Halloween

Long ago in Ireland, people believed that this time was the beginning of the New Year: entering into the dark days of winter. Day began when the sun went down. I've always been a night person and love that time of day when the darkness comes.

For the fourth successive year, as the sun went down on Halloween, my daughter and I went to our community garden to join in our annual ritual. We do a little bit of trick-or-treating, but the real highlight is when we are gathered around the fire with our neighbours and friends and marshmallows are toasted. Everyone brings some food to share, and some bring a song (or a few of them).

We brought Welsh cheese that we were given the previous night at a midtown gathering of Celtic musicians, singer and poets. There I sang A Bhean Úd Thíos, a song of a woman captured by the fairies. She is nursing a fairy child and trying through the lyrics to send a message to her husband, giving him instructions as to how he might save her. I finished up with the Scots Craobh nan Ubhal and A Mhisg a Chur an Nollaig Oirnn. After each had represented their nation in song or poem, the Bretons got some tunes going and most of the room took to the floor, joining hands or little fingers, in dances that brought me back to the Fest Noz of Brittany in the late 1980s. My daughter was thrilled, and it reminded me of nights as a child when we would be on holiday in Donegal, or later in the Connemara Gaeltacht, when I took part in céilís and carried away a priceless feeling in my heart.