The summer ends for good at Halloween, All Hallows Eve, 31 October. In most countries Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot mean nothing. In the United States, for instance, Halloween has long been the big occasion for bonfires, ‘trick-or-treat’, fancy-dress parties, witches and pumpkin lanterns and much of their over-the-top enthusiasm for the festival has been exported to the British Isles, mainly one suspects, due to commercial rather than ‘folk’ reasons. Pumpkin lanterns are everywhere, though they were nowhere even 20 years ago. ‘Witches’ do continue to appear on our doorsteps demanding treats – but often accompanied these days by anxious mums making sure that the spells go in the right direction. Hinton St George does it all in the traditional way, but on ‘Punky Night’, the last Thursday in October, with lanterns made out of mangel-wurzels. The only proper fire is in the Archeolink Prehistory Park in Aberdeenshire where they ‘Burn the Whicker Man’.
