#hallowmass

Hallowmass.

Inktober day 26: Remove

Christmas decorations shouldn’t be put up before first November.

Inktober jour 26: Enlever

Les décorations de noël ne devrait pas être misent avant le premier novembre.

There is a remnant extant of an old song called the "Witches' Gathering," that with quaint and mystic indication tells of the preliminary signals and signs, announcing that midnight re-union or "Hallowmass rade" as it was aptly termed, had been arranged and appointed: -

When the grey howlet has three times hoo'd, When the grimy cat has three times mewed, When the tod has yowled three times i' the wode, At the red moon cowering ahin the cl'ud;

When the stars ha'e cruppen' deep i' the drift, Lest cantrips had pyked them out o' the lift, Up horsies a' but mair adowe, Ryde, ryde, for Locher-briggs-knowe!

On such a night the very elements themselves seemed in sympathy. The wind rose, gust following gust, in angry and ever-increasing intensity, till it hurled itself in angry blasts that levelled hay-rick and grain-stack, and tore the thatched roof from homestead and cot, where the frightened dwellers huddled and crept together in terror. Over and with higher note than the blast itself, high-pitched eldritch laughter, fleeting nd mocking, skirled and shrieked through the air. Then a lull, with a stillness more terrifying than even the wild force of the angry blast, only to be almost immediately broken with a crash of ear-splitting thunder, and the flash and the glare of forked and jagged flame, lighting up the unhallowed pathway of the "witches' ride."

The journey itself, or rather the mode of progression in passing to the "witch gathering," was itself steeped in "diabolerie" of varying degree. The simple broomstick served the more ordinary witch for a steed. Another vehicle was the chariot of "rag-wort" or ragweed, "harnessed to the wind;" for sisters of higher rank, broomsticks specially shod with the bones of murdered men, became high mettled and most spirited steeds; but the possession of a bridle, the leather of which was made from the skin of an unbaptised infant, and the iron bits forged at the "smithy" of the Evil One himself, gave to its possessor the power of most potent spell. Only let a witch shake this instrument of Satan over any living thing, man or beast, and at once it was transformed into an active witch steed in the form generally of a gray horse, with the full knowledge and resentment that a spell had been wrought, to compass this ignoble use. This was familiarly known and described as being "ridden post by a witch."

Meeting the Luchador after the boat cruise.

Alex at Hallowmass.