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Wednesday night is Halloween, the night before All Hallows Day. According to Wikipedia, though the origin of the word Halloween is Christian, the holiday is commonly thought to have pagan roots. 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”, which comes from the Old Irish for “summers end”. Samhain was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar.

Samhain was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world. Guising – children going from door to door for food or coins is a traditional Halloween custom and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895. The practice of Guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children “guising” around the neighborhood. I am not sure that there are any outhouses left to tip in central Minnesota.

Live From Here this week is another live show from Lincoln.  Special guests include Jeff Tweedy, Diana Gordon, Todd Barry and Madison Cunningham.  Enjoy the show.

Tomorrow night I will be working the table at Escher Auditorium on the campus of the College of Saint Benedict.  Ronald K. Brown & Evidence will be performing at 7:30.  They are a dance company that seamlessly blends contemporary and African dance styles.  I have a pair of tickets that can be yours if you respond to this email.  I will leave them for you at the will call desk.

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul”.  From the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley