Halloween may be a bulwark of tradition in the fight for Europe’s future.
Although the end of October is a long way away, the first Halloween items have crept into retail stores here in Southern California. Of course, what most Europeans see in Halloween is yet another American importation—and one of ghoulish or even Satanic orientation at that. One could hardly blame such a reaction, especially as this observance is preceded by a long list of other such, including (but not confined to) Black Friday, Santa Claus, KFC, McDonald’s, and on and on. Not being aware of either the slightly-terror-tinged-but-wholesome thing that Halloween was in my childhood, or of its Christian and Celtic roots, one can easily forgive the devout European for this conclusion. But the whole thing is rather more complex. It is not merely a question of Halloween, but of the whole body of weird lore that underlies Europe’s cultures—and in a sense may be a bulwark of tradition in the fight for her future. There is also the question of whether that lore is strictly fictional, or if it contains some unpleasant realities that are ignored only at one’s peril—even if one wields political power.
