Hedge Witch by Rae Beth

Author:Rae Beth
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719826863
Publisher: Crowood

New Green

Avonford

21st October 1987

Dear Tessa and Glyn,

I have written a note to myself about this letter. It goes, ‘Don’t forget to mention “trick-or-treating”.’ So I’ll say what I want to say about that now. Trick-or-treating, as I am sure you both know, is a new ‘custom’ which has come from America. It requires that children go from door to door, demanding ‘treats’ if they are not to play a ‘trick’ upon the occupants. As a matter of fact, it’s well in keeping with Samhain, or Hallowe’en, the night on which it takes place. Samhain is a ‘mischief night’ on which sprites are expected to play tricks on humankind on behalf of the Lord of Misrule, that aspect of the Horned One who will not let us take ourselves too seriously. The Lord of Misrule also loosens things up with surprises, jokes and bizarre happenings because the boundaries dissolve at Samhain, and the worlds begin to merge. Trick-or-treating children are his emissaries perhaps.

So what can you do if you don’t want your worship and spell-casting interrupted? Either begin a bit later than usual, or postpone your celebration till the next night. Personally, I can never bear to miss the special atmosphere of 31st October, so I risk the door-knocking of mischievous sprites and somehow it seems to work out.

This festival is about the year’s death and therefore is the New Year, for death implies rebirth. But at this time, the death is more obvious than the intangible rebirth. Fields lie fallow, the sap has sunk down into roots and all of nature rests. There is an atmosphere of weirdness in the autumnal mists and the smoky colours of evening. This is, in fact, the Festival of the Returning Dead, as well as an acknowledgement of the end of one solar cycle. That is why it has its reputation for ghostly happenings, its bats’-wings-and-black-cloaks associations.

Janet and Stewart Farrar, in Eight Sabbats for Witches, make the following comment: ‘Samhain is a time of psychic eeriness, for at the turn of the year – the old dying, the new still unborn – the Veil [is] very thin.’

The old year dissolves, it breaks down, at Samhain, and the result is a breakdown of all boundaries, including those between the living and the dead. It is therefore more possible than usual to perceive the psychic presence of those who have died before us but who are still connected, still watching over us. That is one reason for ghostly events at Hallowe’en. The living, the dead and the unborn can meet in spirit on this night, psychically communing and exchanging information. Likewise, the nature spirits walk among us, both the kindly and the more mischievous ones.

Not surprisingly, Samhain is the best night of all the year for clairvoyance and divination. Some of the visions and psychic messages are said to be sent by the Beloved Dead, that is, by the dead friends or family members with whom we are still linked by bonds of affection. Others may be a direct gift from the Goddess.

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