Halloween traditions and memories from the islands
Halloween is a time for the strange and the unusual, a time for guising and for pranks and according to one Gaelic saying: on Halloween the calf is called a stirk!
It has long been a special night in the calendar of the Gaels; a night when the door between our world and the supernatural is ajar, or even wide open! Different countries and regions across the globe have their own traditions, and the way in which people mark Halloween has changed over the years.
We asked people from three different generations from Sleat on the Isle of Skye to tell us about their recollections of Halloween in the area. Here’s what they had to say.
Charlie MacGillivray (78), Aird, Sleat:
“We would go out guising and some of us would put on strange or unusual outfits or clothes. One person got a false-face which looked as if it was a real person’s face. You pulled it over your head. I recall going into a house and one of us had dressed himself up as a woman and he put on this mask. You would have thought that it was a real person’s face. It was different from the other masks that you got, it was made of rubber. I remember, we went into this house and an old woman was looking at us and she couldn’t quite recognise who it was with the mask on. One of the old women said to her sister, ‘well, it doesn’t spoil his appearance anyway!’
“I also remember being told that in my father and mother’s time on Halloween some boys went to an old man and woman’s house. They waited until the couple were asleep in the bedroom and then they covered the windows with sheets and clothing. Apparently, the old man and woman woke up at their usual time and the house was in darkness and the old woman said to her husband, ‘away back to bed, it’s not time to get up yet.’ Anyway, the old man tried to sleep but he couldn’t, I believe one or two hours passed. In the end, he said, ‘I’m off, I can’t stay in bed any longer.’ He got up and when he went into the kitchen he looked at the clock and it was eleven o’clock. He went outside and saw that the windows were covered!”
Rhona Mahon (48), Tarskavaig, Sleat:
“When my brother and I were young, we used to go guising round the houses. We would visit most of the houses in our village. My mum and dad would drive us round, and they would either wait in the car or come in with us. We would knock on the door and wait until someone answered. We would then sing a song, or recite a poem or tell a joke. The songs and poems were connected to Halloween. We would learn Halloween songs in the school with our music teacher, Mrs Strachan. So, we had Halloween songs for guising. I remember one of them called ‘Gobalina’ – the name of a witch’s cat!
“When it came to outfits, we always made our own outfits, we didn’t buy anything apart from the masks. There used to be a programme, ‘Metal Mickey’, on the television, with a robot. So, one year my brother was the robot. We had two boxes, one for his body and the other for his head and we made holes for the face. He put tinfoil on, on his legs and arms. That one was really good. I went out once with a black bin bag on. I went dressed as a rubbish bag, and my mum stuck bits of rubbish on me! It was great fun, we would go to people’s houses and they would tell us scary stories.”
Emily MacDonald (16), Camascross, Sleat:
“When I was younger, Halloween was great fun and a time when we got the chance to wear frightening and funny costumes. When I was in primary school we had Halloween parties where we played games and the children wore fancy dress outfits, dressing up as things like witches, vampire bats and other kinds of animals. We would also have a party in the Talla Dearg where the room was decorated for Halloween. Every year in Camascross, the children from the village would get together to go guising for sweets. But, in order to get some sweets we had to do a turn, tell a joke or sing a song and each year I would sing a Gaelic song. At other houses they had games or challenges in order to get a sweet – one of my favourites was dooking for apples. After all this, our bags would be full, with an orange or two among the sweets!”
Sleat wasn’t the only place for fun and games on Halloween, many areas of the Highlands and Islands had their own particular Halloween traditions in the past and with some of them you could find out who you were going to marry!
Here are two accounts of Halloween customs from Skye and Lewis connected with marriage, the accounts are taken from Tobar an Dualchais. If you follow the links below the quotations, you can listen to the original recordings on the Tobar an Dualchais website.
The Reverend Norman MacDonald, Valtos, Skye:
“Halloween was one of the happiest nights of the year for us. There was lots of fun and pranks on Halloween. There was one in particular which was great fun for us as children. It was said that if a person on Halloween went to a stream or well which was seen as a boundary between two crofts or two villages, and if they drank a mouthful of water … and they would have to keep the water in their mouth without spilling it. If they spilled it, then it was no use … Anyway, if they went with the mouthful of water to any house and stood at the door, there with the water in their mouth, listening, until they heard, for a boy, the first woman’s name, and for a girl, the first man’s name. And that was the name of the person who they would marry!”
[From: “Halloween custom regarding marriage”, Rev Norman MacDonald (Contributor); Calum Iain Maclean (Fieldworker); ref:SA1953.023, School of Scottish Studies Archive, University of Edinburgh.] https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/8580?l=en
Murdo MacLeod, Leurbost, Lewis:
“There was an old woman who belongs to Lewis living in Edinburgh, and she is today around eighty years old … She told me things which I had forgotten, if I ever knew them. She said that there were customs connected with courtship and marriage and she said that they would take an egg and would pierce it with a pin, and that they would put a bit of the egg white in a glass of water. They then held it up to the light and when you looked at it, when you looked at the egg white, the shape that it formed, you would see the kind of house that you would have when you were married. They then went next door, to the house which was next door to them, and they threw that water on the window. You then waited and listened, and the first man’s name that you heard, that’s the name which the man that you would marry would have. Now, I didn’t know anything about that, but in my day I remember people going up to windows, and pouring water on the windows, and the people in the house would wait for them until they heard the sound of the water on the windows, and they would then shout the name of every ill-suited old bachelor in the village!”
[From: “Halloween customs”, Murdo MacLeod (Contributor); Iain Paterson (Fieldworker); ref: SA1976.095, School of Scottish Studies Archive, University of Edinburgh.]
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/track/18576?l=en
And so, take care going out tonight on Halloween, as who knows what you will see or hear. You might even find out who you are going to marry!
To hear more about Halloween customs and for more information on Tobar an Dualchais, you can visit their website at www.tobarandualchais.co.uk. Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, as the managing partner, works in collaboration with the project’s steering group to develop the strategic direction and priorities of the initiative.
