HALLOWE'EN IN TARTAN!
Spooky Weaves for the Season!
Enjoy the vintage seasonal postcards, specialty tartan collection and a bit of mood music!
Enjoy this special selection of tartans!
Click any picture below for more details about the tartans
within the calendar year of tartans
Mood Music?
TARTANS FOR the SEASON OF Samhain!
The word Halloween or Hallowe'en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin FROM "hallowed evening" or "holy evening." Modern usage comes from THE Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day) in which the word "eve" is contracted to e'en or een.
Some historical researchers speculate that the modern "trick-or-treat" ritual stems from the Scottish practice of guising, itself a secular version of "souling." In the Middle Ages, soulers, children and poor adults, would go to local homes and collect food or money in return for prayers said for the dead on All Souls’ Day.
Guisers discarded the prayers in favor of less religious performances like jokes, songs, or other “tricks.”
Happy Hallowe'en!
Click any picture below for more details
within the calendar year of tartans
Royal Pumpkin Spice
Tartan design by Deborah Savage
Pumpkin Spice Season
Aug 27
Sunset
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Pumpkin Festival Days
Oct 20
Nuts and Bolts
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Nutting Parties & Nutcrack Night
Oct 22
Dark Grey Wolf
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Werewolf Night
Oct 24
Green Flash
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Ghosts & Phantoms Night
Oct 25
Pumpkin Seeds
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Pumpkin Day
Oct 26
Black Cat
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Black Cat Day
Oct 27
Black Magic
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Hallowe'en Season
Oct 28
Witches' Blood
Tartan design by Jonathan Brown
Witches' Night Out
Oct 28
Vampire
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Dracula Bites Night
Oct 29
Hot Devil
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Mischief Night
Oct 30
Little Brown Bat
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Dracula Bites Night
Oct 30
Halloween
Tartan design by Carol A.L. Martin
Hallowe'en
Oct 31
Pumpkin & Spices
The American craze for all things pumpkin spice is a relatively new one, but the arrival of the Pumpkin Spice Latté in Starbucks Coffee Houses is fondly awaited by many as a tasty harbinger of the autumnal holiday season
Pumpkin Spice Season
Aug 27
Pumpkin Patch at Sunset
Although a plant from the New World, pumpkins quickly gained a special place in the literature and folklore of harvest time and Hallowe'en. Other famous pumpkins in literature include: Cinderella's pumpkin carriage; the shatttered pumpkin of the Headless Horseman from Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Jack Pumpkinhead from Frank L. Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz; and Feathertop, from Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of the same name, featuring a bewitched scarecrow with a pumpkin head!
Pumpkin Festival Days
Oct 20
Party Mix
Apart from apples, nuts were another important part of the traditional harvest season and a favourite item for celebration (particularly walnuts, chestnuts, and hazelnuts) for Hallowe'en divinations spells, usually to foretell one's romantic future. Several Scottish fortune-telling belief centered on the burning of hazelnuts or chestnuts on Hallowe'en, also called Nutcrack Night.
Nutting Parties & Nutcrack Night
Oct 22
Wolf or Werewolf?
A werewolf is a mythological or folkloric human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf or a wolf-like creature, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction (e.g. by a bite or scratch from another werewolf). The magical ability to assume the form and characteristics of a wolf is known as lycanthropism, or lycanthropy. There was no widespread belief in werewolves in medieval Europe before the 14th century, though the concept of animal shape-shifting goes back much further.
Werewolf Night
Oct 24
Green Flash
Green flashes and green rays are rare optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset or before sunrise, usually observed from a low altitude where there is an unobstructed view of the horizon, such as on the ocean.
Ghosts & Phantoms Night
Oct 25
"The Runners"
There is a strong connection in folklore and popular culture between pumpkins and the supernatural. Famous literary examples include: The folk tale of Cinderella, in which the fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a carriage - which reverts back to its pumpkin form at midnight; The pumpkin hurled by the "Headless Horseman" in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"; Nathaniel Hawthorne's short-story, "Feathertop", in which a witch turns a scarecrow with a "pumpkin-head" into a man.
Pumpkin Day
Oct 26
Black Cat
The folklore surrounding black cats varies from culture to culture, with black cats being reckoned either as harbingers of good fortune or conversely, of bad tidings.
Black Cat Day
Oct 27
That Old Black Magic!
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived over 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1, a day marking the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.
Hallowe'en Season
Oct 28
Weird Sisters
The Three Witches or Weird Sisters are characters in William Shakespeare's Scottish play Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). Shakespeare's witches are prophets who hail Macbeth, the general, early in the play, and prophesy his ascent to king. Upon killing King Duncan and ascending the throne of Scotland, Macbeth hears them ambiguously prophesy his eventual downfall. The darkly contradictory witches, their "filthy" trappings and supernatural activities, all set the ominous tone for the play.
Witches' Night Out
Oct 28
Dracula & Vampires
The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the highly successful publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori. However, it is Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provides the basis of the modern vampire legend and the gaunt, pale undead figure recognized today.
Dracula Bites Night
Oct 29
Simplicissimus Illustrierte Wochensc
Mischief Night, also sometimes known as Devil's Eve or Devil's Night is an informal holiday in which historically, children and teens engage in pranks and minor devilment, and is commonly held the night before Halloween - a night for tricks instead of treats. In the past, children and teens would play pranks which included ringing false alarms, ringing doorbells and leaving before someone answers, stealing gates, setting fires, and breaking windows.
Mischief Night
Oct 30
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Bat under a full moon
Bats have been associated with the mysterious and the supernatural long before Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1897) cemented the connection between these creatures of the night and the vampires of folklore. Stoker's major contribution was his introduction of the idea that a vampire could shape shift into the form of a bat (as well as that of a wolf or mist). In his pursuit and seduction of Lucy, Count Dracula frequently disguises himself in the form of a large bat which flaps at her window.
Dracula Bites Night
Oct 30
Jack o'lanterns
Ghosts and goblins, jack-o-lanterns and witches, trick-or-treating, and spooky nights - Happy Hallowe'en!