ADS-L Digest - 31 Oct 2002 to 1 Nov 2002 (#2002-280)

[Kathryn Remlinger]

I am not sure what the significance of having beggars' night on the 30th is. We didn't go trick or treating again on the 31st. Although we usually did nothing on the 31st, sometimes we'd go to a party in the neighborhood. At the party we'd bob for apples and play a game where we were blind- folded and stuck our hands in food items that were made out to be body parts (eye balls, brains, other organs). The object of the game was to scare us rather than have us guess what the actual "parts" were (peeled grapes, cooked spaghetti...) I went to a Catholic elementary school where we dressed up like our patron saints on the 31st, rather than the typical Halloween characters. Each class paraded around the school in our costumes. The entire school  then went to mass on Nov 1st for All Saints Day (but not in our saint costumes!).

Kate


Date: ***Fri, 1 Nov 2002 13:20:13 -0800
From: ***FRITZ JUENGLING <juengling_fritz at SALKEIZ.K12.OR.US>
Subject: Re: night before Halloween

I have read this thread with great interest. *As I understand it, many people have some special name for the night before Halloween, i.e. Oct 30th. *Some people go out and create mischief and others go trick or treating on that night. *So, if you do one of these activities on the 30th, do you do the other activity on the 31st (or do you go trick or treating again)? *What's significant about the 30th at all? *Sounds sorta like having a big turkey dinner the day before Thanksgiving or shooting fireworks on July 3rd. *In those areas where there was some sort of activity on the 30th, is that still the case, or has all activity moved to the 31st?
thanks,
Fritz
Kathryn Remlinger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English: Linguistics
Department of English
Grand Valley State University
1 Campus Drive
Allendale, MI 49401 USA
remlingk at gvsu.edu
tel: 616-895-3122
fax: 616-895-3430

>>> remlingk at GVSU.EDU 11/01/02 09:03AM >>>
Night before Halloween: In *central Ohio we called it "beggars' night" and this is when we did our "trick or treating".