Halloween, Hallowqueens and Harlequins
How do you express the intrinsic and extrinsic properties of the hallowed, the sacred, the philosophical and the scientific?
What do you hallow, and why?
What do you regard as holy, and why?
Perhaps you regard cemeteries as hallowed ground.
Perhaps you may even regard libraries as sacred spaces. You are currently reading this grimoire in a hallowed and magical library, of course, at least virtually.
Perhaps you usually associate Halloween with angels and/or halos and/or saints and/or martyrs and/or fallen angels and/or vigils and/or death.
Perhaps you usually associate Halloween with an alter ego you occasionally express.
Have you though much about how death is interpreted in various cultures?
Have you thought much about flood myths?
Perhaps you mainly associate Halloween with masks, disguises and guising, apple bobbing, Allantide, mischief, the beginning of winter, mummers, soul cake, vegetable lanterns, greeting cards and possibly even poetry.
The simmer had been cauld an' wat,
An' stuff was unco green;
An' eye a rantin kirn we gat,
An' just on Halloween
It fell that night.
Are you familiar with those words?
Perhaps you are familiar with a Ghost Festival from another culture.
Perhaps you are familiar with religious festivals in various parts of the world, and possibly even various, relatively secular arts festivals.
Have you even thought much about royalty in relation to Halloween?
What do you know about Hallowqueens, such as the ghost of Queen Adelaide?
Perhaps you have not yet acquainted yourself with the ghost of Queen Adelaide.
Perhaps you would rather investigate the cause of a will-o'-the-wisp, and possibly other atmospheric ghost lights.
Perhaps you would rather examine optical halos and/or galactic halos.
Perhaps you would rather dance with a hobby horse.
Perhaps you would rather solve the mysteries of headless men and headless horsemen.
Perhaps you would rather learn more about non-humans disguised as humans.
What do you know about the Devil in Christianity?
What do you know about Dante's Satan?
What do you know about Christian views on Hades and Christian views on Hell?
Are you sure you will never forget Hecate?
Do you know much about Sheol and various beliefs about an afterlife?
Do you know much about waits and wakes?
Have you examined beliefs about various types of ghosts?
Are you acquainted with Samhain?
Are you acquainted with Hermes and other heralds?
Do you know much about the holy in Holi, and this year's tragedy?
How do you interpret poetry from long ago?
Perhaps you are familiar with digital Dante.
You may be familiar with many artistic effects and/or optical phenomena.
You may have a collection of Halloween costumes.
You may be familiar with ideas regarding ghouls and the macabre.
You may have a good grasp of history in relation to 31 October.
Are you afraid of the Bogeyman and similar individuals?
Are you capable of interpreting information accurately?
Are you sure you can distinguish clearly between the hallowed and the halo effect?
Have you been floating like a real witch?
Are you acquainted with any Requiems and the Dies irae within them?
Do you know much about the Ninety-Five Theses of Martin Luther?
Do you know much about Pitri Paksha?
You may think Harlequins require exorcists.
What is sin, and who says so?
How do you think about the militant, the penitent and the triumphant?
What do you know about the Hallowqueens' views on the subject?
How do you compare the Evil Queen with good queens?
Who is more likely to own the Magic Mirror?
Who is likely to know the history of poisons?
Who is likely to know about folklore and folklore studies and indexes of folklore?
What would a Zanni character know?
How do you compare a fictional story with a real one?
What do you know about the history of poisonings?
What do you know about the Brothers Grimm?
What do you know about the Harlequinade?
What do you know about the Twaklin Trust?
What do you know about iron in folklore?
What do you know about royal saints and martyrs?
What do you know about Rhiannon?
What do you know about Marie Laveau?
Do you ever say a prayer for the dead?
Do you ever say a prayer for the living?
Do you practice veneration of the dead, or of anyone else?
Perhaps you practice the veneration of saints.
Perhaps you believe in the communion of saints and even the intercession of saints.
What do you know about Joan of Navarre, Queen of England, and the accusations of witchcraft against her?
What do you know about the accusations against Jacquetta of Luxembourg and her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville?
Perhaps you associate Halloween with hobgoblins.
Perhaps you associate Halloween with the future of climate change.
Do you associate Halloween with Trickery Today?
You may see witches as sea witches rather than as queens.
You may associate Jadis with Lilith.
But who is The Witch-Maid?
And where are the White Ladies, including French ones?
Where is King Herla?
Where is King Arthur?
Where is the Lady of Shalott?
Where is the Lady of the Green Kirtle?
Who has seen the White Witch of Jamaica?
Who saw the Witch Fire in California?
How do you compare Alichino with Alcina?
What do you know about the Lady of the Lake?
What do you know about Voodoo?
Should Harlequin repent?
Halloween is always scheduled for this time of year, even in the southern hemisphere.
You may sing of The Witch Queen of New Orleans or an old Welsh witch or a vilja or act as a rusalka or as a Black Magic Woman or sing of the Season of the Witch or a Witchy Woman or a Pagan Baby or the Erlkönig.
Is Harlequin a jester?
Are hallowqueens mainly a myth?
Will you have jam tomorrow?
Will you recite a poem?
Will you think about English witch trials?
Will you think about ancient music?
Do you ever think much about regions in relation to religions and nature spirits?
Perhaps you think in terms of Romantic nationalism.
Perhaps you think in terms of early music.
On a midsummer night or Halloween?
Is Titania here or another Fairy Queen?
Where is Margery Jourdemayne?
Where is the Queen of the Night?
Where is Tam O’Shanter?
Where is Roger Bolingbroke?
Where is Semele?
Where is Freyja?
Where is Margaret of Anjou?
Is Shakespeare here?
Where is the Winter Queen?
Sing O zittre nicht.
Sing Der Hölle Rache.
Where are the Pendle witches?
Who makes love magic?
Where is Ninlil?
Who are the landvættir?
Whose views do you believe?
Have you read the Galdrabók?
Have you been helping people to overcome dangerous superstitions?
Have you been using the Merseburg charms?
Do you have a charmstone?
Do you think you have ever experienced luck?
Are you aware of your moral responsibilities in relation to the expression of skill?
Are you aware of your moral responsibilities in relation to effort?
Are you aware of your moral responsibilities in relation to need?
Are you aware of your moral responsibilities in relation to reasoning?
Are you aware of your moral responsibilities in relation to evidence?
Perhaps you think of a Hallowqueen in much the same way as Prince Charming.
Are you capable of distinguishing the intentions of English charmers practicing folk magic, various snake charmers and persons acting with superficial charm?
What do you know about seasons and harvests?
What do you know about harvest goddesses and harvest festivals?
How do you usually reflect upon the cycles of nature and the cycles of culture?
How do you usually reflect upon symbols of good luck and signs of bad luck?
How do you reflect upon the original and current meanings of festivals and other celebrations, and stories?
When have you most recently participated in a celebration, and why?
While there are many harvest festivals around the world, at various times of the year, when do the wonderful witches of Australia celebrate harvests, and how, and why?
And what do they harvest?
How do the wonderful witches of Australia identify Hallowqueens?
What do those wonderful witches do when in the presence of Harlequins?
What do wonderful witches do in the presence of their claimed doppelgängers?
Every Harlequin is alike.
Are you aware of the etymology of queen?
In Old English, cwenlic literally meant nothing more than female body. The word cwen meant female and the suffix -lic meant body or form.
Every person in the form of a woman is therefore a literal queen but not necessarily a true one.
Across the Great Lakes of North America, the Witch of November may arise.
What is natural?
Can the nature be weird?
Only culture can be civilised or vulgar.
Real witches are quite often Hallowqueens. Each reigns over her own reasoning and physical presence. That is her power. That is the source of her social influence.
Who is a she-devil? Who is a shrew? And who describes women and female characters as such?
Cultures require revision when necessary.
How do you compare a May Queen with a Hallowqueen?
Perhaps a maypole in Australia should be regarded as a hallowpole, at least if it is unlikely to be eaten by termites.
How do you compare Halloween with May Day?
What length is an Adelaidean summer?
Perhaps you will find the answer to that question by asking the ghost of Queen Adelaide.
Queen Adelaide's prince was not a particularly charming one when she married him.
How clearly do you distinguish between the essence of an idea and the politics of its expression?
How clearly do you reflect upon the cruel hypocrisy of the kermesse and the Golden Legend?
Where is Lady Macbeth?
Where is Catherine of Aragon?
Where is Queen Adelaide?
Where is Vasilisa the Beautiful?
Where is Baba Yaga?
Where is the loathly lady?
Who is or was an English rose?
What is the Tudor rose?
Where is William Shakespeare?
You may be aware of Ellen Terry and her portrayal of Lady Macbeth.
Have you ever seen a beetle-wing dress?
Was Shakespeare a Harlequin?
What do you know about switching sides?
How do you compare the Sternocera aequisignata and the Acrocinus longimanus?
What do you know about ballads?
What do you know about donors in fairy tales?
What do you know about donors in other contexts?
What do you know about the relationship between Christianity and violence?
How do you assess news and propaganda associated with violence?
Where is Maria Gaetana Agnesi and the witch named after her?
What do you know about patron saints?
What do you know about clashes of cultures?
How do you distinguish between the countercultural and the anti-social, and from whose point of view?
What do you know about ogres and organisations like them?
It is easy to ignore cruelty and they hypocrisy associated with it if not directly affected.
It is easy to remain unconscious of the truth, or to deny its existence, through romantic dreams of a better past, delusions of a pleasant present, and possibly even illusions of a better future.
Is all sacrifice associated with superstition?
Are all ideas about Halloween, royalty and tradition associated with superstition?
Should Gregory of Tours be believed?
What do you know about the purportedly Christian queens, Brunhilda of Austrasia, her sister Galswintha of Neustria and their enemy, Fredegund?
What do you know about the Nibelungenlied and its origins, and its influence?
What do you know about Germanic mythology and other mythologies?
How do you compare the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries with the elusive Epiousian mystery?
How hallowed is Mother Earth through your actions?
How hallowed is Queen Nature through your actions?
What is your acquaintance with Gaia, the Gaia hypothesis and Gaia philosophy?
What is you acquaintance with the history of mother goddesses, Earth goddesses, and veneration of Mother Nature?
What do you know about child abandonment and other forms of child neglect?
What do you know about other forms of child abuse?
What do you know about Father Time?
What do you know about treasure?
What do you know about environmentalism?
What do you know about perceptions of the truth?
What, if anything, can be believed about The Hut in the Forest, Esben and the Witch, The Old Woman in the Wood, and about various saints?
How do you know when someone is playing a fictitious role?
How may you know whether a Portrait of an Actor is associated with Harlequin?
How do you distinguish between witchery and trickery at Halloween?
What do you know about psychopomps?
How do you know you do not have a belief bias?
What do you know about relics and the translation of them?
What do you know about patron saints, guardian angels and beatified persons?
How do you picture such scenes?
How do you picture witches?
Perhaps your imagination has been shaped too much by the Brothers Grimm.
Perhaps your imagination has been shaped too much by the symbolism of Christian saints and/or other images associated with religious beliefs.
Have you read the Liber Eliensis and similar texts?
Do you know much about Seaxburh, Æthelthryth, Wendreda, Withburga, Æthelburh and Sæthryth?
Do you know much about Eormenhild and Werburgh?
Perhaps many medieval female saints would have been regarded as witches or otherwise heretical in later centuries.
Perhaps you believe the Fourteen Holy Helpers have been saving 21st century people from suffering and death during a pandemic.
Perhaps you believe that by genuflecting, kneeling and/or practicing proskynesis, you will gain divine help and/or magical support.
Perhaps you would rather think about Harlequin, Colombina and Pierrot.
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