In addition to reconstructing the obscure origins of everything that is familiar about Halloween, my book widens the focus to encompass a universe of topics related to Halloween. Burial practices, for one, changed significantly and illuminate the ways people have processed death over the centuries. Then, there is the issue of the “creepy crawlies.” Why are some animals reviled while others are embraced? I’d also like to touch on similar festivals from different cultures around the world.
Let’s also not forget the magic that binds it all together. Today, most of us are only acquainted with entertainment magic, but for millennia people around the globe believed in and practiced magic to exert control over their precarious lives. Relatively recently, historians have begun to look seriously at this millennia-old practice, one that iss both vaguely familiar and utterly alien.
Then, there is the cast of characters: the Grim Reaper, skeletons, ghosts, fairies, wizards, witches, werewolves, vampires, and zombies. Some of them are older than others, but they all came into existence to do a job. They define the differences between the living and the dead, the natural and the supernatural, the godly and the ungodly, the human and the beast, the free and the bound. I intend to track them as they—and their iconography—transform in each successive era.
As to the structure of the book, the left side of most page spreads contains a portion of my running account of the history of Halloween. The remainder of the spread is sprinkled with topical jokes, poems, abridged stories, crafts, and recipes. Most spreads also contain break-out sections of topics I want to develop more fully. Other topics, such as the origin of the devil and his demons, require a brief section to develop properly.
My intended audience is young adult, though I expect the book to easily appeal to bona-fide adults. My concessions to my readers’ age have been the softening of disturbing and explicit content and a playful, humorous approach where appropriate. One of my favorite elements so far is a pamphlet entitled, “So…you’re dying,” that explains how to achieve the medieval “good death.” Another section on a variety of magic traditions personifies each as a way of explaining how they differ in character. I also have articles that challenge the viewer to recognize well-known Halloween characters as they were represented in art of the past. The reader may well struggle to pick out ghosts, wizards, or witches. Some pages are devoted exclusively to abridged legends, tales, and plays you might have heard of but likely have never read. In this way I hope to gradually build a sense of an era’s character and to give the reader the pleasure of spotting and connecting the themes that run throughout.
Currently, I have completed most of the content for the period from the Iron Age through the Renaissance and Reformation. I have dipped my toes into the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. I am tantalized and can’t wait to dive in. I hope you will enjoy the journey into Halloween land with me.