Halloween: Fertility Ritual

Halloween, with its festive spirit and playful scares, is eagerly anticipated by many. Streets lined with children in costumes, homes adorned with glowing pumpkins, and the air filled with laughter and whispers of "trick or treat". But underneath the candy wrappers and gleeful shrieks, lies a shadowy tale, one steeped in forgotten lore and ancient rites.

Centuries ago, this celebration was not known as Halloween but Samhain, a time revered by the Celts not for candy or costumes but for its otherworldly connections. On this night, the delicate veil separating our realm from the unknown thinned, allowing entities of darker worlds to slip through.

Samhain wasn't just a night of ghostly encounters; it was also a fertility festival. The rituals performed were intense and, to our modern sensibilities, deeply unsettling. Young women, in the prime of their youth, were chosen for ceremonies meant to ensure the fertility of the land and its people. And the offspring born from these unions? They were... different.

Whispers and old wives' tales tell of children bearing unnatural traits. Some said they bore the mark of the Fae – ethereal, beautiful, with an otherworldly glow. Others spoke in hushed tones about those who had a more grotesque appearance: cloven feet, fur-covered bodies, twisted limbs, and haunting, glowing eyes. These were the offspring of entities not from our realm, children with legacies that were as mysterious as they were dark.

As years turned to centuries, the raw, primal energies of Samhain became the commercialized Halloween we know today. Yet, the ancient power of that night still pulses beneath the surface. And as the world dons masks and celebrates, the old spirits watch, waiting for a chance, waiting for someone to stray off the well-lit path and into the waiting shadows.....