Questionable celebrations

Bonfire night is much, much older than Guy Fawkes. It's the same thing as Hallowe'en really, and like Thanksgiving it's a celebration of the completed harvest. Lots of cultures have an autumn fire festival – we now have the imported Diwali for example. Same thing. They are as old as agriculture.

Apart from that, like most ancient British customs the idea of burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Pope or a disliked public personality is a Victorian invention.

Give me baked potatoes, parkin, treacle toffee and brandysnap outdoors round a big warm fire over burning effigies and surplus armaments (you get lots of the cheaper fireworks when you have a big war industry) any time.

But where did the pagan festivals we know about come from? They may have been based on the traditions and stories of a yet a previous religious system, that they had long forgotten about.

Every religion in its practices is syncretic, based on familiar celebrations etc, but what reeally matters is what the core beliefs of the religion are. Ceremonies are merely outward signs of inward beliefs and developed to make them work for ordinary people.

NotSpaghetti

I love the idea of prehistoric man telling ghost stories

Do we have any evidence??

Their brains and minds were the same as ours, though the details of their life experiences may not have been. They had other dangers to be anxious about - paying the mortgage wasn't an issue, but defending your home and family against wild beasts and aggressive neighbours would have been, and one of the biggest worries of all would be the unknown dangers that you didn't understand and couldn't be prepared for. Evil spirits would have been well up that list. We can imagine that scary stories shared round a blazing fire would have got worse each time they were told, and children would have been kept reasonably obedient by tales of the ogres that would get them if the weren't.

The link that Hetty posted explains the eight annual Pagan festivals.
One of them was the May festival.
It’s definitely worth a read

Yes, the May pole was a phallic symbol, with all the fair maidens skipping around it!

My Mum’s family in Yorkshire always had Yule logs and first footing on New Years Eve. I don’t think there were any religious connotations. We also used to dance round the maypole with coloured ribbons when I was young down in Kent- pretty sure that would have been a pre Christian tradition.

I love the idea of prehistoric man telling ghost stories

Do we have any evidence??

In Sweden they still call it Jul (Yule). AFAIK the old Yule log is of purely pagan origin.

Having lived in one such country, I’ve noticed that in southern Europe, Christmas isn’t such a big thing - traditionally they evidently weren’t in so much need of something to cheer up their less bleak midwinter.
Easter was a bigger thing - when incidentally they would have a bonfire on which to burn Judas.

Lovely post Elegran
I’d never thought about the hero thing.
I know that I’m definitely a pagan at heart.

Hetty I’m going to print the essay included in your link.
Thank you

If there were no traditional celebrations of ANY kind, no civilisations to copy, and no religions with set times in the year for worshipping the current gods, we would have to start with a clean slate.
The obvious time to have a feast, drink whatever stimulating beverage we could produce and light a big bonfire of fallen branches to heat/cheer us up would be the middle of winter, when everyone is cold, wet and hungry and thoroughly fed up.

That is what prehistoric man did - broke up the long miserable winter with some scary ghost stories round a roaring fire, and in December told tales of a hero coming (born?) in midwinter to bring back the sun and restore joy to the world. We are no different from cavemen. We need some fun amid the misery. Don't allow guilt and angst to poison the fun and make us miserable about enjoying the euphoria of Thanksgivings, Bonfire Nights, Christmas feasting, New Year optimism.

It's interesting how Pagan and Christian festivities have converged over time. With no religion, my 'Christmas' or 'Yule' is just the traditional mid-winter feast:

www.reonline.org.uk/knowledge/paganism/festivals-and-celebrations/

www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2013/oct/31/halloween-traditions-pagan-rituals-bonfire-night

It seems that it does have pagan origins.
Bonfires were previously an All Hallow’s Eve thing, that got transferred to 5th November.
This article also mentions that people went to others house ‘begging for soul-cakes’ which I reckon might be the precursor to trick or treating.
I think that pretty much all of our celebrations have pagan roots.

Thanks Monica, very interesting.
I was wondering whether the roots of bonfire night went even further back.
It seems a very pagan-y thing to do

The purpose of Bonfire night was to celebrate and say thanksgiving for the escape of the king (James 1) from being assasinated. After the failed coup, Parliament declared November 5 as a “day of thanksgiving” on its first observance in 1606

Its purpose was not to celebrate a major attempted act of terrorism nor are we celebrating that those involved were arrested, tortured and executed.. Like in America wth Thanksgiving, November 5th is a day of Thanksgiving, but thanksgiving that James 1 was not killed.

Celebrating that the king had survived, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the Observance of 5th November Act mandated an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot's failure.

Within a few decades Gunpowder Treason Day, as it was known, became the predominant English state commemoration. As it carried strong Protestant religious overtones it also became a focus for anti-Catholic sentiment. Puritans delivered sermons regarding the perceived dangers of popery, while during increasingly raucous celebrations common folk burnt effigies of popular hate-figures, such as the Pope.

You can read all about it at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes_Night

Columbus Day has been renamed Indigenous Peoples’ Day after decades of campaigning

For years I have found Bonfire Night a questionable celebration. Either we're celebrating a major attempted act of terrorism or we're celebrating that those involved were arrested, tortured and executed. Have never seen the fun in either of those.

Thanksgiving is basically a harvest festival. I always liked going over for Thanksgiving back in the day when I was married to one of them. It's a nice kind of holiday, like our big family Christmases without the commercial pressures since the big exchange of gifts is deferred to Christmas so there's not so many tears from tired, spoilt and overexcited children. I didn't care much for American Christmas then (the 1980s) although ours seem to be getting the same way.

I read some years ago that the big commercial interests were trying to suppress Thanksgiving, because its non-commercial nature meant that they didn't make money out of it. So they shifted the start of the Christmas shopping season from the day after Thanksgiving to the day after Hallowe'een. We're definitely seeing that happening here too.

I grew up in a city (Liverpool) whose wealth came from slavery in the notorious "triangular trade". However I am not responsible for what happened in the past. Nor do I feel guilty about it. I dont feel guilty about being white and middle class either. Frankly I find myself more and more irritated by the mealy mouthed cant and hypocrisy of the CF blame game culture.

I’d always thought that Thanksgiving was at least partly to give thanks for getting the historical harvest in - so there’d be food during the brutal New England winter. I dare say I got it wrong.

I know it’s an American thing, but I really hate ‘Happy Holidays’. If I send Christmas cards* to anyone who I know is e.g. Muslim or Jewish, I find one with Season’s Greetings, which TBH I don’t much like either.
Otherwise It’s got to be Merry or Happy Christmas.
*appropriate ones, of course.

I think thanksgiving day is about family and friends getting together and being thankful for whatever they want to be thankful for. There is so much trouble and strife across the world with wars seemingly never ending and all the deaths and misery caused. My opinion on what happened 100s of years ago should not spoil now . We weren’t responsible for our forefathers world and also you need to go back and back and back if you want to take that course. So maybe just enjoy life as best we can now and just be sure to try learn from history ourselves and not repeat it.