Today it is ... but what is Halloween?

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints. It is largely a secular celebration but some have expressed strong feelings about perceived religious overtones.

The colours black and orange have become associated with the celebrations, perhaps because of the darkness of night and the colour of fire or of pumpkins, and maybe because of the vivid contrast this presents for merchandising. Another association is with the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, ghost tours, bonfires, visiting haunted attractions, pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.

Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, [it is] more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain or Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)". The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end". A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced kalan-geyf).
Snap-Apple Night by Daniel Maclise showing a Halloween party in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The young children on the right bob for apples. A couple in the center play a variant, which involves retrieving an apple hanging from a string. The couples at left play divination games.

The festival of Samhain celebrates the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half", and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year".

The celebration has some elements of a festival of the dead. The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home whilst harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces. Samhain was also a time to take stock of food supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. Bonfires played a large part in the festivities. All other fires were doused and each home lit their hearth from the bonfire. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames. Sometimes two bonfires would be built side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk between them as a cleansing ritual.

Snap-Apple Night, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833. It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, Ireland, in 1832. The caption in the first exhibit catalogue:

There Peggy was dancing with Dan
While Maureen the lead was melting,
To prove how their fortunes ran
With the Cards ould Nancy dealt in;
There was Kate, and her sweet-heart Will,
In nuts their true-love burning,
And poor Norah, though smiling still
She'd missed the snap-apple turning.
On the Festival of Hallow Eve.

link: File:Maclise.snap.apple.night.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another common practise was divination, which often involved the use of food and drink.

The name 'Halloween' and many of its present-day traditions derive from the Old English era.

The term Halloween, originally spelled Hallowe’en, is shortened from All Hallows' Even – e'en is a shortening of even, which is a shortening of evening. This is ultimately derived from the Old English Eallra Hālgena ǣfen. It is now known as "Eve of" All Saints' Day, which is November 1st.

A time of pagan festivities, Popes Gregory III (731–741) and Gregory IV (827–844) tried to supplant it with the Christian holiday (All Saints' Day) by moving it from May 13 to November 1.

In the 800s, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were once celebrated on the same day.

Already back

from a perfect weekend in Otley, where I met my friends again. Good weather, good food (Indian and typical English) and English Ale to drink, made it a very enjoyable weekend.

Saturday morning I was at a Ju Jitsu (Ju Jutsu) training, in the afternoon we went for a hike around the Chevin. The Chevin is the name given to the ridge on the south side of Wharfedale in West Yorkshire, England, overlooking the market town of Otley. 

The Chevin is largely covered in attractive old woodland and heathland. It is a part of the Carboniferous Millstone grit group. A Roman road ran along the top of the Chevin, part of the road that linked Eboracum (York), Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Olicana (Ilkley), perhaps on the same route as the modern road, Yorkgate, or perhaps about 800m to the south.

The highest point of the Chevin, Surprise View, reaches 282 metres (925 ft) at grid reference SE204442. This point offers extensive views of Otley and Wharfedale, and has an adjacent car park. It is the site of a beacon, and a cross is erected at Easter.

The name comes from the Brythonic 'Cefyn', 'Cefn' or 'Cefu' meaning a 'ridge', or 'ridge of high land'. The root name informs other hills, such as The Cheviot in Northumberland, and the Cévennes in France.

After their son's football match on Sunday afternoon it was almost time to fly home again.

And yes I am back for some time now :-).

Back from England and Germany

I have had a very good small break in England and this weekend I was in Hamburg to visit my business partner.

In England we had some tours, to the Chevin (near Otley), to Leeds (saw the movie the Golden Compass), and to Brimham Rocks.

The Chevin

The southern flank of the Wharfe valley which lies above Otley is known as The Chevin a term that has close parallels to the welsh term "Cefn", meaning ridge and may be a survival of the ancient cumbric language.

The Chevin is largely covered in attractive old woodland and heathland. It is a part of the Carboniferous Millstone grit group. A Roman road ran along the top of the Chevin, part of the road that linked Eboracum (York), Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Olicana (Ilkley), perhaps on the same route as the modern road, Yorkgate, or perhaps about 800m to the south.

The highest point of the Chevin, Surprise View, reaches 282 metres (925 ft) at grid reference SE204442. This point offers extensive views of Otley and Wharfedale, and has an adjacent car park. It is the site of a beacon, and a cross is erected at Easter.

The name comes from the Brythonic 'Cefyn', 'Cefn' or 'Cefu' meaning a 'ridge', or 'ridge of high land'. The root name informs other hills, such as The Cheviot in Northumberland, and the Cévennes in France.

Brimham Rocks

In the beginning ...
320 million years ago, a huge river washed down grit and sand from granite mountains in northern Scotland and Norway. A delta formed, covering half of Yorkshire. Increasing layers of grit and sand, along with rock crystals of feldspar and quartz, built up to form the tough sandstone known as Millstone Grit, the exposed sections of which can be seen today at Brimham Rocks.

A feature of the rocks is their cross-bedding. As the water from the river flowed, it created bedforms such as ripples or dunes on the floor of the channel. Sediment was deposited on the downcurrent side of these bedforms at an angle - not horizontally. The layering is inclined and dips in the direction the water was moving.

Shaping
Most of the rocks owe their bizarre shapes to erosion during and after the Devensian glaciation. For example, Idol Rock was most likely formed just after the last glaciation when the land lacked any plant cover. Here, sand-blasting at ground level wore away the softer layers of the rock producing a tiny plinth with a massive top. Freeze-thaw action on the joints and bedding planes have shaped many of the tors such as the Dancing Bear.

Back and almost gone again ...

Back from Heerenveen where I was with my parents for Christmas. Tomorrow I will fly to Otley in England to meet some of my best friends, English though :-).

Otley is a Yorkshire market town of about 15,000 people, set on the banks of the River Wharfe. It is an ancient, friendly and picturesque town with a rich commercial and community life. The town lies in attractive countryside in Mid-Wharfedale at the centre of the rural triangle between Leeds, Harrogate and Bradford. Immediately to the south of the town rises Otley Chevin, which gives magnificent views over Mid-Wharfedale, and in the past provided much of the stone from which the town centre was built. Much of the town centre is eighteenth or nineteenth century or earlier and has Conservation Area status. Otley has been here from about the mid-Eighth century, when Otta made his Leah or clearing in the forest.
Since then Otley has evolved a rich and varied character. Its Parish Church houses some of the best examples of Anglo-Danish crosses in the country. Thomas Fairfax, Cromwell's general came from nearby Denton Hall. Thomas Chippendale, the world-famous furniture maker was born and learnt his craft in Otley. Turner often stayed nearby, and used the Chevin as the backdrop for at least one of his famous pictures (Hannibal crossing the Alps). The Wharfedale Press, which revolutionised nineteenth century printing, was invented and manufactured in Otley. And the town hosts the country's oldest agricultural show. The town continues to be a varied and resourceful place.
It is still very much a market town; with two cattle markets, agricultural suppliers, blacksmiths, paper manufacturers, printers, engineers, lens manufacturers, a busy shopping centre and popular open markets. There are events throughout the year, the Otley Show in May, the Carnival in June, the Folk festival in September and the Victorian Fayre in December to name but a few. The town centre is renowned for the number and quality of its pubs, and the surrounding countryside provides ample scope for walking, fishing, riding and other outdoor sports.

Otley

Well I have canceled New Zealand and will "instead" stay for some days for a short holiday at friends in Otley.

Below info from Wikipedia:

Otley is a town within the metropolitan borough of the City of Leeds, in West Yorkshire, England, by the River Wharfe. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town has a total resident population of 14,348.

The town lies in Wharfedale, and is divided in two by the River Wharfe. It is surrounded mostly by arable farmland.

The south side of the valley is dominated by a large gritstone escarpment overlooking Otley called The Chevin. In 1944, Major Le G.G.W. Horton Fawkes of Farnley Hall
donated 263 acres (1.1 km²) of land on the Chevin to the people of
Otley. This has now been expanded to 700 acres (2.8 km²) and is known
as Chevin Forest Park. It was from the quarry on The Chevin that the foundation stones for the Houses of Parliament were hewn.

To the east and west of Otley there are flooded gravel pits, where
sand and gravel have been extracted in the 20th century. The gravel
pits to the east are known as Knotford Nook, and are a noted birdwatching site. Those to the west are devoted to angling and sailing.

To the West are the nearby villages of Burley-in-Wharfedale and Menston. To the East is the smaller village of Pool-in-Wharfedale.

Otley lies in the Leeds North West constituency of the UK Parliament and is represented by MP Greg Mulholland (Liberal Democrats). It is part of the Otley & Yeadon ward on Leeds City Council and is represented by three Liberal Democrat Councillors Ryk Downes, Colin Campbell & Graham Kirkland. It is twinned with the French town of Montereau, south of Paris.

Otley and Wharfedale ward has a population of 24,000, and Otley itself has a population of 14,348, according to Census 2001.

The town hosts Wharfedale General Hospital which serves the surrounding area, and also Prince Henry's Grammar School, which holds Language college status.

The town dates from before Roman times, and belonged to the Archbishopric of York. Otley is close to Leeds and thus may have formed part of the kingdom of Elmet. The southern flank of the Wharfe valley which lies above Otley is known as The Chevin a term that has close parallels to the welsh term "Cefn", meaning ridge and may be a survival of the ancient cumbric
language. Remains of the old Archbishop's Manor House were found during
the construction of St Joseph's RC Primary School near to the River Wharfe. The town formed an important crossing point of the River Wharfe and was an administrative centre in the wapentake
of Skyrack in the early medieval period, and this importance continued
with its being the seat of the Mid-Wharfedale Urban District council up
until the local council reorganisation of 1974.

The first church was built there in the early 7th century. In All Saints Parish Church there are the remains of two Early Anglo-Saxon
crosses, one of which has been reproduced for the town's war memorial.
Buried there is an ancestor of the 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the grandparents of Thomas Fairfax who commanded Parliament's forces at the Battle of Marston Moor
in 1644. In the graveyard of the parish church stands a replica of an
entrance to the Bramhope Railway Tunnel, a monument to those killed
during its construction.

Otley is a market town
and has held a regular market for over a thousand years. Market days
are Tuesday, Friday and Saturday, and there is also a Farmers' Market
on the last Sunday of every month. Documented history for the market
begins in 1222 when King Henry III granted the first Royal Charter.
Cattle markets are still held at the Wharfedale Farmers' Auction Mart
on East Chevin Road although the Bridge End Auction Mart closed a
number of years ago and has now been demolished.

Thomas Chippendale, the famous furniture maker, was born at Farnley near Otley, and his statue stands in the town next to the old Prince Henry's Grammar School in Manor Square that he once attended. The current site of Prince Henry's Grammar School is in Farnley Lane.

J.M.W. Turner, the famed painter, visited Otley in 1797,
aged 22, when commissioned to paint watercolours of the area. He was so
attracted to Otley and the surrounding area that he returned time and
time again. His friendship with Walter Ramsden Fawkes made him a
regular visitor to Farnley Hall, two miles from Otley. The stormy
backdrop of Hannibal Crossing The Alps is reputed to have been inspired
by a storm over Otley's Chevin while Turner was staying at Farnley Hall.

The Wharfedale Printing Machine was developed in Otley by William Dawson and William Payne. An early example can be seen in Otley Museum.

Famous Methodist preacher John Wesley
was a frequent visitor to the town in the 18th century. Famously his
horse died in the town and is buried in the grounds of the parish
church. Its grave is marked by an unusual toblerone-shaped stone, also
known locally as the "Donkey Stone". In his Journal for 1761
we read, "July 6 Monday; In the evening I preached at Otley and
afterwards talked with many of the Society. There is reason to believe
that ten or twelve of these are filled with the love of God." One of
the main streets in Otley (Wesley Street) is still named after him.