Amy H. Sturgis's Blog, page 5
October 30, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 30
Today’s text is “The Goblins" from Asbury Park Press on 10/31/1913.
Quote:
Who said that elves were banished?
That goblins were no more?
That sprites and fays had vanished
From all their haunts of yore?
Not so. They surely flourish
As in their golden prime,
And Hallowe’en they cherish
As their most joyous time.
ALTThe Goblins artwork depicting trick-or-treaters on Halloween
October 29, 2024
Here is my new talk for the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville on “Why You Should Read…
Here is my new talk for the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville on “Why You Should Read Frankenstein”!
Here is my talk for the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville on “Why You Should Read…
Here is my talk for the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville on “Why You Should Read Frankenstein”!
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 29
Today’s text is “Hallowe’en – A Holiday of Traditions” from The Stoughton Courier on 11/1/1907.
Quote: “From time out of mind this has been heralded as a night when witches, devils and other mischief-making beings go abroad on their baneful midnight errands…. The traditions of Hallowe’en also teach that on no other night in the twelve-month do such supernatural influences prevail as after dark on the final day of October.”
ALT
October 28, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 28
Today’s text is “Halloween Lore Told” from The Butte Daily Post on 10/31/1931.
Quote: “Halloween, the night of black hours, ‘when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead.’ will be celebrated in traditional style when the sun goes down… legend has it, the lake of hades freezes, and friends skate across to stalk the world unchallenged. Evil will possess the shadows until cock-crow.”
ALT
October 27, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 27
Today’s text is “Spook and Goblin Atmosphere of Halloween Today Tame Compared with Horror Motif Expressed in Gothic Tales” from Indianapolis Star on 10/31/1937.
Quote: “… the Halloween tradition in its various aspects runs through a surprising amount of highly respectable adult literature. Shakespeare’s frequent ghosts, the so-called Gothic novels or novels of terror which came to a climax in Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ Irving’s ‘Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and Poe’s ‘Ligeia’ are certainly all in line with the Halloween tradition…”
ALT
October 26, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 26
Today’s text is “Hallowe’en Activities” from The News-Pilot on 10/29/1928.
Quote:
Goblins gobble and werewolves howl;
Banshees shriek and cry and scream
Ululations, while the mournful owl
Makes many fitful mortals dream.
October 25, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 25
Today’s text is “Twinkling Feet’s Hallowe’en” from The Topaz Story Book: Stories and Legends of Autumn, Hallowe’en, and Thanksgiving (5th ed. 1928) compiled by Ada M. and Eleanor L. Skinner.
Quote: The pixie looked at her for a moment. Then he asked, “Do the children laugh a good deal on Hallowe’en?”
“Why, my little man, it’s the time in all the year when they laugh most. To-night there is to be a witch’s party. I shall secretly join the children, and play all sorts of tricks for their amusement.“
ALT
October 24, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 24
Today’s text is Helps and Hints for Hallowe’en (1920) by Laura Rountree Smith.
Quote: Hist! be still! ’tis Hallowe’en,
When fairies troop across the green!
On Hallowe’en when elves and witches are abroad, we find it the custom over all the world to build bonfires, to keep off evil spirits; and this is the night of all nights to entertain friends with stunts similar to those performed two hundred years ago. On this night fortunes are told, games are played, and if it so happens that your birthday falls on this night, you may even be able to hold converse with fairies—so goes the ancient superstition!
ALT
October 23, 2024
Halloween Countdown 2024, Day 23
Today’s text is The Book of Hallowe’en (1919) by Ruth Edna Kelley.
Quote: All superstitions, everyday ones, and those pertaining to Christmas and New Year’s, have special value on Hallowe'en.
It is a night of ghostly and merry revelry.
ALT
