Tag Archives: Pagan festival

Winter Solstice

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No, this blogpost isn’t about the Rosamunde Pilcher book of that name which I still haven’t bought. It is the Winter Solstice today, that is the shortest day of the year, and really I always think that we should be celebrating the event instead of waiting another few days and celebrating Christmas. But if you have kids you have to stick with the Santa Claus stuff. We did tell our kids that Santa was dead now and people just pretended. Honestly it didn’t do them any harm and they enjoyed their Christmas just as much, but I did get nasty looks from other mums at the nursery. Silly them!

In good old Pagan Celtic times this was our winter festival, something to look forward to. Anyway the 21st of December always cheers me up because I hate the dark days of winter, when it begins to get dark at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and it’s dark by 4 o’clock.

After the solstice the daylight begins to get a teeny wee bit longer day by day and even although the worst of the winter weather is probably still ahead of us, (but surely not this year) I’m always able to look forward to the lighter, longer days.

This year the solstice is extra special because there is also a lunar eclipse which you can read about here.

Happy Winter Solstice!

Scottish Hallowe’en

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In recent years Halloween has become very popular in parts of Britain where it had been completely unknown before, and by that I mean England. Unfortunately it is the American version of it featuring pumpkins, which are completely alien growths in Britain. Sadly, because there are now no Scottish owned supermarkets we aren’t even able to buy the big turnips which are a necessity for making the carved turnip lanterns which ward off evil spirits.

And here it is lit.

I had to make do with this small turnip and yes, I do know that in England this is what is called a swede, but as far as we are concerned there is nothing Scandinavian about it at all! Say no to pumpkins, unless you happen to be American. Seriously, I once carved a pumpkin and I couldn’t believe how horrible it smelled, just like sick. How could anyone possibly eat them, maybe that one was over-ripe. Are they supposed to smell of sick.

When I was a wee girl Hallowe’en was a really big thing and there were always school/Brownies/Scout parties where we dooked for apples and ate huge pancakes which had been spread with black treacle and strung up across the room. With hands behind your back and up on tiptoe to reach the pancakes, there was just no way you could eat them without getting your hair and face covered with treacle. We were all dressed up as witches, warlocks, ghosts or pirates too. Such fun!!

When we went out dressed like that it was called ‘guising’, obviously because you were in disguise. We were only allowed to visit the houses of friends or relatives and we had to sing a song or tell jokes, something to entertain the householders anyway. In return we would be given some fruit, nuts or sweets and sometimes a small amount of money.

There was none of this terrible chaos that seems to go on nowadays, especially in England, where they seem to have got the wrong end of the stick altogether.

Hallowe’en is the old pagan festival signifying the end of summertime, which it is literally as we’ve just moved the clocks back an hour and we’re now on Greenwich Mean Time.