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ISBN
1-56718-719-6
7 x 9 , 264 pp. , illus. appendices , bibliography , index
Price $12.95
A well respected
and prolific author of Pagan books, Silver Ravenwolf again comes through
with a wonderful tribute to my personal favorite holiday. Combining
it with one of my favorite Witchy writers is icing on the cake.
Silver tackles
with zest (and a bit of feigned balking) the formidable task of unraveling
the complicated and sensitive 6000 year history of Halloween.
Understandably bemoaning the lack of written evidence of ancient
practices, she moves forward with a very believable and coherent
historical trail to our own present day Halloween celebrations.
Particularly fun his her tongue in cheek observation that the campaign of
the ultra-conservatives in America to stamp out Halloween and replace it
with "harvest celebrations" has, ironically, taken us smack dab back to
our own Pagan roots (bwahahaha). She also accurately reports on the
safety of trick-or-treating, despite the manic, urban-legend hysteria
surrounding the practice, by reminding us that in the past 30 years, there
is been no report of children being harmed, poisoned or otherwise maligned
by the act of trick or treating.
As she moves from
the chronological history to the lore surrounding the typical symbols of
the holiday, she points out that little that we do today had to do with
what was practiced at this time of year by the Ancient Celts (a common
misconception), who did not have pumpkins, did not have cats, did not
believe in Witches and did not fear their ghosts... they enjoyed them.
Of particular interest to me personally, was the new (to me, but fairly
obvious... don't know how I missed it) information that our friend, the
scarecrow, is actually symbolic of the spring time human sacrifices that
used to be offered (then strung up on a pole for the harvest year - blech)
for a bountiful harvest. She also draws comparison between our own
Halloween traditions and the Mexican Day of the Dead that are not at all
somber.
In the spirit of
the traditional thinning of the veil, Silver leaps into the lively
discussion of "haints" versus "ghosts" versus "poltergeists" and what she
says definitely makes sense to me. An extensive section on
divination techniques, including some obscure methods such as casting
lots, apple divination and circle of ashes and stones. From scrying
to psychometry, she covers an interesting array of divinatory means.
The recipe
section is wonderful, including classic favorites (candied love apples...
mmmm) and what are sure to become new favorites (frosted grapes and
honeyed apples, anyone?). She even includes the magical properties
of many of the ingredients, to give an overall magical purpose to the end
result.
If you're feeling
Halloween Crafty, you can learn how to turn apples into candle holders,
turnips into lanterns or build a Jack-o-Lantern totem pole. Her corn
dollies actually look like... well... dollies, whereas mine look look like
oversized doobies.
Her hints for
communicating with the dead are respectful and work well with the Pagan
funeral (from her own Black Forest Clan) to bridge the distance between
the worlds and help us to feel closer to our loved ones who have passed
on.
The only
complaint I have is that throughout the history exploration, the gimmick
of all of us straddling the Silver 2000 (broomstick) for our ride through
history got a bit old after about the 3rd or 4th mention. All
of the "disembarking" and mentioning of "frequent flyer miles" lost its
charm about 2/3 through the trip, then just became cheesy and annoying.
Sadly, timing is
important. I'm dockin a star. Otherwise, brilliant book!!
No, I changed my
mind. The rest of the book made up for the stupid broom jokes.
Five pentacles
out of five
Review by
Katrina Rasbold |
