Celtic folklore lives on in Mt Crosby tonight
HALLOWEEN will have a Celtic flavour to it when the Crowe family celebrates the yearly event in Mt Crosby tonight.
Maggie and David Crowe and sons Sean and Connor will be trick-or-treating tonight and after that fun is out of the way will gather with friends at their home to hear Celtic ghost stories and "duck for apples" with money stuck inside them.
Ms Crowe, who grew up in Belfast, points out the festival has Celtic origins. Many scholars trace All Hallows night back to harvest festivals and festivals of the dead with pagan roots, notably the Celtic Samhain. Others point to its Christian roots.
Those Christian roots are what Ms Crowe recalls from her childhood on All Hallows eve when "the spirits of the dead overlap with the land of the living".
"The next morning we would go to mass and pray for their souls to get out of purgatory and go to heaven," she said.
As children, instead of pumpkins, she recalls slashing and carving the turnips and using those as as jack o' lanterns.
"When you look back in history you can see that the Celts did that," Ms Crowe said.
"I learned Irish history and part of that was Halloween and our superstition and folklore. I try to keep it going with the kids."
The Crowe's street has also embraced Halloween, so expect Mt Crosby this evening to be alive with trick-or-treaters in the dead of night.
"There are Irish people around the corner ... and Germans and Norwegians who all do it. And the Australians all really love it."
HALLOWEEN TONIGHT
- Halloween has Celtic and Christian roots
- Children will trick or treat
- Mt Crosby area set to party
