This past fall, a house overlooking Lake Hiawatha in Minneapolis was celebrating a sort of Taylor Swift-embellished version of Halloween.
Every portion of the yard seems to be a tribute to a different portion of Taylor Swift's career or her life — but a spooky, alternate universe version of it.
It's campy as hell, and I love every bit of it. I also can't help but feel that it's an oddly perfect interpretation of the Irish spirit of the season.
Today is the first day of November. The Irish word for November is Samhain — and the name for a festival that traditionally happens on the very first day of the month.
If you're feeling a little bit confused, because you've heard people refer to Halloween as Samhain...
They do. And it's sort of a long story that includes neo paganism and the cross pollination of Irish practices throughout the world. But Halloween is not actually Samhain.
Is it actually the eve of Samhain — or in Irish, Oíche Shamhna. The day when the veil between our world and the otherworld thins, and Irish trickster spirits such as púcas like to cross over and screw with us.
And the next day? That's the beginning of the season of the cailleach.
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The literal translation that Ó Dónaill’s Irish-English Dictionary provides for a cailleach is "old woman; hag". But in oral storytelling and in literature, it is very commonly used to refer to a witch.
You can spot that association in many different folk stories recorded by students for a collection now at the National Folklore Collection at UCD. Like this excerpt of one, which was written down by a student attending Cill Mhic Eoghain in County Cork:
"Long ago at the time of Saint Patrick three witches, An Cailleach Bhéara, Cailleach an Dhaingean, agus Cailleach Bhóilis lived. At that time Saint Patrick was teaching the true faith in Munster, but the Cailleach Bhéara would (not) believe that God was there, or that He was the maker of the world.
About a few weeks after Saint Patrick was preaching to her, she went to his house and stole a few holy books he had. St. Patrick following her, struck her with his wand, but not before she had jumped from Sgíac, to Coolagh and from there to Kilcatherine. It was while she was taking the last span that St. Patrick's rod struck her, and she is now in the form of a rock in Kilcatherine with the basket of books on her back. The print of her foot is in the middle of a flat stone, about five feet long by six feet wide in Coolagh, and it is full of water both Summer and winter."
The full retelling of the story about An Cailleach Bhéara has been translated into English from the original Irish by contributors to the School Collection at Duchas.ie.
I think there's a lot to unpack here that I couldn't possibly do justice in a story that was really intended to be less than 500 words. But it is interesting to me to note that the Béara Peninsula is named after this same witch. And that there are also a number of geographical features associated with Cailleach Bhéarra — including the so-called "Hag of Beara" rock chair in Kilcatherine, Béara, County Cork. Which is most likely the very rock feature named in this story.
And, to get back to how this all somehow ties back to Taylor Swift, I love the idea that if Samhain is a celebration of the end of summer and the coming of the season of the witch, this yard in South Minneapolis celebrates the coming of Taylor's witchcraft era.
This is Taylor as an old crone. A Taylor who is in touch with darkness without fear. And a Taylor who will not be tamed. It's unapologetic and perfectly weird.