Happy Samhain
filed in Book Cover Illustrations and Artwork on Oct.31, 2010
Happy Samhain, everyone.
Samhain is the Celtic celebration of summer’s end and the beginning dark days of autumn and winter. Lasting several days, the celebration was seen as a time when the separation between those living and those dead became thin, and sometimes spirits would venture into the land of the living. The living attempted to fool the dead by dressing in costumes and disguises.
In the next few days here in the USA, we have a similar holiday on November 2 during which we select which of the living dead will haunt the halls of congress. During the two years that follow, these evil spirits rob the unwary and play terrible tricks upon the living who voted these fiends into office.
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Duncan Long is a freelance magazine and book illustrator for HarperCollins, PS Publishing, Pocket Books, Solomon Press, Fort Ross, and many other publishers and self-publishing authors. See his book illustrations at: http://DuncanLong.com/art.html
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October 31st, 2010 on 9:27 pm
I wish, Duncan, that we here in the Southern hemisphere were also entering the cooler months! We have just embarked on what promises to be a scorching summer, the heat of which I have never been able to like.
The festivals and rites you mention are taken on here quite heartily if a bit commercially, but they do not ring true for someone like me, who tends to associate with the autumnal rites the burnished colours of red, emerald green and gold and brown.
A summer Christmas, for example, has never felt quite right to me, but we battle on, doing all the expected things, in 45 degree centigrade heat, gritting our teeth and grinning wildly.
November 1st, 2010 on 8:32 am
Yes, I had a Christmas in Australia and it never seemed quite right being in summer clothing. We left during a snow storm here in the Midwest and landed in a tropical paradise – Sydney being what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
I soon returned to the north land where a foot of snow lay on the ground, icicles hung from the eves, and the sun hung in the wrong place in the sky. I slept straight for about 24 hours and took weeks to get my bio clock reset.
November 1st, 2010 on 11:02 am
I’ve just had a look at Ghost Story, Duncan – you really captured the levitated look – even before I read what you wrote I felt she was suspended a few inches above the floor. Her hands are perfect, and spooky. And she is spookily calm too.
If you think Sydney is great, you’d love Perth. We live in the prettiest city. Too hot, but pretty. And since we doubled our population since I came here from the East in 1988, getting a tad busy.