Halloween in The Netherlands?

Long, long ago, this time of year the last harvest was from the lands and people started to prepare for the rest of autumn and winter.
The days were clearly shorter and a bit darker and as the work on the fields was done, daily routine changed tremendously.

To mark the end of the harvests there were regional markets where people sold what they surely didn't need for winter and bought whatever they could afford.
The hired workers got their pay and they had to be hired anew next growing season.

It was a time to leave in the past what belonged to the past, good and bad, and learn from it all and take the lesson to contemplate about during the dark days.
Bad influences were faced and driven out of life.

It's important to take the full responsibility for what has happened the last (growing) year and to face up to the knowledge of the old, of the ancestors.

Like the celts, people here had the habit to consider sunset the start of a new day. In anology of pregnancy, when a baby was started in the dark, even though it seemed to start when it was born.

When people where on their way to the festivities of the end of the last harvest and the beginning of the time that there was no work on the fields, they had to face the fear to find burglars, killers and theives on their way.
They were called: the hoemannen.
It sounds like whoomannen.

They would suddenly jump out of the dark into the circle of light of a torch and frighten the hell out of people.

Many see this as the start of the tradition to face fear and scare at this evening and night.

The fear for the hoemannen was later ritualised by the celts.
They accentuated the contact between old and new, and gave names to unseen forces.

The Catholic Church acknowledged in 844 the importance of this time of year and moved the remembrance day of the Martirs to november 1th. The day became known as All Saints Day.
Slowly the pagan festivities became replaced by the Catholic All Saints Day/Allerheiligen, and a new day was added to memorise all the others deaths: All Souls Day.

Part of our country still has remnants of the old pagan festivities, in other parts the events that accompany the catholic days are more pronounced. Like going to church to pray and going to the graveyard to clean the graves and prepare them for winter.

It's interesting to see that among groups of people the pagan influences grow.
For many years I seemed to be the only person baking special cookies, but the last years more women do, to celebrate the last harvest of the grains.
We have a large windmill in our town and I love to buy the flour there, and bake the cookies when the dust sets in at half past four in the afternoon.
In the old days it was believed that the souls returned to earth, to the living, and to guide the souls candles were placed in the windowsil, and cookies where there to feed them.

Nowadays more people become aware that "the veil is thin" in these days. Meaning that the realms of the living and the souls are very close together, and the cookies bring us in the right spirit.

Recipe

175 grams butter...roomteperature
175 grams sugar
3 eggs
450 grams flour
bit salt
eatingspoon of a mix of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clover
75 grams raisins
bit of hot milk.

Heat the over at 180 degrees celcius.
Mix the butter and sugar untill you have a fluffy cream.
Gently mix the eggs through it.
Add the flour, salt and herbs and make a souple dough.
Add the raisins.

Make 24 cookies and if you like carf a cross in them or the names of the souls you want to welcome.
Bake 10 to 15 minutes.

With the last straw that can be reaped make a bundle, or make a figure in the middle of the night.
The spirit of the growing grains will be caught into the bundle.
Cherrish the bundle during the rest of the autumn and winter, and ensure yourself that the spirit of the growing grain will remain to the fields it belongs to.
Seeing the figure during the dark time will make you grateful for the food you have, and give you hope that there will be a new spring in the near future.