Ghosts of the seasons

Forget killer clowns. Halloween was once a very different affair from the Americanised gorefest it is now. In its-original Irish form, as when I was growing up, it was an opportunity for children to dress up in their parents’ clothes, wear a mask and a hat and go begging from door to door for nuts, apples or money for bobbing — viz, sticking your head in a basin of water to dive after coins and apples. There was barmbrack — a sort of yeasted fruitbread you ate on the night — which contained a ring to predict who would be the next to marry (that dates it) and, in old-fashioned houses, a matchstick to predict poverty. It was quite a big thing, but over in a day or two. The ghost element, which was-perfectly real on account of this being just before All Souls’ Day, the day of the dead, was scary rather than traumatic.