From pumpkins to pranks: how writers fell under the spell of Halloween

From the rural charms of Robert Burns to the unleashing of witches and vampires – a look back at Halloween in literature

Halloween lit begins with two peculiar but seminal works in the debut collections of writers who would come to be hailed as founding fathers of their respective national traditions. Robbie Burns’s romping dialect poem “Halloween” (1786) is anything but frightening as spells are merrily cast while lads woo lasses in the now-bare cornfields – the mood seems more that of a boozy, libidinous late-summer party after the harvest than of an Ayrshire village hunkering down on the verge of November, fearful that hostile spirits will appear and cause havoc. Equally strange is Washington Irving’s story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), in which a superstitious New England schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane, is obsessed with rumours that a headless horseman is at large – and vanishes after encountering this soldier, who is either real or is Ichabod’s love rival, dressed up as a cruel prank. Although the tale’s Halloween credentials are impeccable (a pumpkin plays an important role), a cavalryman carrying his severed head was a distinctly unusual apparition in an era when the spirits believed to be liberated on All Hallows’ Eve were fairies and the souls of the dead.

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