Allantide- The Herald

Returning home from the market yesterday, along a road that has now become familiar, I was struck by the change of season .  The sun was setting, angled through a stand of deciduous trees, its rays were scattered through the woods by trunk and branch.  This particular view had been obscured all summer long from the road and it wasn't until yesterday, upon seeing the sun from this vantage point that I really felt the approach of Allantide.

Allantide (in Cornish Calan Gwaf or Nos Calan Gwaf) is a festival celebrated on  October  31st.  Here in the States we refer to it as Samhain or Halloween. The festival itself has pre-Christian origins similar to most celebrations on this date.  In Cornwall England there are references stating that the holiday is linked to St Allen or Arlan who was a Cornish Saint. Not much information can be found on him however.  Still, Allantide is celebrated by many who follow the Old ways as the Celtic New Year.  But yet again there are some who would say that this is a false belief.

The ease with which one can observe one's faith in small hearth circles, or as solitaries, allows individuals the freedom to celebrate the holidays as they see fit.  Given that I am drawn to the Cornish culture within my practice, Allantide is, therefore, the herald of the New Year.  A time when the veil between the worlds grows thin; when reaching into and through the misty membrane of time is an opportunity to communicate with those who have gone before.

The following is a description of the festival as it was celebrated in Penzance at the turn of the 19th century.  However the practice described is very much alive in the modern witch's home  in Cornwall and elsewhere today.

"The shops in Penzance would display Allan apples, which were highly polished large apples. On the day itself, these apples were given as gifts to each member of the family as a token of good luck. Older girls would place these apples under their pillows and hope to dream of the person whom they would one day marry. A local game is also recorded where two pieces of wood were nailed together in the shape of a cross. It was then suspended with 4 candles on each outcrop of the cross shape. Allan apples would then be suspended under the cross. The goal of the game was to catch the apples in your mouth, with hot wax being the penalty for slowness or inaccuracy."

Robert Hunt in his book 'Popular romances of the West of England' describes Allantide in St Ives.

The ancient custom of providing children with a large apple on Allhallows-eve is still observed, to a great extent, at St Ives. "Allan-day," as it is called, is the day of days to hundreds' of children, who would deem it a great misfortune were they to go to bed on "Allan-night" without the time-honoured Allan apple to hide beneath their pillows. A quantity of large apples are thus disposed of the sale of which is dignified by the term Allan Market.

References1.                              * Robert Hunt Popular Romances of the West of England 19022.                              *MA Courtney Folklore and Legends of Cornwall 18903.                              *Simon Reed - The Cornish Traditional Year 20094.                              *AK Hamilton Jenkin - Cornwall and the Cornish 1932