Origins of Halloween

[fluffymark]

On sunday asylum was discussing the origins of the halloween festival. This was extremely interesting, exploring the ancient celtic new year (with bonfires), and the pagan traditions (the barrier between the living and the dead being thin), how the Romans added to it (where the tradition of bobbing for apples comes from apparently) and so on. It was finally christianised when some pope moved the festival of martyrs to co-incide. It did appear however, that I was the only one there who knew how to pronounce 'Samhain' correctly. Eeep. We then listened to the story of Jack (and some very amusing variations), which I'm sure i've heard before, but not for a very long time.

Afterwards Donna dragged a group of us out to the Pizza Hut on Oxford Street, where the walls are lined with Miros. Wow.