Halloween Throwback Thursday Fun With Maps Issue 2024-197

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson) 

LOVELAND, OH (October 31, 2024) – In this special Halloween Thursday Throwback special we rewind to the Happy Haunting originally published October 31, 2022 here on Loveland Beacon. 

Spooky

Virtually all cultures have harvest festivals this time of the year.

The origin of All Hallows’ Eve, or Halloween, is a bit murky.  Most scholars believe it is rooted in the pagan Celtic harvest festivals, morphing into the Christian period of remembrance of the dead. 

The European settlers, primarily the Irish and Scottish, brought their Halloween customs to the new world in the 19th century.  Halloween became a mainstream celebration and further morphed in the beginning of the 20th century into something close to what it is today – dress-up parties, trick or treating by younger children, the haunted houses, the decorations, pumpkin carvings, etc.  Then it spread globally again, as a commercial opportunity.

There are many local customs and variations.  In France’s Brittany, for example, children placed candles in sculls in cemeteries to frighten visitors.

This Homann map of Brittany from 1720 is a bit spooky on its own as the scaling is not the same vertically and horizontally, yielding a ‘squashed’ appearance from side to side of this lovely region.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.