Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - Episode Eleven： Samhain - Like a centaur except it’s a cow

00:00:00.380 What's the crack, scaredy cats?

00:00:02.560 This is a bumper episode of Rowan and Pine, just for sound, or Halloween, whatever you

00:00:08.040 practice, whatever you celebrate.

00:00:09.500 Because we'd recorded for like two and a half hours, we forgot to plug all of our socials.

00:00:14.160 So be sure to like, rate, review, subscribe, wherever you're listening to this.

00:00:19.940 We are on Instagram at Rowanandpine.

00:00:22.300 You can email us to rowanandpinepod at gmail.com, or you can look us up on YouTube,

00:00:29.380 or TikTok if you just search Rowan and Pine. Oh, and Facebook too. Anyway, on with the actual show.

00:00:44.680 Emily is such a Hufflepuff. Oh my god. So rude. We were just talking about how we're not really 1.00

00:00:52.080 Harry Potter people, but like people tell us that we seem like Harry Potter people. Yeah,

00:00:56.740 Emily's a Hufflepuff.

00:00:58.300 And I was telling her how my husband's siblings were all talking about like which group they'd all belong to. 0.99

00:01:03.980 And the whole time they're like, as long as you're not a Hufflepuff. 0.61

00:01:06.580 And then they're like, Emily would be a Hufflepuff.

00:01:08.420 And I was like, wait a minute.

00:01:10.360 You said it was a bad thing.

00:01:12.940 Did we say welcome?

00:01:14.020 No, we didn't.

00:01:14.860 We did not.

00:01:15.940 Welcome to episode 11 of Rowan and Pine.

00:01:19.020 Woo!

00:01:20.220 And it's probably the most special episode.

00:01:22.680 the most specialist, super-est, spookiest, happiest, bloodiest, goriest episode.

00:01:29.500 The super bestest episode in the whole wide world.

00:01:32.320 Today we're going to be talking all about Samhain.

00:01:36.040 Yeah, aka Halloween, sort of.

00:01:39.360 All Hallows Eve?

00:01:41.280 No, well, Samhain's technically the first day of November, right?

00:01:44.960 It's like All Saints Day.

00:01:46.040 I thought it was a span of like a couple days.

00:01:48.660 Yeah, it's like usually a three-day festival.

00:01:50.580 okay yeah you were supposed to do the research on that part i i did literally it says it begins

00:01:56.660 at dusk around october 31st and lasts three days okay so it's yeah usually all saints day also can

00:02:02.440 we all please applaud emily for her correct pronunciation of sawan because a lot of her

00:02:07.760 country people do not do that online like the meme that i posted on our instagram where it was

00:02:14.100 like the Irish Samhain the Welsh Samhain and then Americans pumpkin spice lattes I can respect that

00:02:22.780 who doesn't love a PSL oh my god yeah I drove well I didn't drive you and drove me

00:02:27.560 an hour away from my home to Derry to get a pumpkin spice latte because that's our nearest

00:02:33.360 Starbucks right now they don't make them at like local coffee shops well not a Starbucks one you

00:02:37.560 know okay sometimes it just has to be a Starbucks one because you know the OG right my husband just

00:02:42.600 tried a pumpkin spice latte for the first time this year oh really he was like I hate to say it

00:02:48.200 but it was really good yeah I was like there's a reason everybody loves them exactly for some

00:02:53.180 reason because I don't really drink like flavored coffee that often anymore like I used to love like

00:02:58.280 a hazelnut latte used to be like my jam but then when I started working in a coffee shop I kind of

00:03:04.100 like learned more about coffee and I used to try and like do less shit to it I still like an espresso 0.93

00:03:09.740 and I like black coffee

00:03:11.660 and stuff like that there 0.94

00:03:12.460 but it's just really fucking good sometimes 0.94

00:03:15.420 just to get like a coffee 0.98

00:03:17.420 that's laced with all of the sugar.

00:03:19.620 So would you say that you're a coffee Puritan?

00:03:22.400 Oh, that's very apt for this episode. 1.00

00:03:24.960 Right?

00:03:25.480 I did that on purpose.

00:03:27.660 I think you can drink coffee

00:03:29.980 for different reasons.

00:03:31.260 You can drink coffee to appreciate

00:03:32.800 like how this is me getting super deep

00:03:35.180 into coffee on a podcast 0.99

00:03:36.740 but I'm officially that wanker 0.98

00:03:38.700 but you can you can drink coffee for different reasons you can drink coffee because you want to 0.94

00:03:44.360 like appreciate get a really good like a single origin coffee and drink it like black and the

00:03:49.380 way it's brewed or whatever or else sometimes you just really want a really sugary comforting

00:03:55.180 massive pumpkin spice coffee you want like a dessert drink yes you just want like a big hug

00:04:01.280 you know yeah a big hug in a cup and both things are equally good and people need to stop shaming

00:04:07.720 people for their coffee i was gonna say like is coffee like you know like the like beer bros

00:04:13.000 who are really like oh you can taste the citrus notes it's like shut up yeah coffee can be like

00:04:19.960 that oh my god yeah i used to work in a coffee shop that was pretty well known like for doing

00:04:25.480 good coffee and then the owner began roasting his own coffee and it is really genuinely amazing

00:04:31.140 coffee and yeah like seeing like the background of it all like he have you ever seen anyone doing

00:04:35.620 coffee cupping no so it's where you get like a raw grind of coffee and you basically just put a

00:04:43.400 little bit of hot water in it you kind of brew it but you get rid of all the sludge with all the

00:04:47.520 grounds in it and you like sip it from what looks like a soup spoon and it's the best way of getting

00:04:52.880 all of the different notes out of it so that's that's where they get the notes that are written

00:04:56.540 on the bag so it's like this has flavors of dark fruit and and a hazelnut and and all that kind of

00:05:02.540 plum it's funny because for the longest time madardo was buying like pre-ground coffee

00:05:07.420 and i was like he was like oh i wish i could do like whole bean stuff and i was like you can't

00:05:12.580 just get a coffee grinder yeah he was kind of like no like he i don't know why he gets like

00:05:16.920 this where it's like it seems like such a big task to like involve something else yeah and

00:05:22.740 then i bought him a coffee grinder for like 20 bucks and then he was like oh my god the coffee

00:05:27.640 tastes so much better i was like i've been telling you and i'm not a coffee person but i know yeah

00:05:33.640 there's a reason why like places advertise freshly ground coffee right i'm like just get the grinder

00:05:39.280 so yeah they're totally worth the money yeah that was a a tangent it really was

00:05:45.460 from halloween to coffee okay so like we said this episode is going to be about siren emily

00:05:54.740 and I are both covering different aspects of the festival I'm going to be covering the Irish

00:06:01.740 origins and some history of the festival in Ireland and then supernatural beings that are

00:06:09.360 well just one supernatural being that's associated with the festival and then I'm gonna take over

00:06:13.580 and talk about you know when the the settlers came to America and what happened with Halloween

00:06:20.980 after that. So yeah, I'm going to start us off. Sauen is one of the Celtic harvest festivals

00:06:28.720 celebrated by the ancient Celts halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

00:06:33.780 So we've already covered the autumn equinox. Winter solstice will be coming up eventually.

00:06:40.080 In the winter. Are we going to cover that? I don't want to promise that we will because we might not.

00:06:45.840 Put it in the schedule. We can cover it.

00:06:48.040 sound begins at dusk around october 31st which all of you filthy mortals know as halloween the

00:06:55.440 festival lasted three days and it's sort of known as the transition between the years lighter and

00:07:00.760 darker have so this is when everything starts getting really cold and dark and when you get

00:07:06.460 up in the morning to go to work or make your coffee because we're talking about coffee

00:07:11.920 make your pumpkin spice latte go bother your barista it's it's usually still dark outside

00:07:18.460 so Samhain is or was believed by the Celts to be a liminal time it's when the veil between the human 0.62

00:07:24.700 and the spirit realms is lifted or it's at its thinnest or weakest for example fairies who dwell

00:07:32.440 in the other world were who were also like usually impervious to most harm or maybe they were

00:07:38.700 immortal. During Samhain, it was when they became a lot more vulnerable. So when they passed over

00:07:46.480 into this realm, they had to abide by the rules of this realm and also vice versa. So like we had

00:07:52.320 the tale of Oshin in Tirnanog in our fairy episode. So when a human passes over into the other world,

00:07:59.020 they, for example, lose their knowledge of time as humans with no time. You just take on the

00:08:06.080 characteristics of whichever realm that you happen to be in and Sion is the easiest time to pass

00:08:10.760 between them. Yeah and they say in kind of like witchcraft and paganism that it's a time where 0.57

00:08:18.000 you can talk to the dead the best or receive messages from the dead. So Sion for the Celts 0.95

00:08:25.600 was actually Celtic New Year because time began in the darkness and their 24-hour days began at

00:08:34.100 dusk so that's why it begins at dusk on all hallows eve or halloween so how did the kelts

00:08:40.000 celebrate siren this is something that i feel like every irish school child when we're learning how

00:08:45.320 to read we're always like made look at pictures of people celebrating halloween around bonfires

00:08:51.060 and you always get like the same things it's like mentioned uh the hill of ward or the hill of tara

00:08:56.920 in county me because it's a big site which i'll tell you about i was just like what it's like

00:09:03.060 Irish child bingo I actually still can see in my head like a reading comprehension book they always

00:09:08.160 had like a story about you know somebody like Halloween or like you know somebody had went and

00:09:13.080 got fireworks or you know like something just to like make it a little bit more seasonal so some

00:09:18.040 of this was a little bit revision for me a refresher because I'm like oh my god I forgot all

00:09:21.960 about this that's so cool to me that they teach you this in school and obviously like they try not

00:09:27.920 to make it very pagan because like well i went to a catholic primary school so it's you know it'll

00:09:34.340 not be like this is all the cool shit that happened but it's like yeah you can build a bonfire and you

00:09:39.900 can go watch some fireworks and your precious catholic teachers are like hail sate exactly it's 0.94

00:09:45.640 like everybody gather around and we're gonna contact the dead even though like it was halloween

00:09:50.640 we do like halloween arts and crafts a lot of the focus was on all saints day because that's the

00:09:55.240 catholic one so so county meath in ireland it's in the province of leinster it's like an hour or

00:10:02.320 so outside of dublin it used to be the seat of the high king of ireland for a while it was his

00:10:07.880 own province so we have four provinces in ireland it's ulster munster leinster and connacht and then

00:10:14.320 tara kind of like washington dc was its own even though with me there's only a county it was like

00:10:20.200 its own little self-contained independent place probably for similar reasons that dc is independent

00:10:24.900 or you know not strictly part of a state yeah i've still i don't know i still am just like what

00:10:30.900 today with washington hey i was an embarrassing age when i found out that washington state and

00:10:35.940 washington dc are not the same thing and i'm like i grew up watching american tv how have i never

00:10:40.380 picked this up you also don't live here though so i feel like that's excusable i know it would be

00:10:44.800 different if it was like somebody like me it's like wait you're like 25 wait what so within

00:10:51.600 In County Meath, we have the Hill of Tara, which I mentioned, that was the seat of the

00:10:55.820 High King of Ireland, but there was also the Hill of Ward, so the Irish name for that is

00:11:00.720 Tlacta, so it's T-L-A-C-H-T-A, which is about 12 miles away from the Hill of Tara.

00:11:07.060 It was the site of the Samhain Fire Festival, and actually now there's kind of been a resurgence,

00:11:12.840 so they have a festival there now every year as well, which is pretty cool.

00:11:16.360 I've never...

00:11:16.880 Not the same fire festival that was cancelled.

00:11:20.840 At that same fire festival where a bunch of influencers and rich people got, like, really sad food rations and stranded on an island.

00:11:29.900 Yeah, sleeping on the ground.

00:11:32.260 Talacta, the hill of Talacta, is actually named after a mythological figure.

00:11:38.300 Talacta was the red-headed daughter of a powerful druid called Mog Roy.

00:11:43.640 And he himself was the son of Fergus, who's another, like, well-known figure. 0.66

00:11:48.700 she had a pretty shitty start into the world of mythology just like a lot of women seem to have 0.99

00:11:54.500 so she was raped by the three sons of a magician called simon also simon is a shit name for a 0.99

00:12:02.140 magician why anyway yeah sorry she went with her father to learn the magics practiced uh anywhere 0.99

00:12:08.720 in the world there's records of her visiting like different places all over europe and she reached

00:12:13.340 the hills of talacta she bore three sons durab kuma and mook who gave their names to the three

00:12:20.440 regions so the reason why the hill is named after her is because that is where she had her three

00:12:24.980 sons that were conceived by uh rift she had the three sons at the same time like triplets yeah

00:12:31.940 that seems to be the way it's on and they all had three fathers which whoever made this up um

00:12:36.440 their knowledge of like female biology is a bit i don't think that's possible unless she had like

00:12:42.500 three wombs or something who knows not to get scientific but i learned a lot with fertility 1.00

00:12:46.480 treatments i think if she ovulated and released three separate eggs and they were fertilized by

00:12:52.700 three separate males sperms yeah it could be possible i don't think it's very likely

00:12:58.520 and not all at the exact same time because it looks like it all happened at one exact time

00:13:04.520 which is anyway that's how we know that men wrote these stories they just say yeah she got knocked

00:13:10.400 up by three dudes so of course she's gonna have three kids of course that's the way it works and 0.79

00:13:15.060 every time you have sex you get pregnant yes every single time so to the kelts the sound festival

00:13:21.520 was basically a time for making winter preparations um so it was a time for harvesting crops 0.77

00:13:27.360 grinding up your animals from the fields to either be lodged up for the winter used for

00:13:31.640 breeding or sacrificed i think you need to put some music over that i will fire and brimstone

00:13:38.200 yeah they also would have feasts around this time abundant in both food and alcohol

00:13:46.200 um which you know wouldn't be the kelts if they didn't have food and alcohol

00:13:50.700 i think just anybody pretty much in the western world yeah if you have a harvest you're gonna 0.94

00:13:56.240 get drunk as fuck this is not related but have you seen the videos of um where it's like deer 0.60

00:14:04.320 and stuff who have been eating fermented apples and then they're like walking around drunk yeah 0.99

00:14:09.800 that's amazing i've also seen like fruit bats um if fruit bats like feed from like certain trees

00:14:16.880 it'll ferment in their stomachs and they'll be flying and then suddenly get really drunk 0.96

00:14:20.620 oh fuck it was in minnesota that there were drunk deer like wandering around people's yards 0.97

00:14:29.300 and they're like falling over and stuff like that and people called wildlife in minnesota 0.99

00:14:33.960 they're called the dnr like the um oh my god what is it departmental natural resources yes

00:14:39.700 people are like calling the dnr being like i don't there seems to be like all these like

00:14:44.500 messed up deer like i don't know if there's a weird infestation or yeah and then they're like

00:14:50.400 oh they're just they're just drunk do you think deer get hangovers that's a really good question

00:14:57.180 the deer just like oh my god i would do anything for just some water right now i can't go to the

00:15:02.400 watering hole somebody please bring me some water i was just thinking they're like man i didn't drink

00:15:07.880 enough water last night does anybody know where i could get some hash browns but interestingly

00:15:13.320 enough uh simon was also a time for the ancient irish to assemble and settle important business

00:15:19.860 matters and one of these was the inauguration of the new king but also tied to this uh it was also

00:15:25.980 time that debts were repaid and trials for the more egregious crimes were held uh with justice

00:15:32.040 made it out accordingly because everybody was gathered together although this happening when

00:15:36.440 everyone was eating and drinking and sacrificing animals doesn't sound like it really goes together

00:15:42.240 yeah but this is the portion of the podcast where i talked to you about

00:15:45.940 so i actually found a document it's from a while back but it is entitled the ritual killings of

00:15:56.020 the kings of tara cute so evidence suggests that kings were killed at the end of their term

00:16:02.860 at least seven of those kings were killed at the sound festival of these recorded ones wow so

00:16:08.920 earlier academics in the ancient irish thought that the ritual killings what they were referring

00:16:14.940 to that was just their way of talking about the inauguration ceremony but the more they looked

00:16:20.260 into it they're like oh no these guys are actually being killed can you imagine your term's about to

00:16:26.220 end uh and so is your life yeah because i was like are they killing them just because it's the end of

00:16:32.140 their term but um these ritual killings were done in a number of different ways in four of the

00:16:37.840 recorded cases they referred to it as a death by the elements so that was either by earth being

00:16:44.160 buried air or wind i don't know how you kill people by wind by fire or the sun so fire and

00:16:51.180 the sun were sort of interchangeable which if you're going to kill an irish man it's probably

00:16:55.580 going to be by the sun because i was gonna say but that seems like a long and painful process

00:17:00.240 yeah i think it's i think maybe what they're getting at here is exposure okay to the elements

00:17:05.300 or what they would also do is they would double up two of the elements so it would be like i would

00:17:11.040 be like please give me fire and water yeah whatever's the quickest one please freaking

00:17:15.540 drown me my god is drowning quick though well i think it's better than like being buried alive

00:17:21.800 isn't it i definitely wouldn't want to be buried alive yeah that when we were in boston we took a

00:17:26.840 ghost and graveyard tour the guy who was like hosting the tour he went around and was asking

00:17:31.620 people what their biggest fears were and he comes up to me and he's like what's your biggest fear

00:17:35.460 and i was like uh snakes and he's like what and he's like forget you or something like that he

00:17:41.260 kept walking why does he want something that he can torture you but then he was like nobody's

00:17:45.800 afraid of being buried alive and i'm like well now that you bring it up yeah you have our greatest

00:17:51.960 fear not just a random fear we have on a tuesday like really though i could have many fears what

00:17:57.600 are you afraid of a lot of things would you like to narrow it down somehow seriously you want like

00:18:02.680 the top 10 snakes embarrassment yeah walking alone at night things that i'm a little more

00:18:09.440 likely to encounter abandonment anyway not being loved by anybody

00:18:15.020 having no friends people not coming to my birthday it's like oh you wanted me to be specific right

00:18:23.860 in five other cases of the ritual killings seems that there was a private assassination but the

00:18:32.500 details of those suggest that it was actually more of a ceremonial thing so it seemed like like oh no

00:18:37.640 the king is dead but it was actually organized like ceremonially there are also some references

00:18:44.040 to a poison or a drug but there's no evidence that it was a lethal dose so they're thinking that that

00:18:50.840 was to subdue the king so that he could be killed and then four of them have my favorite one uh it's

00:18:57.240 descriptions of a masquerade of the 0.93

00:18:59.260 plebs

00:18:59.820 which was, like it suggests

00:19:03.400 a formal uprising by the common

00:19:05.180 people who were wearing special clothes and

00:19:07.200 masks. I love special clothes

00:19:08.920 That is the most

00:19:11.300 sound thing you've ever heard 1.00

00:19:13.100 Let's all rise up, kill our 1.00

00:19:15.320 king, while wearing 1.00

00:19:17.140 Halloween costumes. So like

00:19:19.160 if people think the purge was a

00:19:21.400 original idea, it really wasn't

00:19:23.280 the Irish did it first. We did it first 1.00

00:19:25.400 haha we did it thousands of years ago on a big hill with a fire yours wasn't an original idea

00:19:33.140 you owe us some sort of royalties each and every one of us

00:19:36.780 so why were these kings being killed on saun well i'm gonna tell you in six of the recorded cases 0.97

00:19:46.020 the king had behaved impiously or tyrannically which i can get behind you're a prick you call 0.99

00:19:52.280 yourself king we're gonna yeah dress up in a costume and kill him he deserves it so some of 0.99

00:19:56.900 the ways he could behave impiously or tyrannically uh he could have broken a solemn oath destroyed 0.99

00:20:03.720 one of the fairy mounds which is absolutely unforgivable broken his taboos which there's

00:20:09.880 they don't really go into that but i'm sure there were some sort of um uh social norms that they had

00:20:15.700 to abide by or the most interesting one uh he turned away from the pagan religion and adopted

00:20:22.360 christianity oh oh so the pagans sacrificed him pagans are like christian get him in eight of the

00:20:33.160 recorded cases there is evidence of festivals being held in a seven-year sequence so it's

00:20:38.940 suggested that um after the seven seven-year term which interestingly that's how long the

00:20:44.960 irish president serves for the seven-year term they were then killed and the new king was

00:20:50.560 inaugurated wow so that is um a pretty nerdy way to end your term can you imagine if like the 0.85

00:20:57.540 british did that like king charles like upset some people like oh well he has to be publicly killed

00:21:03.140 on halloween yeah for like presidents in the united states yeah man that would have been a fun uh 2020

00:21:11.660 oh my god yeah it's like well they can't even get him in a courtroom so they're not gonna get him

00:21:19.580 at the top of a hill he will not they tell him they're bringing him to play golf somewhere yeah

00:21:24.320 oh my god yeah you're gonna play golf and then the elements just do their thing you have behaved 1.00

00:21:31.420 impiously on many occasions on twitter you're a big fucking asshole 1.00

00:21:37.160 well let's sorry will this conversation end us up on a watch i know all of a sudden i'm like 0.99

00:21:42.620 this is not a plan allegedly in our opinion we think this yeah it's not a plan it's just like

00:21:49.820 wow what if it's a fantasy this was in back in the day times there is an account of one pagan 0.97

00:21:57.980 king tigernmas it's t-i-g-e-r-n-m-a-s tigger like from poo tigernmas who knows i'm pretty

00:22:06.120 sure i mispronounced uh niflheim last episode because ewan was laughing because i said it like 0.95

00:22:10.520 nipple and he's like it's niflheim i was like well you didn't correct me at the time then he goes

00:22:16.040 name tigranmas and his followers assembled each year at sound eve or november eve on the plane 0.85

00:22:25.060 of prostrations to pay homage to the great god chrome crook and the 12 subordinate gods whose

00:22:31.000 image stood around him they were so energetic in their devotions that they crushed their foreheads

00:22:35.200 and knees and noses and elbows

00:22:36.960 and ten hundred and three thousand

00:22:39.360 perished. What?

00:22:41.260 This is a gnarly as fuck 1.00

00:22:43.260 sound festival. 1.00

00:22:45.060 These gatherings continued

00:22:46.980 until St. Patrick overthrew 0.99

00:22:49.020 the worshippers of Chrome Crook and destroyed

00:22:51.180 the idols themselves. Oh my gosh.

00:22:53.180 So St. Patrick's like, no, you're not

00:22:55.320 going to smash your heads and noses anymore.

00:22:57.540 I'm putting a stop to this. St. Patrick's 0.95

00:22:59.240 like the cops who gets called at a

00:23:00.960 house party. Oh my god. It's just like

00:23:03.400 absolutely fucking not. 0.98

00:23:05.200 just stop 0.97

00:23:07.160 there is another legend that

00:23:09.060 an early tribe of gods or men

00:23:11.360 which we refer to them as gods

00:23:13.400 the Formorians that we were talking about before 0.67

00:23:15.380 they exacted a yearly

00:23:17.260 tribute at Samhain from

00:23:18.820 the more recent settlers

00:23:20.540 the Nemedians and 0.95

00:23:22.460 also metal as fuck the tribute consisted 0.97

00:23:25.280 of two thirds of their children 0.98

00:23:26.960 born within the year and two thirds

00:23:29.100 of the year's corn and milk they sacrificed 1.00

00:23:30.980 their own children the Formorians 1.00

00:23:33.100 but I mean they were a demon race 1.00

00:23:35.140 so. Pretty wild. Yeah they're the ones

00:23:37.080 the Tuha Danannan were always fighting. You guys thought that

00:23:39.080 guar was metal. Sacrificing

00:23:40.960 their children, their corn and their milk

00:23:42.700 which you know that's the top three

00:23:44.320 what more could you want? One of these

00:23:46.980 things is not like the other

00:23:48.500 It's like we'll take your corn and your milk

00:23:50.580 Yeah

00:23:51.580 So now that you know

00:23:55.100 about like how the Irish

00:23:56.900 the ancient Irish celebrated Sion

00:23:58.820 and where it all came from we need to talk about

00:24:00.940 one of the ghosts and ghouls that are associated

00:24:02.920 with the festival. So as

00:24:04.900 emily had said earlier the sound was known as the night that the dead would return to their former

00:24:09.160 homes for a visit to the living but it wasn't just the spirits of family and friends that came across

00:24:16.020 the veil um so the fae folk that any humans were unlucky to cross paths with obviously hopped over 0.82

00:24:25.760 that border just like me when i'm getting something off amazon that's cheaper to ship to northern

00:24:31.720 ireland so the the fae folk used to come and roam the lands so the one that we're gonna talk about

00:24:39.060 today is the puka puka puka is a shape-shifting fairy who is associated with the harvest and he's

00:24:47.620 thought to be the origins of the character puck from midsummer night's dream uh shakespeare because

00:24:53.140 he has a lot of like the same characteristics so he's known as being mischievous he would trick

00:24:59.560 people by shapeshifting into different forms he would speak in riddles and he also anytime you

00:25:06.000 asked him who he was he more often than not wouldn't tell you because fairy names have power

00:25:11.400 and if you speak a fairy's name you have power over them so you have power over him now if he 0.53

00:25:16.080 comes near me you're like suck it puka so i have like a little description that i found in a folklore 0.57

00:25:24.400 book so the irish puka is plainly the english puk or pop it would seem and it denotes an evil spirit 0.97

00:25:31.200 the notions respecting it are very vague a boy in the mountains near killarney told mr croaker

00:25:36.640 that old people used to say that the pukas were very numerous in the times long ago they were

00:25:41.560 wicked minded black of color and did bad things and would come in the form of wild colts so like 0.88

00:25:48.040 young horses with chains hanging about them they did great hurt to benighted travelers benighted 1.00

00:25:53.180 is such a great word what does it mean it's like in the night oh yeah like it they did great hurt

00:25:58.320 to benighted travelers here we plainly have the english puck it is remarkable that the boy should 0.94

00:26:02.940 speak of pukas in the plural number in leinster it was always the not a puka that we heard named

00:26:08.760 when the blackberries begin to decay and the seeds to appear the children are told not to eat them

00:26:13.420 any longer as the puka has dirtied on them so that's one way of getting your kids to not eat

00:26:18.700 stuff that they find inside my mom used to tell me the dogs pissed on them but like

00:26:23.060 clearly it's a lot more interesting to say that the the pookan has dirtied yeah

00:26:27.360 that mouse that i had yesterday dirtied all over my room no yeah like i just would not be well

00:26:34.620 after that i'd be like clearly it was a very frightened little mouse because he was uh

00:26:38.960 deposited in there by your cat yes i just went on like a cleaning spree and the whole room got

00:26:44.800 clean i was laughing so hard at the video you sent me and it was like she was just like eating

00:26:49.220 normally like nothing happened and you were like she's just acting fine she's acting so innocent

00:26:54.180 she didn't do anything wrong yeah she's just there like oh did something happen i wouldn't know

00:26:59.760 yeah did i ruin half of your day so there's a pretty well-known puka story uh that is told

00:27:06.340 was told like right up to the last century so there were still storytellers in the west of ireland

00:27:12.020 So they memorize those stories that have been passed down from generation to generation.

00:27:16.320 And like even now, you can still go to like storytelling festivals or storytelling nights

00:27:22.240 where there will be a guy there who just tells you all of the old tales, which is pretty awesome.

00:27:26.660 This one is called The Buchal Bow by Sean O'Cronin, who is a storyteller from County Kerry.

00:27:32.480 The Buchal Bow, Buchal is Irish word for boy and bow is the Irish word for cow.

00:27:38.000 so it's not strictly a cowboy in the sense that we know like as we think of like from tv but he's

00:27:44.140 basically like a farmhand wait cowboy from tv oh wait a cowboy as in like a with the boots and the

00:27:52.240 hat yeah he's not a cowboy in that sense i was picturing like half boy half cow no he's just

00:28:00.360 i don't know why yeah okay yours is way more interesting i know i was like wow this is really

00:28:08.320 cool and you're like not a cowboy or like a boy cow from tv i'm like wait this is this tv show

00:28:14.040 that's that's where your mind went not even a cowboy like a half boy

00:28:18.340 like a centaur but with a cow yeah oh my god i'm so sorry can i please call this episode a centaur

00:28:28.760 but with a cow yes a cowboy but not that kind yeah okay oh my god there was a farmer who once

00:28:37.000 employed a lad to look after the livestock he was a centaur he was not a centaur his job was to house

00:28:44.580 the cows after milking no sooner was this done that something would jump in his direction in

00:28:49.140 the form of a young horse it would put its head between his legs and hoist him up on its back

00:28:53.600 which sounds like a great time

00:28:55.580 that done the creature would take the lad

00:28:58.220 for a rough ride over the countryside

00:29:00.020 which is hilarious because ride is like 1.00

00:29:02.140 Irish slang for fucking 0.99

00:29:03.640 but not that kind of ride 1.00

00:29:06.180 okay so the creature would take the lad

00:29:08.380 for a rough ride over the countryside

00:29:09.720 the morning would be brightening when the lad would get

00:29:12.340 back to the house

00:29:13.140 Emily stop

00:29:15.580 when the farmer asked the lad what had kept him out

00:29:18.300 so late the lad told him

00:29:19.740 is this Brokeback Mountain

00:29:21.580 oh my god i'm so sorry i'm like trying so hard not to ruin it it's fine the lad told him what

00:29:30.780 had kept him out so late it was this like young horse forcing him onto its back so the farmer

00:29:34.780 said i have spurs put them on you tonight and if he tries to bring you give them the spurs

00:29:40.100 and so the lad did or half boy half cow so once he put on the spurs that night when the

00:29:49.020 The creature came

00:29:50.420 The thing threw him from his back

00:29:52.380 And the lad was able to come back home early enough

00:29:54.880 Within a week the young horse was before him again

00:29:56.980 After housing the cows

00:29:58.180 Come to me said the lad so I can get up on your back

00:30:00.640 And the animal said

00:30:02.740 Have you the sharp things on?

00:30:05.240 Certainly said the lad

00:30:06.500 Oh I won't go near you then

00:30:08.520 He said

00:30:09.140 The lad used to attend Scoriukty

00:30:12.460 Which is ours for house entertainments

00:30:14.440 Like a house party?

00:30:15.680 So it's like if they're out in a rural area

00:30:17.420 everyone would gather at like one person's house

00:30:19.340 and that's where they'd have their like parties and stuff

00:30:21.060 there was one night that he was returning from

00:30:23.160 a scoriacht, this thing jumped towards him

00:30:25.340 knocked him off the path into a bush

00:30:27.160 and fell down on top of him

00:30:28.920 this thing just flirting with him at this stage

00:30:31.100 soon after there came a great blast

00:30:33.360 of light down the path

00:30:34.480 the thing that had knocked the lad down

00:30:37.080 got up and let the lad

00:30:39.160 rise, let him stand up again

00:30:41.260 and the thing said to him

00:30:42.560 I saved your soul for you now

00:30:44.100 you'd have been killed by her had you been on the path

00:30:47.220 that was a spirit this sounds like a weird fan fiction it does and who are you said the lad i

00:30:52.880 am the puka and then the puka disappeared he never saw it again i am the puka and that's actually

00:30:58.380 seems to be like a bit of a recurring theme of like the puka it'll be like mischievous but it'll

00:31:03.920 also do like a kindness to people and like help them or save them interesting yeah so i actually

00:31:10.380 have no it's usually chaotic neutral um so some stories have him saving people from devils

00:31:16.560 on the road or encouraging them to hide or he's also rumored to be the guardians of some of the

00:31:23.420 older castles in ireland like there's a malahide castle in dublin or slain castle in county meath

00:31:29.560 in malahide castle there is a apuka door more like apuka is carved into the door because he's

00:31:36.080 supposed to be like the mythological guardian of the castle oh i was thinking it was like a special

00:31:41.480 entrance for him no yeah he's the the guardian of the castle and there were rumored sightings of him

00:31:48.220 out on the grounds around around the castle at times of great turmoil within the castle's history

00:31:53.840 so oh that's kind of like the moth man so of course i had to go into the archives of people

00:32:00.580 giving their real life stories of encounters with the puka and this is one that was gathered from

00:32:07.420 a old lady in my own county telling a story now it's it's a little bit meandering so i'm trying

00:32:13.060 to tell it with some clarity because yeah i feel like she doesn't say some very important things

00:32:18.960 and i it took me about four times to read it so it's like that shia labeouf interview yeah you're

00:32:24.120 like what how did you get there what are you trying to insinuate here what are you even saying

00:32:29.400 so the story is called the puka of killian or the puka of killeen means like the irish version of

00:32:35.520 the place name. Once upon a time a farmer went out one evening on business and didn't return or was

00:32:41.480 never heard of afterwards. There was a search made that night and the people had out bloodhounds

00:32:46.080 sent by the police to trace the lost man. No trace of him could be found so it was the public opinion

00:32:51.700 that the people he was murdered by were a society known as the Molly's Men. It was on the top of the 0.92

00:32:57.960 Killian Hills that he was supposed to have been murdered. In after years an old man said that

00:33:02.640 When he was coming from Ardra in the early hours of the morning

00:33:05.920 after the man was murdered, 0.95

00:33:07.040 he met a party of the Molly's men

00:33:08.860 carrying the dead body of a man on a door.

00:33:12.040 And they let him off with his life

00:33:13.400 on the conditions that he would never mention that he met them.

00:33:16.220 Well, you're kind of feeling there, aren't you lad?

00:33:20.400 They made him swear,

00:33:22.900 made him get down on his knees and swear

00:33:24.520 that he would never tell.

00:33:25.840 So he never told about it for years after.

00:33:28.080 And when he told it as a secret,

00:33:29.780 but the secret like all secrets pass from one to the other which it is the way of secrets the way

00:33:35.760 of secrets so the men with the dead guy on a door went across the killian hills in the direction of

00:33:41.900 boy's lock and some say that his body was thrown into the lock other people say that it was burned

00:33:46.940 in a lime killing so this murder took place around the year 1758 the man who who was murdered by the

00:33:55.160 society, had been married twice

00:33:57.100 but when he was married the second time

00:33:58.960 he used to give no living, so no

00:34:01.120 money, to the children of his first marriage

00:34:02.960 so he was a deadbeat dad

00:34:04.480 Jerk. Didn't pay his alimony 0.94

00:34:06.720 In this society, the men known 0.59

00:34:09.100 as the Molly's Men are supposed to have been

00:34:11.080 some relatives of his first wife 0.95

00:34:13.100 and they murdered him because he was

00:34:15.020 bad to her and

00:34:16.980 the family that they had together

00:34:18.500 The dead man's name was Doc Meehan

00:34:21.000 and he always said 1.00

00:34:23.080 that he was a farmer but he wasn't uh-oh after he was murdered he was a cowboy he was a buchalbo

00:34:30.080 at sunset every evening after this man was murdered an unearthly roaring used to start

00:34:37.640 beginning every evening on the same spot which was supposed to be the killing place of this man

00:34:43.160 and it ended at the altcore road when the roaring started the cattle grazing on the hills used to

00:34:48.460 run away towards the house and

00:34:50.500 the old people said the ground used to shake 0.52

00:34:52.760 and the delf on the dresser would

00:34:54.540 rattle. The roaring

00:34:56.600 would last until midnight.

00:34:58.900 So the people in this district

00:35:00.900 then realised who it was

00:35:02.660 that was supposed to have been murdered. They said the

00:35:04.620 puka took the form of a barrel. 0.89

00:35:06.540 A barrel and it was the barrel that was roaring.

00:35:09.420 What? And they lived

00:35:10.600 in great terror of this

00:35:12.420 and it all went away as soon 0.69

00:35:14.600 as the puka was put to

00:35:16.600 rest by the prayers of a priest. 0.91

00:35:18.460 So enter the priest, Father McGoldrick.

00:35:22.800 So, you know, the priest will come and save the day.

00:35:26.320 Yeah, always.

00:35:27.520 So that man who can't keep a secret,

00:35:29.520 the man who was coming from Ardra on the night that the Pooka was murdered,

00:35:32.380 met the Pooka another night,

00:35:34.480 even though he had been murdered, apparently.

00:35:36.740 So the man who had witnessed his dead body being carried on a door,

00:35:41.580 met him out again behind the Killian Hills. 0.99

00:35:44.440 when he met him the puka wouldn't let him pass 0.96

00:35:46.900 until he answered a few questions 0.97

00:35:48.700 like the puka does and on answering 0.93

00:35:50.960 them he was left off so that 0.81

00:35:52.860 man's name was Sean Maguire and Sean Maguire

00:35:54.880 cannot keep a secret because it's

00:35:56.780 ended up on the internet 0.74

00:35:57.860 yeah shut up Sean Maguire

00:36:03.880 and what's really cute about those stories is

00:36:06.940 everybody they have to say

00:36:08.720 where they got the story from because they're trying to

00:36:10.800 trace back like where the line of like

00:36:12.760 the oral tradition has come from so it said my grandmother got the above story from her father

00:36:18.560 james mcsweeney of drimna capple when she was about six or seven years old and this was like

00:36:23.440 a 70 year old lady who was retelling the story that's so funny like where did you get it from

00:36:28.620 oh my dad when i was like seven yeah that's their verification they have to tell you like this is

00:36:34.900 something that like somebody told me trying to get me to go to sleep at night yeah like i'm telling

00:36:39.740 it like it's the truth that about does it for the irish side of saun but we're going to take

00:36:48.240 a trip across the atlantic with emily right now all right so this is the history of halloween

00:36:55.480 in the united states super fun and exciting i know two puritan chanting and uh pitchforks yeah

00:37:06.760 pretty much yeah i'm just you know that scene in beauty and the beast i know that's in france

00:37:11.520 but you know at the end where they're like uh banging on the castle that's all i can picture 0.98

00:37:16.620 when i think of puritans pretty much that's basically exactly how they are assholes i don't 0.99

00:37:22.400 feel any certain way about puritans well hey they do like to cry they like to cry persecution and 1.00

00:37:29.320 then they killed a bunch of women so right they're always like well you're like of the devil and it's 0.99

00:37:34.960 like you kill people so yeah who's diabolical now right anyway basically i got almost all of

00:37:44.120 my research from this one paper by this woman her name is ellen feldman she wrote the history

00:37:49.520 of halloween and it was like a six page article or paper i'm not sure it was published in 2001

00:37:56.200 but i was like reading it and i was like holy crap this has so much information in it so

00:38:02.160 shout out to ellen feldman i love when you strike gold like that right especially when a woman wrote

00:38:08.140 it i'm like just thank you chef's kiss that was exactly me with like patricia eliza i was like

00:38:13.460 yes and she actually came up again and something sorry i have my my snuggie um she actually came

00:38:18.700 up again when uh like i was researching like the halloween and the puka and stuff like that and i

00:38:24.620 was like oh she's everywhere she's great yeah and this woman it said that she's like a folklorist

00:38:29.300 like she researches and stuff so super cool as we could all probably guess halloween wasn't widely

00:38:34.760 celebrated in colonial new england because all of the prude protestants halloween protestants

00:38:41.080 i mean not that i like catholics much more but boo protestants especially on principle

00:38:48.800 quote-unquote halloween was celebrated mostly in maryland and virginia as there was a large

00:38:53.800 population of catholics who celebrated all hallows eve and all saints day so because of this

00:38:59.000 the church the laws whoever were allowing them to celebrate because you know under the guise of like

00:39:04.800 oh it's all saints day it's religion just like me in primary school we get to teach them about

00:39:10.780 halloween because there's mass it's really weird because uh the stingy new englanders didn't

00:39:16.180 celebrate any holidays they didn't even celebrate christmas at first i know i'm like what like you

00:39:21.200 can't have fun yeah the only holidays that they did celebrate were muster day which is the annual

00:39:26.940 a day of 18 year old men enrolling in the military election day election day and harvard oh my god

00:39:34.580 harvard commencement oh for fuck's sake it's like how terrible are you people that's the three like 0.97

00:39:41.700 most depressing holidays i've ever heard in my life yeah i'm like this doesn't sound like a 1.00

00:39:46.280 holiday at all celebrated election day and harvard commencement because they're fucking losers 0.99

00:39:50.520 um this was until the new holiday thanksgiving started being celebrated oh so they made up their 1.00

00:39:57.200 own bullshit yeah so though the puritans fought against it a lot of new englanders would not stop 0.87

00:40:04.160 celebrating guy fox day even though it was a british holiday toward the end of the 1700s 0.98

00:40:10.340 young men would parade around with guys or popes of straw for bonfires john adams wrote punch wine

00:40:17.860 bread and cheese apples pipes tobacco and popes and bonfires this evening at salem

00:40:23.660 and a swarm of tumultuous people attending soon britain's day of thanksgiving was getting mixed

00:40:29.400 up with the colonies drive for independence as new englanders burned effigies of the stamp man

00:40:34.960 along with those of the pope and the devil also sorry everybody i am congested today so i sound

00:40:44.340 like uh i sound special emily's got some spice in her voice i do and in my nose it seems that

00:40:52.960 the new englanders were celebrating guy fox day to substitute celebrating all hallows eve

00:40:57.900 as the puritans didn't like the catholic traditions halloween or samhain was associated

00:41:03.300 with paganism and the spiritual world and we all know how the puritans felt about witchcraft

00:41:08.220 in the colonies magic was illegal so it was it was illegal just to be good fun then basically

00:41:17.000 or outlying fun it was illegal it was a it was illegal to enjoy your life yeah and they probably

00:41:21.960 didn't even know about all the king sacrificing like that would have been a legitimate reason to

00:41:25.740 ban simon yeah you guys missed out on all of that fun as different beliefs and rituals of different

00:41:31.000 european settlers meshed with native american beliefs and rituals halloween began being

00:41:36.620 celebrated in a new way in the united states the original celebrations include included play parties

00:41:43.260 which were public events meant to celebrate the harvest friends and neighbors would gather telling

00:41:48.620 ghost stories sharing gossip and even though the church forbade dancing and the fiddle

00:41:53.340 people would square dance sing and clap this is sounding suspiciously so any

00:41:58.620 it's so funny that they forbade the fiddle i'm thinking it's because like in a lot of the old

00:42:04.200 stories the devil played the fiddle so that went down to Georgia yeah well these events were

00:42:08.400 important to families who lived on farms because their children who are of marrying age could come

00:42:13.240 together to meet people who lived far away while the play parties weren't always in October or

00:42:18.900 around Samhain they were similar in the way that they were celebrated so it's Puritan tinder is

00:42:23.720 that what you're telling me Puritan tinder yeah by the middle of the 19th century there were many

00:42:31.700 autumn festivals being celebrated but not everyone was celebrating halloween by the end of the 19th

00:42:37.280 century there were tons of new immigrants in america many of them being irish who were fleeing

00:42:41.680 ireland due to the potato famine so hey you're people my people i once had a canadian guy ask me

00:42:49.420 he was in ireland on holidays and he was like you know like if you if you were starving why didn't

00:42:54.160 you guys just go to go fishing and i was like oh i wish you would have been here yeah i wish you

00:42:58.940 going to solve the potato famine just a very very quick crash course for anybody irish people were

00:43:04.820 completely subsistent on the potato because it was a very rigid crop the british and the protestant

00:43:11.460 ruling class used to take any of the food that was grown and exported to the uk uh or around the

00:43:18.820 other colonies uh even though irish people were starving also potatoes are a very good source of

00:43:25.120 a lot of different vitamins and minerals so if you're going to be really poor and you can only

00:43:28.520 grow one thing it's a very good one thing to grow and we couldn't fish because they wouldn't let us

00:43:32.040 we weren't allowed to fish and we weren't allowed to hunt they were shooting us for speaking irish

00:43:37.440 you think we were allowed to hunt oh my goodness i say we like i was there it's your people thank

00:43:43.660 you for the brief history on the potato famine so with them when they came over here they brought 0.98

00:43:48.340 their pagan traditions oh spooky irish girls would roast nuts peel apples unravel yarn stare into 0.96

00:43:57.000 mirrors dip their hands into bowls while blindfolded and play with fire in an attempt 0.99

00:44:01.920 to divine who and when they would marry instead of carving out turnips to use for lanterns they

00:44:07.200 started using pumpkins as lanterns to light their way as they walked door to door in secular

00:44:12.020 costumes soliciting handouts yeah your people my people the original patreon influencers

00:44:18.460 yeah like opening the door subscribe please subscribe we're in secular costumes i'm a

00:44:25.120 cosplayer please subscribe to my patreon among the irish on halloween there were also quote

00:44:31.520 unquote little people who would often commit vandalism i do not know why they were called

00:44:36.100 little people i don't think it's little people in the modern sense of the world yeah though most

00:44:41.940 of these rituals were done in urban areas where irish immigrants had settled mischief night

00:44:46.360 quickly spread to rural areas on october 31st young men would roam the countryside causing

00:44:51.900 trouble on the morning of november 1st farmers would wake up to their gates hanging from trees

00:44:57.340 cows and neighbors pastures and their wagons on their barn roofs oh my god can you imagine i'd

00:45:03.980 be so pissed oh my god i would be raging i get annoyed if a bin blows over people were doing

00:45:08.760 this intentionally they also loved playing pranks out with outhouses and claimed that mischief was

00:45:15.320 ruined when indoor plumbing was invented okay that's what that's a very unique complaint to have

00:45:21.080 you ruined our pranks because you invented indoor plumbing god forbid we don't have to

00:45:26.460 go outside anymore after the civil war halloween celebrations still varied a lot across the united

00:45:31.700 states in appalachia pronounced correctly thank you to my husband who said i said it wrong and

00:45:39.780 she didn't he said it's appalachia and i said it's appalachia um sorry so in appalachia which

00:45:47.700 witches lived with the german and scottish settlers and halloween was their special night

00:45:52.260 of celebration in the south voodoo customs associated the holiday with witchcraft charms

00:45:58.320 and deceased ancestors southwesterners celebrated a joyous day of the dead by taking food drink

00:46:04.260 flowers and candles to the graves of loved ones at midnight on november 1st and sang until the

00:46:09.920 sun rose the next morning you look so comfy i am actually but i can't find where the armholes are

00:46:15.420 and i don't want to have to stand up to find them so somewhere there's one i think the other

00:46:20.220 one's at the bottom you look like a little bird just flapping around as railroads telegraphs and

00:46:25.560 magazines were coming about it was a way to share information and make america a more unified nation

00:46:31.240 in 1871 middle class women all over the country were reading one of the first articles on

00:46:37.060 halloween published in i don't know if it's goatee's or gaudy's lady book i think it's

00:46:43.220 probably gody how is it spelled g-o-d-e-y yeah it sounds like gody i feel like goddy would be like

00:46:49.560 i don't know anyway it's called lady book gody's lady book i want to subscribe to a lady book that

00:46:56.580 sounds great i'm sorry it's gody's lady oh that also sounds like a slang for like playboy or 0.99

00:47:05.880 something it's one of my lady books or it's like a slang for your vagina you want to open my lady 0.99

00:47:12.540 book people don't listen to this to get flirting tips from us so but they should we've both been 0.99

00:47:19.580 in committed relationships for a while so not the person to ask i was never the person to ask

00:47:24.600 but especially not now following this first article published in godie's ladies book other

00:47:31.560 magazines and newspapers began publishing illustrations stories and suggestions for

00:47:36.540 halloween celebrations halloween became less about witchcraft and more about gathering and

00:47:41.200 celebrating it became so much about gathering and romantic pursuits that mistletoe was hung on

00:47:47.380 october 31st people were trying to meet up on halloween as the u.s entered the 20th century

00:47:53.460 halloween was all about having fun and promoting community allentown pennsylvania was the first

00:47:59.600 city to sponsor the first annual halloween parade and in 1921 in anoka minnesota which is not far

00:48:07.240 from where i grew up this place this town is actually nicknamed the halloween capital of

00:48:11.280 the united states and as i was yeah as i was growing up i was like wait how is that a thing

00:48:16.240 i thought it was salem but i would have thought it was salem but it might be because they held

00:48:21.280 the first city-wide halloween party so i don't know if it's because they were like one of the

00:48:25.860 first two cities to actually like celebrate halloween as a city when i was watching hocus

00:48:30.840 pocus 2 all i could think of was like it's so unrealistic that salem would be this quiet on

00:48:36.260 halloween yeah we're like they're just walking around the streets trick-or-treating and stuff

00:48:41.480 yeah when we were there is it last week now yes last week it was like pure chaos i bet and i didn't

00:48:48.820 even think of that it was just like my husband had his vacation and um usually when he has vacation

00:48:54.900 we go to minnesota to see my family but we'd been wanting to go to boston so we're like oh let's do

00:48:59.540 it it would be nice in the fall and uh and then i was like well if we're in boston we have to go to

00:49:03.780 salem i did not even like put two and two together that october plus salem equals chaos yeah like i

00:49:11.440 would love to visit in october but yeah i just think especially since you said that like it

00:49:15.560 sounds like it would be crazy i was telling my therapist about it and i was just like the whole

00:49:22.120 time i was just like angry like looking around at all these people being like oh you wannabes

00:49:26.160 like do you actually embrace the darkness and he was like i see that the punk never left you and i

00:49:33.180 was like no it did not he was like you're just sitting there calling everybody a poser when you

00:49:38.580 and i met our priest who's marrying us next week and he was asking us about our interests like

00:49:43.180 obviously because we have to be he has to show that he's at least met us before so he could talk

00:49:47.740 about us in the homily right he was like asking us what we do for hobbies and you and was like

00:49:52.260 neve has a podcast and i was like oh my god yeah perfect tell him about the podcast he was asking

00:49:57.300 me like what it's about and stuff and i was like trying to downplay it so you was like oh she did

00:50:01.480 like an episode on folk cures and stuff and so we were talking about like this holy well it's not

00:50:06.060 like far from here and then he was like summing up at the end and he was like he's like yeah right

00:50:11.000 so i'll talk about like the groom's interest in music and the bride's passion for the occult 0.56

00:50:15.300 and i was like fuck yeah you will yeah i'll take that you will definitely talk about this like 0.92

00:50:21.860 you're just making me look good here i think he meant it as kind of like an insult not like an 0.98

00:50:25.600 insult but like to make me look bad and i was like that's amazing i would love that right to

00:50:28.840 make you feel a little bit bad he's like i suppose that's like a very uh i feel like that's

00:50:34.300 like stuff that parents do yeah really like she's wearing black again yeah you're like yeah because

00:50:40.380 i'm cool because i embrace the darkness anyway medieval villagers begged for soul cakes irish

00:50:47.620 immigrants begged for handouts sorry that just said yeah i don't mean that as an insult but

00:50:55.800 that's what they were doing yeah in the 1920s children started dressing up and going door to 0.78

00:51:02.180 door trick-or-treating by the 1950s trick-or-treating was an established ritual in the u.s

00:51:07.540 despite what the holiday became over the years young men would still go out looking for trouble

00:51:13.140 all in good fun just putting gates on top of the top of roofs and stuff you know yeah wagons but

00:51:19.120 um this is a direct quote as families moved to the city the old purportedly innocent hijinks

00:51:24.640 gave way to more serious vandalism youth slashed tires stole gas caps and rang false fire alarms

00:51:31.080 all in the spirit of good fun in queens new york in 1939 a thousand windows were broken

00:51:38.120 oh my god yeah not very funny jesus and then as the united states entered world war ii people

00:51:45.720 began being fed up with the pranks the chicago city council abolished halloween and turned october

00:51:51.320 31st into Conservation Day. Wasting products on pranks and bothering families weary from the war

00:51:57.340 just wasn't fun anymore. After V-Day, children went back to trick-or-treating, youths to making

00:52:03.360 trouble, and civic leaders to trying to head it off with community celebrations. Then in 1950,

00:52:09.260 a group of students from a Philadelphia-area Sunday school sent $17 they had collected

00:52:14.420 trick-or-treating to the United Nations Children Fund, also known as UNICEF, and another holiday

00:52:19.940 tradition was born. A newly rich and powerful America celebrated Halloween by lending a helping

00:52:25.800 hand to the less fortunate peoples around the world. But as the certainties of the 50s gave

00:52:30.760 way to the rebellions of the 60s, which many Americans didn't experience until the 70s,

00:52:36.080 an innocent holiday became an opportunity for tragic accidents. In 1970, a five-year-old boy

00:52:42.780 died from eating heroin, supposedly laced through his Halloween candy, but actually

00:52:47.220 filched from his uncle's stash a number of other scares most of them unfounded followed and

00:52:54.260 trick-or-treating began to decline in the late 1980s however as president reagan's morning in

00:53:00.700 america headed toward high noon costumed children began venturing out into the streets and by 1999

00:53:07.400 92 percent of america's children were trick-or-treating in fact the spirit and intentions

00:53:12.680 of the old pagan holiday of darkness had finally become so sunny that an affluent indiana suburb

00:53:18.940 began busing in less than well-to-do children to share the goodies unfortunately a glut of less

00:53:24.780 affluent trick-or-treaters roaming the well-kept lawn soon led residents to move halloween to

00:53:29.840 another night advertised only in the community's association newsletter so they just moved the

00:53:35.300 whole thing kind of messed up they they were just like oh there's poor children in the neighborhood

00:53:40.280 we can't have that but also like when you're trick-or-treating as a kid like you always

00:53:43.840 knew which houses would give you better stuff yeah and you're always like walking across

00:53:47.640 lawns and stuff of course indiana it's one night of the year right i think they're gonna make a

00:53:52.940 trail still today in the u.s we struggle with christian conservatives who think that halloween

00:53:57.500 is a day to celebrate the devil and want to get rid of halloween or ban hocus pocus too like that

00:54:02.620 lady oh my god that made me so mad and i hate that she's getting so many interviews people are like 1.00

00:54:08.780 asking her more about it's like don't give her airtight yeah let's just call her crazy and call 0.99

00:54:13.660 it a day some churches will host trunk retreat parties in which they hand out candy in a parking

00:54:19.760 lot and then invite the trunk retreaters into the church to talk about god so a trap oh my god

00:54:25.760 setting a trap i'm sure that's a sin somewhere oh my god that's awful yeah then we have the more

00:54:31.520 frightening events held in churches in which the church will try to give young people a glimpse of

00:54:36.420 hell they'll hold morality plays where they show bloody abortions aids patients dying horrible

00:54:42.820 deaths and greedy businessmen who burn in hell because they spent too much time on business 0.88

00:54:47.220 instead of following jesus yeah because that's the same that's the same as aids and it's all 0.79

00:54:52.180 just terrible it's like we oh god god help us actually don't stay away no we're good we're

00:54:58.640 yeah we're good or like tell your people to quit oh even though there have been many attempts to

00:55:04.100 get rid of Halloween, the holiday simply won't go away. There are theories on why this may be,

00:55:08.880 but it seems to come down to the fact that this is a holiday that reminds people of their childhood.

00:55:13.580 Or it's because it gives them a chance to dress up, have fun, and imagine a second chance at the

00:55:18.420 childhood they didn't have. It's not a day in which you need a partner like Valentine's Day.

00:55:22.920 You don't need religious affiliation or have to feel patriotic like on the 4th of July. It's a

00:55:28.220 day where you can dress up like someone or something that you're not and eat candy. And who doesn't

00:55:32.880 like that so happy halloween everybody happy halloween and blessed saman or whatever they say

00:55:38.400 i don't know oh thank you what she said to everybody yeah that's good what was your like

00:55:45.180 favorite thing about halloween as a kid or do you like like have a big kind of memory that you most

00:55:50.360 used to look forward to i don't think i have like one specific memory i don't know halloween was

00:55:57.660 always just like a super magical holiday for me like i enjoyed it so much i would just like get

00:56:03.000 this like whole like tingly feeling like in my body just like yes i love this yeah when i was a

00:56:09.560 kid i wouldn't be a proper minnesotan if i didn't mention that i survived the blizzard of 91 okay

00:56:14.820 my parents actually took us out so we were we were almost two years old at that point

00:56:20.200 my parents dressed us up as dalmatians and took us out in the car and like drove us around trick-or-treating

00:56:27.360 i can't remember exactly how much it snowed but it snowed like three feet or something

00:56:31.620 on halloween in 1991 god yeah it was crazy i follow a minnesota meme page on instagram

00:56:39.180 and they have like a i survived the blizzard of 91 or the halloween blizzard but i don't

00:56:46.080 remember that because i was too little i was gonna say it probably like defined a generation

00:56:49.440 because there was probably like people that say like five years older than you that are just like

00:56:53.660 I really wanted to go trick-or-treating and it was so snowy right I remember this one specific

00:56:59.900 Halloween we were going trick-or-treating with my dad and like my parents would not allow us to

00:57:05.180 go trick-or-treating until the sun went down because I think at that point it was like past

00:57:10.280 dinner time and it was like okay now you can go bother people we were standing in my dad's garage

00:57:15.440 like waiting to go trick-or-treating I don't remember exactly why we were waiting but there

00:57:20.940 were trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood and we didn't want them to like come to our door

00:57:24.760 so we were like looking out like the little windows in the garage door just like are they

00:57:30.660 gone yet that was like a fun night that i remember there was also people on the block behind us there

00:57:37.920 was like this one house and they treated it like it was a haunted house oh they would have like

00:57:42.060 yeah they would have people who were like sitting on the porch and stuff like that and they would

00:57:45.940 like chase you if you like came into their yard oh my gosh i would love to be like that person in

00:57:50.840 the neighborhood yeah or like there was i think because of them like the house next door they had

00:57:56.920 like a it was a scarecrow like holding like the halloween bucket of candy but it was an actual

00:58:01.800 person oh my god amazing you'd go to like grab the candy and they'd be like boom and you're like

00:58:06.320 oh my god what about you do you have halloween i feel like people only really started trick-or-treating

00:58:11.500 in ireland in like the 90s maybe the tail end of the 80s i'm sure somebody will correct me

00:58:17.840 yeah so like there's like everybody talks about and if you even google this there's like the

00:58:23.280 quintessential 90s kid halloween outfit especially irish 90s kids and it was a black bin bag or

00:58:31.940 trash bag and a plastic witch's hat which i'm sure there's probably some there's probably a

00:58:36.980 picture of you like that somewhere as well or did you have proper halloween costumes because there

00:58:41.340 weren't really halloween shops you would get like a hat and a mask or something like that

00:58:47.080 Or I remember, like, one Halloween, so, like, Fife's bananas.

00:58:52.740 Interestingly enough, Ireland's biggest export is bananas.

00:58:56.500 What?

00:58:57.300 Yeah.

00:58:58.480 Ireland buys all of the banana crop from, it might be Costa Rica?

00:59:04.800 Okay.

00:59:04.920 There's, like, a country.

00:59:05.660 Anyway, Ireland has the exclusive to buy all of the banana crop.

00:59:09.920 It's all imported into Ireland by this company called Fife's.

00:59:13.920 And then Ireland exports them throughout the world.

00:59:16.400 so bananas are ireland's biggest export that is so weird just like costa rica it's weird

00:59:23.400 but fifes when i was a kid they used to do like a coloring competition and they had this character

00:59:31.160 who was a vampire but he had uh bananas for fangs and he was called binacula

00:59:38.520 and i remember winning and i think like they sent me three so clearly the bar wasn't very high

00:59:44.980 i entered the competition where i colored in like a haunted house with binacula and it was

00:59:49.260 binacula is like haunted house and i won like three binacula masks and like that was my costume

00:59:54.380 for halloween binacula i got like a vampire's cloak and i also have memories of so we have a

01:00:00.860 thing i don't think you mentioned it in the the things that you listed out but as that whole

01:00:05.460 tradition of trying to find out who and when you're going to marry one of the things is barnbrack

01:00:11.200 so it's a type of like fruit loaf

01:00:13.640 and they bake a little gold

01:00:15.760 ring into it and if you get the slice

01:00:17.860 with the ring it means that you're going to get married

01:00:19.680 and I still

01:00:21.760 remember like the first time I ever got the slice

01:00:23.860 with the ring and like just being

01:00:25.660 so like fascinated like that

01:00:27.320 you know I would watch my mum cut it

01:00:29.480 because I like I really wanted the ring

01:00:30.880 because it was like always this little just like wire ring

01:00:33.820 like it's the silliest little

01:00:35.600 cheapest little thing but I saw it in the shop the other day

01:00:37.780 and I'm like I like that you can still buy Barberac

01:00:39.800 i might actually buy one just for fun because it's my wedding year so yeah i like how you got

01:00:45.880 the ring you were probably like eight and you're like yes yes i'm not gonna die alone clearly this

01:00:50.480 bread knows my life the bread has predicted my future i remember most of my costumes but there's

01:00:59.440 not photos of all of my costumes from halloween i don't really know why i wish there had been

01:01:04.800 photos there was a year that my mom um i wanted a joker costume like a like a jester we couldn't

01:01:12.700 find one in the stores and so my mom like made one for me but i think uh i think that like because

01:01:21.460 it was like a silky fabric i remember just like like coming apart oh i was gonna say it was probably

01:01:27.840 a fire hazard too like for yeah probably but i remember being so stoked on this costume and

01:01:34.600 really sad when like all the seams just started like ripping oh and i think my mom was upset too

01:01:39.660 she's like i don't know why this is happening but i think like she can sew but i think um you know

01:01:44.720 when you're somebody who is not like an expert like costume designer because like different

01:01:49.140 fabrics need like different threads yeah and all of that stuff i think it's just harder when

01:01:53.600 you don't totally know what you're doing there was like a little pumpkin costume that we had

01:01:58.320 for like a little little baby i think my brother and i both wore it like

01:02:02.380 one halloween after the other and i feel like somebody made it for us but i don't remember

01:02:08.580 and yeah i was that i was a green m&m one year i'm like a witch probably yeah i don't know

01:02:16.740 halloween was always just like really fun for me well definitely the the choice of costumes in

01:02:21.600 america would have been a lot better because we used to like watch american tv shows and movies

01:02:25.640 and be like it's just not like it is there yeah yeah one of my friends wanted us to do

01:02:31.580 specifically an episode about halloween in the 90s she was like because that's when halloween

01:02:38.000 seemed to just like really pop off it's like when all those like disney halloween things came out

01:02:43.720 because that was a big influence i think yeah you know right halloween town i remember it being such

01:02:49.180 like a thing and then it's funny it's it's like a pipeline like you go from trick-or-treating with

01:02:54.260 your parents and then you're allowed to go out like on your own and then you just end up like

01:02:58.300 yeah like 13 14 years old wearing like one slightly halloweeny thing and just hanging out

01:03:04.600 with your friends and going around and doing nothing but just hanging out like yeah my friend

01:03:10.120 and i were 15 and we dressed up and we went out for halloween and like we were met with a lot of

01:03:15.360 people being like aren't you too old for this it's like we dressed up come on give us the candy i

01:03:21.780 I haven't dressed up in so long but it's just like I don't like going out in crowds

01:03:26.580 and I've never lived anywhere where you can have like a good house a good like home party or

01:03:31.580 apartment party so I just haven't bothered but I still I'm Halloween in spirit I still like

01:03:37.580 yeah at least we'll do something to market like I'll make a drink and and watch like some horror

01:03:42.680 movies or marathon something you know yeah we're having a Halloween party this year so amazing

01:03:48.200 hopefully that'll be fun i'm trying to plan i'm trying to plan like fun games and stuff for that

01:03:53.960 so fingers crossed i think you and i will be partied out by then but um look at my halloween

01:03:59.100 party is the day of your wedding oh really i will be i'll be celebrating but i'll pretend

01:04:04.060 oh cool we can uh we can badly photoshop you into some wedding photos yeah in my costume

01:04:10.080 in your costume everybody all like dressed up for a wedding and you're just there like

01:04:14.120 full face paint or whatever

01:04:16.120 yeah it's like did you see that video

01:04:18.860 of the girl it was like nobody told me that we were

01:04:20.840 dressing up as sexy elves and she's like

01:04:22.720 dressed up as gollum 0.72

01:04:23.900 or else it was that one

01:04:28.980 person that was like they said fancy dress

01:04:31.120 so they thought that it was like

01:04:33.160 you know dress up in costume but they meant like

01:04:35.060 dress fancy and there's that one

01:04:37.040 person dressed as the babadook and everyone 0.93

01:04:38.920 else is in tuxedos

01:04:40.460 so yeah

01:04:42.300 The next time I talk to you guys

01:04:44.380 I will have been married

01:04:45.740 I assume so 0.78

01:04:46.660 You will be a married woman

01:04:48.580 Yeah, we'll be both

01:04:49.120 Acclaimed woman 0.96

01:04:50.380 Two old married white ladies 1.00

01:04:51.580 Talking to you about spooky shit 1.00

01:04:53.740 So 0.97

01:04:54.040 I hope you guys have an amazing

01:04:56.120 And safe Halloween

01:04:57.120 I hope you learned something today

01:04:58.840 I hope you

01:05:00.600 Don't put your neighbour's wagon on their roof 1.00

01:05:03.600 And don't let the Puritans get you down 1.00

01:05:05.980 And if you see a little black horse

01:05:07.520 Running towards you

01:05:08.300 Close your legs

01:05:08.940 Because he's going to take you on a ride

01:05:10.260 and if you happen to know any legends about a cow boy

01:05:18.540 please tell us yes a cowboy a boy cow a centaur but it's a cow

01:05:25.800 thank you for sticking with us for this yeah slightly longer episode yeah thank you for 0.96

01:05:33.780 saying for the bumper episode and um fuck yeah folklore fuck yeah folklore i'm emily and i am 0.86

01:05:39.760 eve happy halloween happy halloween yes goodbye 0.97

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Rowan & Pine: A Feminist Folklore & Mythology Podcast - October 26, 2022

Episode Eleven： Samhain - Like a centaur except it’s a cow

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