Hallowe’en seems to have grown around the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain, marking the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark half. All Hallows' Eve, has over the years moved from the Celtic Festival of Samhain to trick-or-treat. Samhain was the time of the final harvest of the beasts of the field, and the crops, in preparation of winter provisions, the eve of Winter's first day, and the beginning of the next Wheel of the Year.

Samhain was in part a sort of harvest festival, when the last crops were gathered in for the winter, and livestock killed and stored. But the pagan Celts also believed it was a time when the walls between our world and the next became thin and porous, allowing spirits to pass through. The practice of wearing spooky costumes may have its roots in that belief: dressing up as a ghost to scare off other ghosts seems to have been the idea.

To the Celts Samhain marked one of the two great doorways of the Pagan Year, the other being Beltane on May 1. They held a 'dumb' or 'silent' supper in remembrance of those who passed over, placing a setting of food and drink for them at the family dinner table, or just simple cakes and wine.

In medieval Ireland, Samhain became the principal festival, celebrated with a great assembly at the royal court in Tara, lasting for three days. After being ritually started on the Hill of Tlachtga, a bonfire was set alight on the Hill of Tara, which served as a beacon, signalling to people gathered atop hills all across Ireland to light their ritual bonfires. The custom has survived to some extent, and recent years have seen resurgence in participation in the festival.

The name Hallowe’en is a shortening of All Hallows’ Even, or All Hallows’ Evening. All Hallows is an old term for All Saints’ Day (Hallow, from the Old English “halig”, or holy, compared with Saint, from the Latin “Sanctus”, also meaning holy, or consecrated). In the original Old English, it was known as Eallra Hālgena aefen. This comes from a Christian move by Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV to end the pagan Samhain festivals, by moving the feast of All Saints from May to 1 November.

There is a long tradition of the Christian Church taking other’s iconography and calling it their own! They even took the History of the Jewish People and called it the Old Testament. They took over the Basilicas of the Cult of Mithras which, like Christianity, had at its centre redemption through blood sacrifice. When they took over the Roman Basilicas after Constantine the Great made it the state religion of the Roman Empire they replaced the statues of Jupiter with those of Christos (The anointed one – a title used by the Pharaohs of Egypt as in Ptolemy VI Eucharistos on the Rosetta Stone) and changed the inscription from “J.O.M.” (Jovis Omnia Maximus) to “D.O.M.” (Deo Omnia Maximus). They even kept the gold disc behind Jupiter which represented his position as the Sun God (Helios) and depicted their images with the “Halo” as a sign of sanctity. So the Nazarenes have some form in this area, indeed after celebrating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in early summer for the first 400 years or so they then purloined the Roman Feast of Saturnalia on the 25th December near to the Winter solstice which was associated with feasting and merriment. Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 AD) recorded that some Christians of the time placed his birth date in April (see Stromata I:21). Hippolytus (d. 236 AD) may have believed that Jesus was born on April 2nd.

The celebration of Halloween survived most strongly in Ireland. It was an end of summer festival, and was often celebrated in each community with a bonfire to ward off the evil spirits. Children would go from door to door in disguise as creatures from the underworld to collect treats, mainly fruit, nuts and the like for the festivities. These were used for playing traditional games like eating an apple on a string or bobb

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If retailer’s window displays in London are to be believed at this time of the year our thoughts turn to CHRISTMAS! The popularity of German Xmas Markets has increased over the years with visitors travelling for the great atmospherics at these events with German Food, Drink and crafts to the fore. While the more popular venues are well known (Frankfurt, Cologne, Munich,) my own favourite is the one which is patronised by Germans themselves and is set in the former capital of the Hanseatic League, Lübeck Queen of the Hansa.
Lübeck is also easy to get to by Budget Airline with deals possible at £10 return. To get there take the airline run by an Irish Accountant www.ryanair.com and land at Lübeck Blankensee Airport www.flughafen-luebeck.de which is 8km from the town. Helpfully Ryanair call this airport “Hamburg” as it is only 80 km from Hamburg! When I first came here (On a day trip!) in 2000 the schedule was Ryanair in the morning, Ryanair in the evening. Today Ryanair operate from Blankensee to 6 locations and the Hungarian airline Wizz www.wizzair.com operates to a further 5. One of the reasons the airport is still here is that the former airbase was bought and is still personally owned by the Tui family who live nearby and who own Thomson Tours and the leading travel operators in most European countries.
A stroll around the Christmas fair area, which was first mentioned in 1648, is an absolute Must-Do for all Lübeck visitors. The market and its some 400 merchants offer toys and Christmas decoration, gingerbread, hot spiced wine and plenty of other things. Unlike the tourist markets elsewhere this is a genuine market patronised by German visitors from Northern Germany and is highly recommended.

See the site on:

<strong>http://www.luebecker-weihnachtsmarkt... </strong>
Or my article on:

<strong>http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/08... </strong>
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The largest Christmas market in Lübeck can be found in the pedestrian zone of "Breite Straße" and behind the Town Hall on the market square "Kohlmarkt".
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For children Lübeck offers the famous "Fairytale Wood" where they can see sleeping Hänsel & Gretel and many other fairytale heroes. The market is located in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church.

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Another Christmas market featuring a unique medieval am

According to the London Evening Standard a nightclub and banqueting hall are to be built inside a reconstructed Victorian monument at Euston station under plans announced today. The Euston Arch stood in front of the station from 1838 until it was demolished by modernist town planners in 1962.

Built at Euston Grove, the station was for many years the only north-bound railway exit from London. Designed in the classical style, the most notable feature was the massive Doric Arch entrance. Euston Station was one of the glories of British railway architecture it served as the terminus for travellers to London from Birmingham and the North West. Its architecture, based on Greek temples, was deemed a fitting gateway to the capital and an introduction to the engineering marvels of the railway beyond.

Euston Station was the first mainline terminus station opened in a capital city anywhere in the world. It was opened on July 20, 1837, as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway constructed by Robert Stephenson. The architect was Philip Hardwick who worked with structural engineer Charles Fox. The station first had only two platforms, one for departures and one for arrivals.

It was also Hardwick who designed the Euston Arch, a 70 feet 6 inches high Doric propylaeum, the largest ever built and which formed the entrance to the station. The grit stone structure complemented the Ionic entrance to the Curzon Street Station in Birmingham (which still exists) which was the other end of the London and Birmingham Railway’s mainline.

Its demolition, with the rest of Euston Station, was regarded as one of the greatest acts of Post-War architectural vandalism in Britain, the campaign to save it lead to the foundation of the Victorian Society and involved the indomitable Sir John Betjeman.

However British Rail’s cultural vandalism was worse than was realised even at the time. To block off any campaign to rebuild the Arch and despite an offer from the contractor to store the stonework British Rail demanded that it was all dumped and it has transpired the stones were thrown into a tributary of the river Lee in east London. This has now come to light as British Waterways has dredged the channel to salvage the discarded rock on behalf of the Euston Arch Trust as it carries out repair work to the waterways around the 2012 Olympic site. The stones are being lifted from the Prescott Channel, where they were used to fill a hole in the riverbed. Campaigners want to reconstruct the arch using as much of the original stone as possible.

Demolition was speedy and brutal - as recorded in various newsreel documentaries - with the stones being broken and much damaged as the arch was speedily cleared away. The new station was opened in 1968. Designed in the International Modern style, its somewhat bleak style has been variously described as "hideous", "a dingy, grey, horizontal nothingness", "an ugly desecration of a formerly impressive building", a reflection of "the tawdry glamour of its time" entirely lacking of "the sense of occasion, of adventure, that the great Victorian termini gave to the traveller", and "the worst of the Central London terminuses, both ugly and unfriendly to use". Writing in The Times, Richard Morrison stated that "even by the bleak standards of Sixties architecture, Euston is one of the nastiest concrete boxes in London: devoid of any decorative merit; seemingly concocted to induce maximum angst among passengers; and a blight on surrounding streets. The design should never have left the drawing-board - if, indeed, it was ever on a drawing-board. It gives the impression of having been scribbled on the back of a soiled paper bag by a thuggish android with a grudge against humanity and a vampiric loathing of sunlight".

Today’s Euston Station is a forgettable exercise in 1960’s functionalism except for the small matter that it doesn’t function very well on a number of levels. The windswept prairie in