Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 10/29/2011 1:45, Warp wrote:
> >    Ten years ago Halloween was completely inexistent in Finland.

> Doesn't Finland have a harvest celebration, tho? Like Thanksgiving and 
> Mid-Autumn Festival and stuff like that? That's really all Halloween is, 
> except some Christians went and dressed it up in evil icons because it was 
> the pagan version of the holiday.

> If Finland does *not* have a harvest celebration, that'll make it the second 
> piece of evidence it would be too cold there for my tastes. ;-)

  Curiously Finland indeed does not have any end-of-harvest celebration
tradition, even though Finnish agricultural history goes way back to the
medieval ages and beyond.

  The major non-Christian celebration of pagan origins still celebrated
in Finland (which even has an official holiday status) is the midsummer
festival, with its own rich traditions (the most visible one of them being
the burning of a bonfire). There have been, of course, other celebrations
in the past, but most of them have been either lost or assimilated into
Christian festivities, Christmas and Easter being the two most prominent
ones. (AFAIK, like in most of the rest or Europe, there were some
traditions and festivities related to the winter solstice, all of which
got either lost or assimilated into Christmas traditions.)

  The tradition that mostly resembles Halloween in Finland happens in
Easter, especially in some parts of Finland. AFAIK this is a combination
of two distinct traditions, one of them of Christian and the other of
pagan origin (but neither directly related to Easter):

  In some parts of Finland (especially in the East) it was traditional at
Easter time to bless homes by waving catkins at them (seemingly originally
representing palm tree branches), especially by children. The owner of the
home would then give treats to them as a sign of gratitude.

  In other parts of Finland Easter time was, for some reason, associated
with witches (I think this is a more international phenomenon than Finland
only).

  At some point these two traditions got merged, so we have children dressing
as witches (in some parts boys would dress as their cats) and going from
home to home blessing them with the catkins, the homeowners giving them
treats. It is customary for the children to ask permission first. This
largely resembles the Halloween tradition (but has completely different
origins).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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