Halloween/Samhuinn

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RECIPE: Halloween chocolate fudge icing.

Ingredients:
1 Cup milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips
2 tbsp butter
1/3 c icing sugar

Instructions
Place all ingredients in a double boiler in order.  Melt chocolate before proceeding to butter.  Transfer mixture to a bowl once it forms a film when placed on a spoon and cool it.  Spread on many things, or just eat it with your finger.  Nom.

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    It's always funny how Halloween means different things in different places.  At home, Halloween was first trick-or-treating, and later partying with my friends.  At college in Charlottesville, Halloween meant heading down to the lawn and watching parents take their adorable little children from lawn room to lawn room to trick-or-treat.  In Malawi, Halloween was going up to the most remote location in the country and roasting an entire pig.  No matter where I am, though, no matter how different Halloween gets, it seems there is always one conundrum every Halloween has in common: What am I going to be?
    This Halloween the dilemma was compounded by two facts: 1) It was my flat-mates’ first Halloween, so I wanted to celebrate in style, and 2) I didn’t want to spend any money.

Me with my flat-mates

    I spent the weeks before Halloween in angst, trying to come up with creatively brilliant ideas that usually ended up being just plain weird.  I thought variously about being: trash (sticking trash to me), popcorn (sticking popcorn to me), or a superhero (tying the pashmina from my bridesmaid outfit around my back).  Running these various ideas by my flat-mates I received the same response.  “Okay?”  (The question mark is deliberate).
    The day before Halloween, ideas still running around my head much like the proverbial hamster with its ever-faithful wheel, I suddenly thought about my coat.  This particular winter coat is long, and black, has a hood, and runs down to my ankles.  As a certain man in a bathtub once cried: Eureka!  I would be Death.  I turned to my flat-mate.  “What do you think about me being Death for Halloween?”  I asked.  She tilted her head, thinking about it.   
“Yeah,” she said finally.  “Death is always good.”
    While the costume idea fit, however, it didn’t have that flare of the original (read: weird) that I so desire in everything I do, so I mulled the idea over some more and came up with the second part much quicker than I had come up with the first.  I WOULD BE DEATH FROM THE TERRY PRATCHETT NOVELS.
    For those of you who have never read the Terry Pratchett novels, step away from the computer NOW and head to your nearest library.  Mr. Pratchett writes a series of novels set in an alternate world known as “the discworld” so called, because the world is a flat disc.  It is an obvious metaphor for our world, and his books are incredible.  Witty, insightful, humorous, well-written. On days when I was down in Malawi, listening to Terry Pratchett on audio, my iPod lifted my sprits beyond belief. (“Going Postal” and “Making Money” are the best, in my humble opinion).
    Which brings us to Death.  In Terry Pratchett’s novels, Death is a character.  He’s humorous without intending to be, AND HE ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS.  No quotes.  So, Halloween day I bought a scythe, wrote on a piece of paper I ALWAYS SPEAK IN CAPITAL LETTERS, and donned my coat.  I felt pretty good about the whole ensemble.
    Apparently, my feelings were justified.  Standing out on the Royal Mile, I had at least four strangers turn to their traveling companions and say “Hey ______, get a picture of me with this girl!” stand next to me in some ridiculous pose while their friend snapped a photo before I could even react.  A few people got my sign, and it was always nice to get that recognition, but even without it, I liked my costume.

Beltane fire society

    At nine o’clock, my flat-mates, my friend Melissa and I all thronged the street in front of Edinburgh Castle to watch the Beltane Fire Society’s festival for Samhuinn.  In traditional Celtic culture, Samhuinn is supposed to be the time when the world of the living and the world of the dead are closest.  In recognition of this, the society put on a parade, where people in black cloaks carrying torches marched in front of people painted blue and playing drums, people painted red, people wearing green clothes, and people carrying puppets and masks on poles and wires high above their heads.  It was pretty neat.
   

Cool fire symbol that almost certainly has meaning

We followed the parade down to Parliament Square, where they were going to perform a show on stage.  Almost the second the parade passed by it had begun to rain, so by the time we got to Parliament Square we were soaked, and umbrellas blocked the view.  I managed to get on the side of a statue though, and got a pretty good view from there.  I watched as, in a series of dances set to a drum-line, Winter and Summer fought, and Summer was beaten.  (Awww, said Melissa, as Summer fell to the ground).  At the beginning, when Summer was up, the society lit a huge symbol, which had been hung in the air, on fire. In the end, when Winter won, a new symbol was lit.
    Even if we were soaked, the whole thing was pretty cool.  I went home to my heated flat, and sat around in one of my flat-mate’s room, where we put on blueberry face masks.  It may not be dressing up and getting bucket-loads of candy, but it was still a pretty great Halloween.