FT269

Ask people over a certain age about Hallowe’en in the UK, particularly in England, and they will tell you that, until recently, it seems hardly to have existed. For the most part, they will identify it as yet another American import. However, there’s a precedent in at least some parts of the British Isles which, until recently, has evaded serious academic study.

One of the features which once distinguished Hallowe’en from other festivals cele­brated in the English-speaking world was the lack of sponsorship from a higher power. Unlike church feasts such as Christmas and Easter or politically motivated occasions like the American Independence Day and the British Bonfire Night, Hallowe’en was at one time very much ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’.