For a different take on English winter animal #guising #folkcustoms (not quite #mummers, #mumming, #mummering, nor even #marilwyd ... but sort of related, back in antiquity), here's the performance list for a team in the #Whitstable / #Faversham / #HerneBay area.

Another #introduction, as our previous incarnation on EFDSS's trial folksocial.org migrated to BlueSky losing everything (OK, we'd only made a dozen posts). Our ancient annual #EastKent #folktradition of #hoodening involves visiting houses (mainly public houses, i.e. pubs!) the week before Christmas/Solstice with our #hoodenhorse, performing a short humorous play (written new each year) and a song or two (is #folkmusic right? it's often a parody of a recent pop song). Then we sing community carols and collect donations in our nosebag. For the last sixty years this has been for a local charity rather than ourselves. Everything you wanted to know about #hoodenhorses and #guising (and related #folkcustom or #folklore topics, e.g. #MariLwyd, #wassail) but never dared ask is - probably - contained in hoodening.org.uk, and the #OzaruBooks publications shown there. 🐴

'Halloween', Robert Burns (1785).

I like the following annotation the #BBC has appended to Burns's poem, the opening line of which is:

"American style 'trick or treat' juvenile extortion rackets have largely replaced Scottish guising...." 😀

https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/halloween/ #halloween #halloween2025 #guising #poetry #Burns

“It must have been unsettling to answer a knock at the door on a winter’s night and encounter these figures. And that, of course, was the point”

—Skekling, casting kale, driving a flock of sheep into your neighbour’s kitchen(!) & other Shetland guising traditions

https://www.shetland.org/blog/halloween-skekling-in-shetland-and-other-guising-traditions

#Scottish #Scotland #Shetland #Halloween #customs #traditions #folklore #guising

@Black_Flag Agreed! However the fair exchange in #Guising is the good and one true way for exploring the thin time and places of #Samhain.
#TrickOrTreat can get in the bin along with the rest of the extortive capitalist claptrap

Not more #Kabocha photos this time, but carved and painted orange pumpkins ready for #guising - Houses with a #pumpkin outside can expect to be treated to visits from trick or treaters in costume (usually with a joke or something). Didn’t fancy carving a more traditional ‘neep instead (turnips or swedes are much harder).

Please tell me I did •not• just overhear an advert on the radio in the cafeteria voiced by someone with a #Scottish accent (and therefore probably on an actual Scottish radio station) referring to “our trick-or-treat trail”?!!

It’s #guising you total tumshie!! You certainly ought to ken better! 😒😡

Whatever they were trying to sell, I sure as hell won’t be buying it…

#NaeTrickOrTreat #Samhain #Halloween

And tonight, of course, the street outside is full of little monsters #guising! 👻🧛🧙🧙‍♂️🧙‍♂️🧟🎃

Having a festive first game of Ghosts Love Candy Too, which so far is pretty good tbh. Silly, enjoyable theme - ghosts haunt guisers to steal their candy. Enough strategy for a light game, reckon all the guisers we saw this evening would love it.

#BoardGames #BoardGame #Halloween #Guising #TrickOrTreat

Happy Halloween 🎃

A day for sharing Matt McGinn's Dundee Ghost, and this rather ghoulish figure from Chapbook 3.4 (1966).

McGinn singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU28xfabOCg

#Halloween #FolkMusic #TradMusic #Folk #ScottishMusic #Scotland #Scottish #Dundee #Glasgow #Scots #ScotsLeid #Guising #TrickOrTreat #MattMcGinn

Oidhche Shamhna – a South Uist Halloween

Margaret Fay Shaw recorded a traditional Hebridean #Halloween with her images & film of South Uist in the 1930s

#Scottish #Gaelic #Hebrides #guising #folklore
https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/oidhche-shamhna-a-south-uist-halloween

Happy Halloween.
Whether you're guising, dooking or hiding out from the spooks, we hope you have a great day. There are a couple of appointments available today if you need to fine tune your skeleton before the festivities start.

#appointmentsavailable #spooky #funny #Halloween #skeleton #treatment #shop #guising #trickortreat #dooking #creepy

Are you feeling some twinges as the weather changes. Worried it'll cramp your guising style? We offer a bewitching array of treatments (no tricks) to get your spine-tingling and touching your toes again.

Whether you're planning on dooking for apples or hiding out on the sofa with the leftover sweets, we can get you feeling ghoulishly good again.

Give us a shout (or scream) on 0131 339 9451 to find out more.

#halloween #guising #trickortreat #trick #spine #treatment #Chiropractic

Tomorrow (April 1) sees assorted horses etc. run amok at #MaidstoneMuseums, as part of the ongoing Animal #Guising and the Kentish #HoodenHorse exhibition. Free entry.

10.30 #Whitstable #Hoodeners
11.30 Dover Tales
12.00 Invictus Mugustis Equinus (from Broadstairs Folkweek)
12.30 Curator's tour, with James Frost
13.30 Whitstable Hoodeners
14.00 Invictus Mugustis Equinus
14.30 Dover Tales

https://museum.maidstone.gov.uk/whats-on/events/april-fools-family-fun-day/

Neep Lantern '21

#halloween #scotland #neep #guising