TRADITIONS OF HALLOWEEN BONFIRES I haven't seen any bonfires at Halloween lately, but I thought this was very interesting. As I've already said, bonfires were lit to light the way for those souls who were coming back from the underworld to revisit their homes, but, they were also lit to keep away witches and warlocks, demons, devils, evil spirits and anything else of that nature. FAIRIES Fairies were also said to be wandering around that night. If you were foolish enough to be out after dark, you might get carried off to fairyland, and be made to dance without stopping until the next Halloween. Ouch! Boy, would you have sore feet. HALLOWEEN LANTERNS Now this one I know. Although we use pumpkins now, in the olden days they used turnips. In some places these lanterns were called punky lanterns or punkies. We call them Jack o' Lanterns. This comes from an old fable about a man named Jack, who was mean and stingy. When he died, he couldn't go to heaven, and there wasn't any place else for him to go, so he carved a turnip, put a piece of hot, glowing coal in it, and roamed about at night. People called him Jack of the Lantern or Jack o' Lantern. MISCHIEF NIGHT On this night, children dress up in costume to go from door to door to get treats, which usually means candy or fruit. In Britain, this night used to be called Mischief Night. Since this was the night that the witches, ghosts, demons and all kinds of evil beings were out roaming, mostly children and young people would use this as an excuse to play tricks on people, especially those they didn't like. So they would dress up likes ghosts or witches, etc., and go out into the night to perform their dastardly deeds, such as gates taken off their hinges, syrup smeared on door handles, (yuk), and so on. This practice died out after some mischief makers got carried away with their jokes. But, this is not Britain, this is our good old USA, and this is a big holiday for kids and adults alike. Read on about how things have changed for us.