A WITCHES’ EVENING

The celebration of Halloween every October 31 has a very ancient origin in the now extinct Celtic culture, in the eighth century BC. It was linked to the change of seasons, the arrival of winter, the transition between life and death. This time was known as Samaín, which means "end of summer", the nights become longer and therefore the darkness. The summer heat ends, the colder weather begins, the leaves begin to fall from the trees as the winter season begins.

The Celts during this period performed rituals that were linked to the return of the dead, who dwell in darkness, to the world of the living. This event, Halloween, was held the day before All Saints' Day, which is November 1. The word "Halloween" comes from the expression "All Hallows Eve". They believed that when darkness came, the dead came to the world of the living to take the most vulnerable souls.

The Druids, a priestly caste in the Celtic culture, were the ones who introduced the tradition of dressing up as spirits on Halloween, as a form of protection, to confuse the dead who would take advantage of the darkness to carry away some souls.

During the research I did for my master's thesis related to female representation, I read about the most important archetypes related to women. One of these archetypes is the witch, also a very old archetype that we already find in the myths of classical Greek culture.

In Greek mythology we find several figures that can be linked to the archetype of witches and the underworld, the world of the dead. Hecate, the witch goddess was considered a protective goddess, goddess of roads and crossroads, but she was also linked to magic, sorcery, the world of the dead.

Thus we also find Persephone, a maiden abducted by Hades, the god who rules the underworld. Whose mother, Demeter, who ruled the seasons, manages to keep her half of the year with her, the time of spring and summer, and the rest of the year, when she remains in the underworld, is the time of darkness, autumn and winter.

And so we also read in Homer's Odyssey about another witch, but she was no good, Circe, who transformed part of Odysseus' crew into pigs with her magic potions. Of the witches who were burned by the Inquisition in the Middle Ages, let's not comment too much. But the figure of the witch has reached our days, we can see them in children's stories, movies and television series.

Well, last saturday, Some friends and I organized an afternoon to read witch stories in the bookstore managed by one of them, María Esther. She loves Halloween, she loves scary stories, she has a great witch costume and she also makes up for the occasion.

Her younger sister, Faitha, and I also dressed up and read some fun witch and ghost stories for those who accompanied us, for the children and adults who visited the bookstore. We had a very enjoyable afternoon. As usual a friend who accompanied us brought some sweets to give to the visitors. I brought some cookies too.

I hope you enjoyed these lines about Halloween and have a spooky Halloween.

Most of the photos you see were taken in the bookstore with my cell phone camera or one of the visitors had the courtesy to take them and send them to me.