. I guess it's fine If the non-christian influence is homemade?😂😂
@@annabeinglazy5580 Always 😂
The word Hallowe'en is a contraction of "All Hallow's Eve", the night before All Hallow's (Hallowed means holy) or All Saint's Day. Your Romanian Orthodox priests were _profoundly_ ignorant if they didn't even know that, or they were simply taking the opportunity to fear-monger more religious garbage to their captive audience.
@@DrachenGothik666 I assume it's fear mongering, but many of them are also ignorant and spread all kinds of conspiracy theories because they're paranoid and disconnected from reality.
LOVE YOU LOVE THIS MARVELOUS!
I love Halloween. It's my next favourite time of year after the period from Christmas to New Year. This year I'm celebrating with some bramble gin I had floating around.
Your fans need the link you mentioned please Jimmy (wife of John speaking)
A lot of ppl complain here in mainland Europe because Halloween as it is now (consumerist nightmare which is only used for one night and then ends up in landfills) has totally supplanted Martinmas. The lanterns that kids carry and go from door to door and getting sweets after singing St Martin songs is basically also a part of the whole Samhain/Halloween tradition. I can still remember that the lanterns were originally carved from sweet beet and only later made out of papier mache etc.
Happy Halloween Jimmy!
Thanks for the video always informative and funny.
I do like the bit about the first day of winter.
Had a right nice snowstorm this afternoon and maybe 5 inches total from the snow. I was out walking about my new little town with just a silly smile on my face while everyone else looked all pissy (angry). Anyway, thanks again and have a wonderful night.
Happy Halloween, Jimmy. Great video
Hope you had a spooktacular Halloween! You think the UK and EU is mad about trick or treating and the American Halloween, now, wait til you guys get Trunk or Treats. Now, those are straight from Satan lol
Great video, as usual. 👻
Always a pleasure, Jimmy. Please do get some sleep.
I have a video idea for you Jimmy. A indepth look at all your historical reenactment clothing, kit and equipment, of all the periods you've reenacted, talking about the clothing and kits pros, cons things you would change or keep ect. And maybe tell us all how you got started in reenactment, why you decided to takeup this amazing hobby.
Just an idea that I've been wanting to, mention to you for awhile feel free to ignore it.
An excellent evil laugh at the end.
I like to celebrate Halloween by making a costume and going trick-or-treating, and because today is All Saints Day, I'm going to church this evening. My mom made soul cakes, and they are delicious. That should be a tradition. I want to make some apple cider. I also want to make pumpkin soup, but I haven't done either yet because I am busy.