Apparently today is All Saints’ Day. I’ve always known that Hallowe’en was an abbreviation of All Hallows’ Even
, but understood the modern version to be essentially All Souls’ Eve
, or the night before All Souls’ Day
. As it turns out, All Souls’ Day is tomorrow. (My friend Murray Watson, former Reach for the Top teammate and current Catholic priest, would be so disappointed in me.)
How Stuff Works has lots of other interesting facts about this time of the year, although they don’t mention that All Souls’ Day is also known as the Day of the Dead.
An interesting tangent to this is the word calaveras, which refers to poetic living obituaries of jovial or satirical tone
… making Calaveras County, California the perfect setting for Mark Twain’s first book.
Leaping off from there (sorry), it’s natural that Angels Camp, CA (aka Frogtown
) would host an annual Jumping Frog Jubilee
, but why does the local small town of Ailsa Craig, Ontario, have turtle races (and why are there no useful links for the town or the event)?
