Halloween draws nigh

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Spooks and Goblins have begun to cluster on the Internet as Halloween is upon us.

Even in its modern incarnation, Halloween is still possessed of much of its old Celtic self, wherein the ancient Celts -- particularly the Irish -- thought that this was the one night a year when magical and real worlds mixed.

For the Celts this night was the "time outside of time."

The old Irish considered the Halloween time as the demarcation between the change of seasons. It is right before winter starts to set in -- the "dark half of the year" -- and it is the time when the realms of the living and the afterlife ("tir na nog") are nearest to one another.

Also, it is when the realms of humans and fairies collide with each other. And though the observance of Halloween has gotten a decidedly contemporary and American veneer in the last hundred years, there is still something comfortably old and pagan about children dressing up for "trick or treat" and grown-ups going to costume parties.

One can read more about the origins of Halloween at several locales on the Internet.

Among other things, you'll find out that the original holiday largely comes from the old-Irish observance of Samhain ("sow-in") or Summer's End, when fairies were said to wonder about causing mischief if not given food (trick or treat). And Celts would carve lantern-gourds in the shape of faces -- which might sound familiar.

The festival of Samhain came to be known as either All Hallowtide or All Hallows Eve in Christian times. For a short history of Halloween, click on some of the following URLs:

The Encarta Encyclopedia (Microsoft Network) -- encarta.msn.com (put the word "Halloween" in the search form)

Also, the Library of Congress has a short background on Halloween. lcweb.loc.gov/folklife/halloween.html

And the Holidays Net website also some good historical background on Halloween at this address: holidays.net/halloween/story.htm

But let us not tarry longer in the moldy library stacks of history. A host of modern World Wide Web Witches and Warlocks have also cooked up quite an array of Halloween and horror pages out of their cauldron of Hypertext Markup Language.

As when this correspondent has covered Halloween on the Net previously, a home page that always stands out is New Orleans resident Carrie Carolin's Dark Side of the Web. The Dark Side is a compilation of Internet addresses to every darkly oriented page on the Net imaginable, and currently boast that there are thousands of active links assembled here.

The topics include: apparitions, pagan and Wicca links, cemeteries, funeral homes and death, paranormal, gothic pages, vampires and, of course, right in the middle, Halloween links. The Halloween links are myriad and many actually are more light-hearted than dark. Also included are many literary links to Halloween writings.

To travel to the Dark Side of the Web turn your browser toward this URL: darklinks.com

or specifically for Halloween: darklinks.com/dhaunt.html.

Veering away from this dark night of the soul produced by Carolin, there are many pages devoted to the simple home-spun custom of trick or treat and Halloween parties. The USA CityLink site on the Web -- a large-scale resource that has links to information about cities and town -- is playing host to Booville, which is a "haunted city.

"At Booville one can visit haunted houses and also compete in a trick or treat contest all at this URL: usacitylink.com/boo/

One of the most famous of they myriad Halloween celebration is the New York City annual Halloween parade in Greenwich Village. Attended by thousands of costumed revelers, and boasting giant puppets, and floats, it is a marvel to behold. halloween-nyc.com/

And for an extra-tasty Halloween celebration, there is the Ben and Jerry's Halloween home page: benjerry.com/halloween/

The motto of the Monster Maker Web site is "Serving Monster Makers Around The World -- And Beyond!" The Monster Makers is a complete one-stop shop for do-it-yourself Monster Makers ranging from amateur hobbyists to professional SPFX artists. monstermakers.com/

And since where would our notions of Halloween be without witches, we would like to mention on the mirthful side that there is a Web page devoted to the old TV show Bewitched. It's at: bewitched.net/ Created by Wendy Orgren, this page delves into all the arcana of that famous mid-60s suburban witch Samantha Stephens who could do just about anything by wriggling her nose.

And who could pass up a visit to the Salem Witch Museum on Halloween: salemwitchmuseum.com/

For information on modern-day witches, earth religions, and the modern practice of paganism, click on the Witches Web. witchesweb.com/

Other URLs good for Halloween:

Yahoo (For Halloween links) dir.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/

Holidays_and_Observances/Halloween/

HauntedHouse.Com -- an Internet directory of fun haunted houses -- hauntedhouse.com/

Jack-O-Lanterns -- jack-o-lanterns.com

"A Ghost Story" by Mark Twain -- cardiffgiant.com/ghost.html

The Edgar Allan Poe Society -- eapoe.org/

Horror Writers Association -- horror.org/

"Dracula" by Bram Stoker -- literatureproject.com/dracula/index.htm

Buffy The Vampire Slayer -- buffy.com