FUN WORLD FAIRY WINGS retired halloween adult easter unlimited ombre yellow RARE

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Seller: sidewaysstairsco ✉️ (1,180) 100%, Location: Santa Ana, California, US, Ships to: US & many other countries, Item: 195157854968 FUN WORLD FAIRY WINGS retired halloween adult easter unlimited ombre yellow RARE. Check out my other new & used items>>>>>>HERE! (click me) FOR SALE: A hard-to-find pair of retired costume wings from Easter Unlimited FUN WORLD OMBRÉ FAIRY WINGS (ADULT SIZE) DETAILS: From the creators of the influential Ghost Face mask and costume! That's right! The unique and imaginative Ghost Face mask originators also produced these lovely fairy wings. The Ghost Face mask and costume became a pop culture phenomenon after it's use in the Scream film series. The fairy wings' beautiful, pastel-like yellow, pink, and lavender color palette features an ombré coloring effect that blends one color into the next. The wings have a fun, glittery swirl design made using a white-ish glittered glue. A pink colored plush band connects the wings together at the center of the shoulder blades. Thin, white elastic bands provide a comfortable fit around arms. We believe the pink colored plush stretchy strap wraps around the chest or it may be meant to connect to the rest of your costume for extra stability. The wing frame is made of coated metal wire. A rare, retired Fun World/ Easter Unlimited product! Fun World's "Fairy Wings" (Item #8100) costume wings are very difficult to find today especially in such great condition. After much online research we never could find an exact year of production for these or another pair of the same wings available for sale or sold. It seems once retired (no longer in production) Fun World/ Easter Unlimited wings become a very, very rare costume accessory to get your hands on. We can imagine why many of these fairy wings don't exist today - supply may have been a factor but more than that we believe that 1. many of those made were used, and 2. these wings are made of a fragile stretched material and were never made to last. Fun World no longer produces this model of wing set and have moved on to other models since. Dimensions: Height: Approx. 26" Width (One Wing): Approx. 22" Width: Approx. 44" CONDITION: Like-new; excellent pre-owned condition. The wings are unused but have acquired very minor storage damage. The bottom tip of each wing has a couple tiny tears in the fabric (see last 2 photos). The card part of the packaging has multiple staple holes and other wear. Please see photos. *To ensure safe delivery, all items are carefully packaged before shipping out.* THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK. *ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.* "About Us Our story begins in 1959. Sam Rosenberg wanted to have his own successful business before he retired. Earlier in his adulthood he experienced a few failed start ups. Those were followed by big success as a traveling Salesmen of general merchandise in the 1950s. At the young age of 59, he began the S. Rosenberg Christmas Co. He imported Christmas and Easter novelties and dolls from Japan. In April 1963, Stanley Geller bought the business from his father-in-law, with revenue of approx. $500,000 and renamed the company Funworld, Easter Unlimited. He traveled to Japan by propeller planes on buying trips and developed strong relationships with factories there , and sold goods by traveling the roads of the USA in a station wagon filled with samples, going from Minneapolis to Miami, Boston to Bentonville, New York to New Orleans and everywhere in between. Life was tough but good, and the business grew and grew with the help of many people. Fun World started out working with factories in Japan and then moved to Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong. President Nixon opened China in 1973 and it quickly became the main source of supply. Currently, our factories are in the USA, China, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Spain and India. In 1981 the third generation joined the company. Alan Geller gave Fun World a real jump start in Halloween when he lead the company during the growth of the Halloween business. He became the “Halloween Guru”. In addition, his creation, the GHOST FACE® mask and costume was born and became part of Hollywood history as the lead character of the SCREAM movie franchise, and ‘an icon of halloween’ as quoted by the NY Times . Our family now consists of approximately 250 employees and a 30 person independent salesforce. We have warehouses, showrooms and offices in Carle Place New York, Manhattan NYC, Mt. Union Pennsylvania, Seattle Washington, San Diego California, Hong Kong, and Hangzhou, China. Our factory in Pennsylvania, is the only remaining American factory manufacturing Easter grass and Halloween spider web. In April 2018 we celebrated our 55th Anniversary. Progress and growth goes on thru organic development and acquisition. We are now one of the three largest Halloween creators and suppliers in the world, selling in every continent except the Antarctic. With our dedicated and talented team, we look forward to new developments in the years ahead. One of our corporate mantras is “We are always doing things the second best way.”, meaning, there is always room to improve throughout all departments in the company. This perseverance, combined with innovation, makes Funworld a highly respected leader in our industry.”" (fun-world.net) "Fun World also known as Easter Unlimited is a company founded in 1963 that produces holiday decorations and costumes. They have warehouses, showrooms and offices in Carle Place New York, Manhattan NYC, Mt. Union Pennsylvania, Seattle Washington, San Diego California, Hong Kong, and Hangzhou, China. They have been producing decorations for Spirit Halloween from 2002-present day.... Trivia     The company was responsible for creating the iconic Ghostface mask used in the Scream franchise.     Fun World’s Pennsylvania factory is the only factory left in the USA that manufactures Halloween spider webs and Easter grass." (spirit-halloween.fandom.com) "Easter Unlimited, Inc. v. Rozier: The Scary (Terry) Fair Use Decision by David Ward, Akshay Nelakurti, and Kyle Maxey Balance and Gravel with a spooky fog and moon in the background Photo Credit: iStock/leolintang/AlexLMX In a couple of days, you might see armies of children and adults alike donning their spookiest Halloween masks – like the iconic mask from the Scream horror film franchise. While just looking at that mask might send chills down your spine, a recent fair use decision, Easter Unlimited, Inc. v. Rozier, from the Eastern District of New York involving the mask should spook copyright owners and creators.    The Case Terry Rozier, also known as “Scary Terry,” is currently a point guard in the NBA for the Charlotte Hornets. Rozier earned the nickname “Scary Terry” in 2018 as a member of the Boston Celtics after he successfully filled in for injured starting point guard Kyrie Irving. Due to his love of scary movies, growing celebrity status, and continued on-court success, Rozier embraced the “Scary Terry” persona. He then decided to market a line of t-shirts and sweatshirts featuring the nickname along with a cartoon image of himself wearing the iconic serial killer mask from the movie Scream—known as the Ghost Face Mask. Easter Unlimited, Inc. has a registered copyright for the three-dimensional design of the sculpted mask as well as a registered trademark for the Ghost Face Mask image. In 1996, Easter granted a license to the filmmakers of Scream and its sequels to use the Ghost Face Mask in the movies. However, Easter Unlimited did not authorize Rozier to use images of the mask in his merchandise. After discovering the unauthorized use, the company sued Rozier for direct infringement of its copyright and infringement of its trademark rights in the Ghost Face Mask. The company also alleged contributory and vicarious infringement of its copyright by Rozier on the basis that Rozier had authorized others to manufacture his apparel and thereby actually create infringing copies of the Ghost Face Mask. Easter Unlimited moved for summary judgment on the contributory and vicarious copyright infringement claims and the trademark claim. Rozier filed a cross motion for summary judgment on all claims, arguing that his use of the Ghost Face Mask qualified as fair use. On September 27, 2021, the District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued an opinion in the case, granting Rozier summary judgment on all the claims. The court first held that Rozier did not present enough evidence to overcome the presumption that Easter Unlimited’s copyright was valid. Accordingly, the court established that the mask was validly protected by copyright and that Rozier had infringed Easter Unlimited’s copyright in the mask. However, the court’s analysis on Rozier’s fair use claim is where the decision took a really scary turn. Fair Use The court first explained that the fair use doctrine examines four factors: (1) the purpose and character of the use, (2) the nature of the copyrighted work, (3) the amount and substantiality of the work that is used, and (4) the effect of the use on the original’s potential and actual markets. After noting that there are no bright-line rules in determining fair use and that the factors must be balanced as part of the entire inquiry, the court then launched into a fair use analysis that problematically focused on Rozier’s use of the Ghost Face Mask as it appeared in Scream. The Purpose and Character of the Use The first factor in many recent fair use analyses has turned on the question of whether the purpose and character of the claimed fair use is “transformative.” Here, Rozier argued that the use of the Ghost Face Mask on his shirts was a parody and  satire, and therefore, it was a “classic fair use” under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music. According to Rozier, his “stylized cartoon version of the Ghost Face Mask was used to create ‘a humorous article of clothing that commented on the ‘Scary Terry’ persona,’ and ‘satirized the familiar trope of professional athletes as remorseless ‘killers’…” Although Rozier’s argument that satire was a “classic fair use” contradicted established fair use principles, the court agreed with Rozier, finding that the shirts were both a parody and satire. The major twist in the court’s analysis was that it evaluated whether Rozier had created a parody and satire of the Ghost Face Mask as it was used in the movie Scream. The court did not evaluate whether Rozier’s use of the mask was a parody or satire of Easter Unlimited’s original Ghost Face Mask because it reasoned that Rozier’s use of the mask was a “secondary use of a secondary use.” The court’s analysis inextricably linked the use of the Ghost Face Mask in the movie with the exclusive rights to the copyright held by Easter Unlimited in the original mask. According to the court, the movie had given the mask a “meaning beyond a Halloween ghost costume.” The court determined that Rozier’s use of the mask in the “humorous embodiment of an NBA basketball player who is known as a ‘killer’ scorer … lampoon[ed] the famous mask-wearing movie villain and killer in the context of NBA players, NBA fans, and even the NBA media.” This, the court stated, was how Rozier had parodied Easter Unlimited’s mask “or its work (as used in Scream)” (emphasis added). The court also found that Rozier’s use of Easter Unlimited’s mask was satirical, giving equal weight and consideration to satire in its fair use analysis as it gave to parody. However, satire is generally not found to be fair use, while parody often is. Citing to Blanch v. Koons for its evaluation of whether Rozier’s use was satirical, the court stated that it had to consider if Rozier had a “genuine creative rationale for borrowing [Easter Unlimited’s] image rather than using it merely ‘to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh.’” Convinced by Rozier’s argument that he selected the Ghost Face Mask for the shirts in order to “poke fun” at the trope of “hot-shooting point guards as remorseless ‘killers,’” the court concluded that Rozier had such “genuine creative rationale” for the use of the mask on his t-shirt line. Again, the court evaluated the satirical use based on Rozier’s use of the mask as used and portrayed in the movie Scream– not Easter Unlimited’s copyright protected three-dimensional design of the sculpted mask. Finally, the court was quick to discount the commercial nature and purpose of Rozier’s shirts. The finding that Rozier’s work was transformative, satirical, and parodical outweighed, in the court’s eyes, the commercial nature of the work. Having concluded that the first fair use factor weighed in favor of Rozier, the court then continued the fair use analysis. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work The second statutory factor evaluates the nature of the copyrighted work at issue. Courts consider the expressive or creative nature of the work as well as its publication status, and the use of a more expressive or creative work is less likely to be held as fair use as compared to the use of a factual work. The court here, finding no dispute that Easter Unlimited’s mask was creative and published, held that this factor favored Easter Unlimited. However, the court also noted that it did not find the second factor to be significant in its fair use determination since the court already found that the defendant’s use was sufficiently transformative under the first factor. Amount and Substantiality of the Work Used The third factor considers how much of the original work, in terms of the “quantity and value of the materials used,” was appropriated by an alleged infringer in relation to the entire work and for “the purpose of the copying.” The court first noted that there is no bright-line rule that dictates how much of a work can be copied before losing the cover of fair use. It noted that for works such as musical works, the essence of the original can be successfully captured by copying only a small amount of the original. The court stated that on the other hand, works such as photographs might necessitate copying all or most of the original in order to capture its essence and achieve a parodical fair use purpose. The court followed the latter principle, determining that Rozier’s use of the mask would lose meaning without substantial copying of it, and therefore justified a greater taking under fair use. Given Rozier’s goal of invoking the serial killer image from the movie Scream in order to complete his allegedly parodical and satirical purposes via his merchandise line, the court found that Rozier necessarily copied a substantial portion of the mask. Balancing the substantiality of the copying against the weight afforded by the transformative “justification” for doing so, the court held that this factor favored neither party. Impact of Rozier’s Use on the Underlying Work’s Potential Market The final fair use factor evaluates the impact of Rozier’s use on the potential market for the original work. According to the Second Circuit, the key question is not “whether a defendant’s use suppresses or even destroys the market for the original or potential derivatives, but whether a defendant’s use of the protected work usurps the market for the original work.” Here, Easter Unlimited showed that the market for its Ghost Face mask included licensing the mask for use on apparel. Rozier countered, arguing that none of the licensed uses of the Ghost Face masks were for sports apparel, much less for products aimed at fans of Terry Rozier. Ultimately, the court held that this factor weighed in favor of Rozier. In arriving at this conclusion, the court cited to Authors Guild v. Google, stating that the more transformative a work is, the less likely it is that the work “usurps” the original’s market. The court recognized that Easter Unlimited did license the mask for use on apparel, such as t-shirts, but found that Rozier’s transformative shirts posed no threat to that market. The court was skeptical that Rozier’s shirts, in their parodical and satirical nature, would usurp Easter’s primary market of holiday and party consumers for the mask. The court also noted that because Easter Unlimited marketed the Ghost Face Mask as a costume or novelty item and Rozier specifically marketed his merchandise to his fans, Rozier’s use would not usurp the primary market for the original mask. Therefore, the court weighed this factor in favor of Rozier. Conclusion The court’s analysis of parody and satire and Rozier’s use of the Ghost Face Mask is erroneously based on the mask as it was used in the movie Scream. Despite admitting that the parties did not address the issue, the court introduces arguments in favor of fair use based on a “secondary use of a secondary use” theory that should not be applied to the current case. If appealed, the Second Circuit should correct this frightening mistake and base its first factor analysis on the character and purpose of the use as it relates to the underlying work at issue. The court’s analysis of the fourth factor (the impact of Rozier’s use of the mask on Easter Unlimited’s market) also overlooked important considerations. Namely, the court should have considered the impact of Rozier’s conduct not only on Easter Unlimited’s existing markets, but also on its potential markets such as, in this case, the sporting apparel market. Given that Easter Unlimited was already licensing the Ghost Face Mask for use on t-shirts, it could well have entered the sports apparel market in the future. Analysis of the fourth factor also requires the court to consider the impact on Easter Unlimited’s market if conduct such as Rozier’s had been widespread, which the court apparently did not. The court’s omissions in these respects are likely to have a chilling effect on copyright owners’ ability to financially exploit their works unless the Second Circuit has something to say about it." (copyrightalliance.org) "A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural, or preternatural. Myths and stories about fairies do not have a single origin, but are rather a collection of folk beliefs from disparate sources. Various folk theories about the origins of fairies include casting them as either demoted angels or demons in a Christian tradition, as deities in Pagan belief systems, as spirits of the dead, as prehistoric precursors to humans, or as spirits of nature. The label of fairy has at times applied only to specific magical creatures with human appearance, magical powers, and a penchant for trickery. At other times it has been used to describe any magical creature, such as goblins and gnomes. Fairy has at times been used as an adjective, with a meaning equivalent to "enchanted" or "magical". It is also used as a name for the place these beings come from, the land of Fairy. A recurring motif of legends about fairies is the need to ward off fairies using protective charms. Common examples of such charms include church bells, wearing clothing inside out, four-leaf clover, and food. Fairies were also sometimes thought to haunt specific locations, and to lead travelers astray using will-o'-the-wisps. Before the advent of modern medicine, fairies were often blamed for sickness, particularly tuberculosis and birth deformities. In addition to their folkloric origins, fairies were a common feature of Renaissance literature and Romantic art, and were especially popular in the United Kingdom during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. The Celtic Revival also saw fairies established as a canonical part of Celtic cultural heritage.... Etymology The English fairy derives from the Early Modern English faerie, meaning "realm of the fays". Faerie, in turn, derives from the Old French form faierie, a derivation from faie (from Vulgar Latin fata, the fates), with the abstract noun suffix -erie. In Old French romance, a faie or fee was a woman skilled in magic, and who knew the power and virtue of words, of stones, and of herbs.[1] "Fairy" was used to represent: an illusion or enchantment; the land of the Faes; collectively the inhabitants thereof; an individual such as a fairy knight.[1] Faie became Modern English fay, while faierie became fairy, but this spelling almost exclusively refers to one individual (the same meaning as fay). In the sense of "land where fairies dwell", archaic spellings faery and faerie are still in use. Latinate fay is not related the Germanic fey (from Old English fǣġe), meaning "fated to die".[2] Yet, this unrelated Germanic word "fey" may have been influenced by Old French fae (fay or fairy) as the meaning had shifted slightly to "fated" from the earlier "doomed" or "accursed".[3] Various folklore traditions refer to fairies euphemistically as wee folk, good folk, people of peace, fair folk (Welsh: Tylwyth Teg), etc.[4] Historical development The term fairy is sometimes used to describe any magical creature, including goblins and gnomes, while at other times, the term describes only a specific type of ethereal creature or sprite.[5] Historical origins of fairies range from various traditions from Persian mythology[6] to European folklore such as of Brythonic (Bretons, Welsh, Cornish), Gaelic (Irish, Scots, Manx), and Germanic peoples, and of Middle French medieval romances. According to some historians, such as Barthélemy d'Herbelot, fairies were adopted from and influenced by the peris of Persian mythology.[7] Peris were angelic beings that were mentioned in antiquity in pre-Islamic Persia as early as the Achaemenid Empire. Peris were later described in various Persian works in great detail such as the Shahnameh by Ferdowsi. A peri was illustrated to be fair, beautiful, and extravagant nature spirits that were supported by wings. This may have influenced migratory Germanic and Eurasian settlers into Europe, or been transmitted during early exchanges.[8] The similarities could also be attributed to a shared Proto-Indo-European mythology.[9] In the Middle Ages, fairie was used adjectivally, meaning "enchanted" (as in fairie knight, fairie queene), but also became a generic term for various "enchanted" creatures during the Late Middle English period. Literature of the Elizabethan era conflated elves with the fairies of Romance culture, rendering these terms somewhat interchangeable. The modern concept of "fairy" in the narrower sense is unique to English folklore, later made diminutive in accordance with prevailing tastes of the Victorian era, as in "fairy tales" for children. The Victorian era and Edwardian era saw a heightened increase of interest in fairies. The Celtic Revival cast fairies as part of Ireland's cultural heritage. Carole Silvers and others suggested this fascination of English antiquarians arose from a reaction to greater industrialization and loss of older folk ways.[10] Descriptions 1888 illustration by Luis Ricardo Falero of common modern depiction of a fairy with butterfly wings Fairies are generally described as human in appearance and having magical powers. Diminutive fairies of various kinds have been reported through centuries, ranging from quite tiny to the size of a human.[11] These small sizes could be magically assumed, rather than constant.[12] Some smaller fairies could expand their figures to imitate humans.[13] On Orkney, fairies were described as short in stature, dressed in dark grey, and sometimes seen in armour.[14] In some folklore, fairies have green eyes. Some depictions of fairies show them with footwear, others as barefoot. Wings, while common in Victorian and later artworks, are rare in folklore; fairies flew by means of magic, sometimes perched on ragwort stems or the backs of birds.[15] Modern illustrations often include dragonfly or butterfly wings.[16] Origins Early modern fairies does not derive from a single origin; the term is a conflation of disparate elements from folk belief sources, influenced by literature and speculation. In folklore of Ireland, the mythic aes sídhe, or 'people of the fairy hills', have come to a modern meaning somewhat inclusive of fairies. The Scandinavian elves also served as an influence. Folklorists and mythologists have variously depicted fairies as: the unworthy dead, the children of Eve, a kind of demon, a species independent of humans, an older race of humans, and fallen angels.[17] The folkloristic or mythological elements combine Celtic, Germanic and Greco-Roman elements. Folklorists have suggested that 'fairies' arose from various earlier beliefs, which lost currency with the advent of Christianity.[18] These disparate explanations are not necessarily incompatible, as 'fairies' may be traced to multiple sources. Demoted angels A Christian tenet held that fairies were a class of "demoted" angels.[19] One story described a group of angels revolting, and God ordering the gates of heaven shut; those still in heaven remained angels, those in hell became demons, and those caught in between became fairies.[20] Others wrote that some angels, not being godly enough, yet not evil enough for hell, were thrown out of heaven.[21] This concept may explain the tradition of paying a "teind" or tithe to hell; as fallen angels, although not quite devils, they could be viewed as subjects of Satan.[22] Title page of a 1603 reprinting of Daemonologie King James I, in his dissertation Daemonologie, stated the term "faries" referred to illusory spirits (demonic entities) that prophesied to, consorted with, and transported the individuals they served; in medieval times, a witch or sorcerer who had a pact with a familiar spirit might receive these services.[23] In England's Theosophist circles of the 19th century, a belief in the "angelic" nature of fairies was reported.[24] Entities referred to as Devas were said to guide many processes of nature, such as evolution of organisms, growth of plants, etc., many of which resided inside the Sun (Solar Angels). The more Earthbound Devas included nature spirits, elementals, and fairies,[25] which were described as appearing in the form of colored flames, roughly the size of a human.[26] Arthur Conan Doyle, in his 1922 book The Coming of the Fairies; The Theosophic View of Fairies, reported that eminent theosophist E. L. Gardner had likened fairies to butterflies, whose function was to provide an essential link between the energy of the sun and the plants of Earth, describing them as having no clean-cut shape ... small, hazy, and somewhat luminous clouds of colour with a brighter sparkish nucleus. "That growth of a plant which we regard as the customary and inevitable result of associating the three factors of sun, seed, and soil would never take place if the fairy builders were absent."[27] For a similar concept in Persian mythology, see Peri. Demoted pagan deities At one time it was thought that fairies were originally worshiped as deities, such as nymphs and tree spirits,[28] and with the burgeoning predominance of the Christian Church, reverence for these deities carried on, but in a dwindling state of perceived power. Many deprecated deities of older folklore and myth were repurposed as fairies in Victorian fiction (See the works of W. B. Yeats for examples). Fairies as demons A recorded Christian belief of the 17th century cast all fairies as demons.[29] This perspective grew more popular with the rise of Puritanism among the Reformed Church of England (See: Anglicanism).[30] The hobgoblin, once a friendly household spirit, became classed as a wicked goblin.[31] Dealing with fairies was considered a form of witchcraft, and punished as such.[32] In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon, king of the faeries, states that neither he nor his court fear the church bells, which the renowned author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis cast as a politic disassociation from faeries.[33] In an era of intellectual and religious upheaval, some Victorian reappraisals of mythology cast deities in general as metaphors for natural events,[34] which was later refuted by other authors (See: The Triumph of the Moon, by Ronald Hutton). This contentious environment of thought contributed to the modern meaning of 'fairies'. Spirits of the dead One belief held that fairies were spirits of the dead.[35] This derived from many factors common in various folklore and myths: same or similar tales of both ghosts and fairies; the Irish sídhe, origin of their term for fairies, were ancient burial mounds; deemed dangerous to eat food in Fairyland and Hades; the dead and fairies depicted as living underground.[36] Diane Purkiss observed an equating of fairies with the untimely dead who left "unfinished lives".[37] One tale recounted a man caught by the fairies, who found that whenever he looked steadily at a fairy, it appeared as a dead neighbor of his.[38] This theory was among the more common traditions related, although many informants also expressed doubts.[39] Hidden people Illustration of a fairy by C. E. Brock There is an outdated theory that fairy folklore evolved from folk memories of a prehistoric race: newcomers superseded a body of earlier human or humanoid peoples, and the memories of this defeated race developed into modern conceptions of fairies. Proponents find support in the tradition of cold iron as a charm against fairies, viewed as a cultural memory of invaders with iron weapons displacing peoples who had just stone, bone, wood, etc., at their disposal, and were easily defeated. 19th-century archaeologists uncovered underground rooms in the Orkney islands that resembled the Elfland described in Childe Rowland,[40] which lent additional support. In folklore, flint arrowheads from the Stone Age were attributed to the fairies as "elfshot",[41] while their green clothing and underground homes spoke to a need for camouflage and covert shelter from hostile humans, their magic a necessary skill for combating those with superior weaponry. In a Victorian tenet of evolution, mythic cannibalism among ogres was attributed to memories of more savage races, practising alongside "superior" races of more refined sensibilities.[42] Elementals A theory that fairies, et al., were intelligent species, distinct from humans and angels.[43] An alchemist, Paracelsus, classed gnomes and sylphs as elementals, meaning magical entities who personify a particular force of nature, and exert powers over these forces.[44] Folklore accounts have described fairies as "spirits of the air".[45] Characteristics Much folklore of fairies involves methods of protecting oneself from their malice, by means such as cold iron, charms (see amulet, talisman) of rowan trees or various herbs, or simply shunning locations "known" to be theirs, ergo avoiding offending any fairies.[46] Less harmful pranks ascribed to fairies include: tangling the hair of sleepers into fairy-locks (aka elf-locks), stealing small items, and leading a traveler astray. More dangerous behaviors were also attributed to fairies; any form of sudden death might have stemmed from a fairy kidnapping, the evident corpse a magical replica of wood.[47] Consumption (tuberculosis) was sometimes blamed on fairies who forced young men and women to dance at revels every night, causing them to waste away from lack of rest.[48] Rowan trees were considered sacred to fairies,[49] and a charm tree to protect one's home.[50] Classifications Main article: Classifications of fairies Various folklorists have proposed classification systems for fairies. Using terms popularized by W. B. Yeats, trooping fairies are those who appear in groups and might form settlements, as opposed to solitary fairies, who do not live or associate with others of their kind. In this context, the term fairy is usually held in a wider sense, including various similar beings, such as dwarves and elves of Germanic folklore.[51] In Scottish folklore, fairies are divided into the Seelie Court (more beneficently inclined, but still dangerous), and the Unseelie Court (more malicious). While fairies of the Seelie Court enjoyed playing generally harmless pranks on humans, those of the Unseelie Court often brought harm to humans for entertainment.[41] Both could be dangerous to humans if offended. Some scholars have cautioned against the overuse of dividing fairies into types.[52] British folklore historian Dr. Simon Young noted that classification varies widely from researcher to researcher, and pointed out that it does not necessarily reflect old beliefs, since “those people living hundreds of years ago did not structure their experience as we do.”[53] Changelings Main article: Changeling A considerable amount of lore about fairies revolves around changelings, fairies left in the place of stolen humans.[10] In particular, folklore describes how to prevent the fairies from stealing babies and substituting changelings, and abducting older people as well.[54] The theme of the swapped child is common in medieval literature and reflects concern over infants thought to be afflicted with unexplained diseases, disorders, or developmental disabilities. In pre-industrial Europe, a peasant family's subsistence frequently depended upon the productive labor of each member, and a person who was a permanent drain on the family's scarce resources could pose a threat to the survival of the entire family.[55] Protective charms In terms of protective charms, wearing clothing inside out,[56] church bells, St. John's wort, and four-leaf clovers are regarded as effective. In Newfoundland folklore, the most popular type of fairy protection is bread, varying from stale bread to hard tack or a slice of fresh homemade bread. Bread is associated with the home and the hearth, as well as with industry and the taming of nature, and as such, seems to be disliked by some types of fairies. On the other hand, in much of the Celtic folklore, baked goods are a traditional offering to the folk, as are cream and butter.[24] "The prototype of food, and therefore a symbol of life, bread was one of the commonest protections against fairies. Before going out into a fairy-haunted place, it was customary to put a piece of dry bread in one's pocket."[57] In County Wexford, Ireland, in 1882, it was reported that: "if an infant is carried out after dark a piece of bread is wrapped in its bib or dress, and this protects it from any witchcraft or evil."[58] Bells also have an ambiguous role; while they protect against fairies, the fairies riding on horseback — such as the fairy queen — often have bells on their harness. This may be a distinguishing trait between the Seelie Court from the Unseelie Court, such that fairies use them to protect themselves from more wicked members of their race.[59] Another ambiguous piece of folklore revolves about poultry: a cock's crow drove away fairies, but other tales recount fairies keeping poultry.[60] While many fairies will confuse travelers on the path, the will-o'-the-wisp can be avoided by not following it. Certain locations, known to be haunts of fairies, are to be avoided; C. S. Lewis reported hearing of a cottage more feared for its reported fairies than its reported ghost.[61] In particular, digging in fairy hills was unwise. Paths that the fairies travel are also wise to avoid. Home-owners have knocked corners from houses because the corner blocked the fairy path,[62] and cottages have been built with the front and back doors in line, so that the owners could, in need, leave them both open and let the fairies troop through all night.[63] Locations such as fairy forts were left undisturbed; even cutting brush on fairy forts was reputed to be the death of those who performed the act.[64] Fairy trees, such as thorn trees, were dangerous to chop down; one such tree was left alone in Scotland, though it prevented a road from being widened for seventy years.[65] A resin statue of a fairy Other actions were believed to offend fairies. Brownies were known to be driven off by being given clothing, though some folktales recounted that they were offended by the inferior quality of the garments given, and others merely stated it, some even recounting that the brownie was delighted with the gift and left with it.[66] Other brownies left households or farms because they heard a complaint, or a compliment.[67] People who saw the fairies were advised not to look closely, because they resented infringements on their privacy.[68] The need to not offend them could lead to problems: one farmer found that fairies threshed his corn, but the threshing continued after all his corn was gone, and he concluded that they were stealing from his neighbors, leaving him the choice between offending them, dangerous in itself, and profiting by the theft.[69] Millers were thought by the Scots to be "no canny", owing to their ability to control the forces of nature, such as fire in the kiln, water in the burn, and for being able to set machinery a-whirring. Superstitious communities sometimes believed that the miller must be in league with the fairies. In Scotland, fairies were often mischievous and to be feared. No one dared to set foot in the mill or kiln at night, as it was known that the fairies brought their corn to be milled after dark. So long as the locals believed this, the miller could sleep secure in the knowledge that his stores were not being robbed. John Fraser, the miller of Whitehill, claimed to have hidden and watched the fairies trying unsuccessfully to work the mill. He said he decided to come out of hiding and help them, upon which one of the fairy women gave him a gowpen (double handful of meal) and told him to put it in his empty girnal (store), saying that the store would remain full for a long time, no matter how much he took out.[70] It is also believed that to know the name of a particular fairy, a person could summon it and force it to do their bidding. The name could be used as an insult towards the fairy in question, but it could also rather contradictorily be used to grant powers and gifts to the user.[citation needed] Before the advent of modern medicine, many physiological conditions were untreatable and when children were born with abnormalities, it was common to blame the fairies.[71] Legends Sometimes fairies are described as assuming the guise of an animal.[72] In Scotland, it was peculiar to the fairy women to assume the shape of deer; while witches became mice, hares, cats, gulls, or black sheep. In "The Legend of Knockshigowna", in order to frighten a farmer who pastured his herd on fairy ground, a fairy queen took on the appearance of a great horse, with the wings of an eagle, and a tail like a dragon, hissing loud and spitting fire. Then she would change into a little man lame of a leg, with a bull's head, and a lambent flame playing round it.[73] In the 19th-century child ballad "Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight", the elf-knight is a Bluebeard figure, and Isabel must trick and kill him to preserve her life.[74] The child ballad "Tam Lin" reveals that the title character, though living among the fairies and having fairy powers, was, in fact, an "earthly knight" and though his life was pleasant now, he feared that the fairies would pay him as their teind (tithe) to hell.[74] "Sir Orfeo" tells how Sir Orfeo's wife was kidnapped by the King of Faerie and only by trickery and an excellent harping ability was he able to win her back. "Sir Degare" narrates the tale of a woman overcome by her fairy lover, who in later versions of the story is unmasked as a mortal. "Thomas the Rhymer" shows Thomas escaping with less difficulty, but he spends seven years in Elfland.[75] Oisín is harmed not by his stay in Faerie but by his return; when he dismounts, the three centuries that have passed catch up with him, reducing him to an aged man.[76] King Herla (O.E. "Herla cyning"), originally a guise of Woden but later Christianised as a king in a tale by Walter Map, was said, by Map, to have visited a dwarf's underground mansion and returned three centuries later; although only some of his men crumbled to dust on dismounting, Herla and his men who did not dismount were trapped on horseback, this being one account of the origin of the Wild Hunt of European folklore.[77][78] A common feature of the fairies is the use of magic to disguise their appearance. Fairy gold is notoriously unreliable, appearing as gold when paid but soon thereafter revealing itself to be leaves, gorse blossoms, gingerbread cakes, or a variety of other comparatively worthless things.[79] These illusions are also implicit in the tales of fairy ointment. Many tales from Northern Europe[80][81] tell of a mortal woman summoned to attend a fairy birth — sometimes attending a mortal, kidnapped woman's childbed. Invariably, the woman is given something for the child's eyes, usually an ointment; through mischance, or sometimes curiosity, she uses it on one or both of her own eyes. At that point, she sees where she is; one midwife realizes that she was not attending a great lady in a fine house but her own runaway maid-servant in a wretched cave. She escapes without making her ability known but sooner or later betrays that she can see the fairies. She is invariably blinded in that eye or in both if she used the ointment on both.[82] There have been claims by people in the past, like William Blake, to have seen fairy funerals. Allan Cunningham in his Lives of Eminent British Painters records that William Blake claimed to have seen a fairy funeral:     'Did you ever see a fairy's funeral, madam?' said Blake to a lady who happened to sit next to him. 'Never, sir!' said the lady. 'I have,' said Blake, 'but not before last night.' And he went on to tell how, in his garden, he had seen 'a procession of creatures of the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers, bearing a body laid out on a rose-leaf, which they buried with songs, and then disappeared.' They are believed to be an omen of death. Tuatha Dé Danann Main article: Tuatha Dé Danann The Tuatha Dé Danann are a race of supernaturally-gifted people in Irish mythology. They are thought to represent the main deities of pre-Christian Ireland. Many of the Irish modern tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann refer to these beings as fairies, though in more ancient times they were regarded as goddesses and gods. The Tuatha Dé Danann were spoken of as having come from islands in the north of the world or, in other sources, from the sky. After being defeated in a series of battles with other otherworldly beings, and then by the ancestors of the current Irish people, they were said to have withdrawn to the sídhe (fairy mounds), where they lived on in popular imagination as "fairies".[citation needed] They are associated with several Otherworld realms including Mag Mell (the Pleasant Plain), Emain Ablach (the place of apples)), and Tir na nÓg (the Land of Youth). Aos Sí Main article: Aos Sí The aos sí is the Irish term for a supernatural race in Irish, comparable to the fairies or elves. They are variously said to be ancestors, the spirits of nature, or goddesses and gods.[83] A common theme found among the Celtic nations describes a race of people who had been driven out by invading humans. In old Celtic fairy lore the Aos Sí (people of the fairy mounds) are immortals living in the ancient barrows and cairns. The Irish banshee (Irish Gaelic bean sí which means "woman of the fairy mound") is sometimes described as a ghost.[84] Scottish Sìthe In the 1691 The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies, Reverend Robert Kirk, minister of the Parish of Aberfoyle, Stirling, Scotland, wrote:     These Siths or Fairies they call Sleagh Maith or the Good People...are said to be of middle nature between Man and Angel, as were Daemons thought to be of old; of intelligent fluidous Spirits, and light changeable bodies (lyke those called Astral) somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so pliable through the sublety of Spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure[85] In literature Prince Arthur and the Faerie Queene by Johann Heinrich Füssli (c. 1788); scene from The Faerie Queene The word "fairy" was used to describe an individual inhabitant of Faerie before the time of Chaucer.[1] Fairies appeared in medieval romances as one of the beings that a knight errant might encounter. A fairy lady appeared to Sir Launfal and demanded his love; like the fairy bride of ordinary folklore, she imposed a prohibition on him that in time he violated. Sir Orfeo's wife was carried off by the King of Faerie. Huon of Bordeaux is aided by King Oberon.[86] These fairy characters dwindled in number as the medieval era progressed; the figures became wizards and enchantresses.[87] The oldest fairies on record in England were first described by the historian Gervase of Tilbury in the 13th century.[88] In the 1485 book Le Morte d'Arthur, Morgan le Fay, whose connection to the realm of Faerie is implied in her name, is a woman whose magic powers stem from study.[89] While somewhat diminished with time, fairies never completely vanished from the tradition. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 14th-century tale, but the Green Knight himself is an otherworldly being.[87] Edmund Spenser featured fairies in his 1590 book The Faerie Queene.[90] In many works of fiction, fairies are freely mixed with the nymphs and satyrs of classical tradition,[91] while in others (e.g., Lamia), they were seen as displacing the Classical beings. 15th-century poet and monk John Lydgate wrote that King Arthur was crowned in "the land of the fairy" and taken in his death by four fairy queens, to Avalon, where he lies under a "fairy hill" until he is needed again.[92] The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania by Joseph Noel Paton (1849): fairies in Shakespeare Fairies appear as significant characters in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the Moon[93] and in which a disturbance of nature caused by a fairy dispute creates tension underlying the plot and informing the actions of the characters. According to Maurice Hunt, Chair of the English Department at Baylor University, the blurring of the identities of fantasy and reality makes possible "that pleasing, narcotic dreaminess associated with the fairies of the play".[94] Shakespeare's contemporary Michael Drayton features fairies in his Nimphidia, and from these stem Alexander Pope's sylphs of the 1712 poem The Rape of the Lock. In the mid-17th century the French literary style précieuses took up the oral tradition of such tales to write fairy tales, and Madame d'Aulnoy invented the term contes de fée ("fairy tale").[95] While the tales told by the précieuses included many fairies, they were less common in other countries' tales; indeed, the Brothers Grimm included fairies in their first edition but decided this was not authentically German and altered the language in later editions, changing each Fee ("fairy") to an enchantress or wise woman.[96] J. R. R. Tolkien described these tales as taking place in the land of Faerie.[97] Additionally, not all folktales that feature fairies are generally categorized as fairy tales. The modern depiction of fairies was shaped in the literature of Romanticism during the Victorian era. Writers such as Walter Scott and James Hogg were inspired by folklore which featured fairies, such as the Border ballads. This era saw an increase in the popularity of collecting fairy folklore and an increase in the creation of original works with fairy characters.[98] In Rudyard Kipling's 1906 book of short stories and poems, Puck of Pook's Hill, Puck holds to scorn the moralizing fairies of other Victorian works.[99] The period also saw a revival of older themes in fantasy literature, such as C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, which, while featuring many such classical beings as fauns and dryads, mingles them freely with hags, giants, and other creatures of the folkloric fairy tradition.[100] Victorian flower fairies were popularized in part by Queen Mary's keen interest in fairy art and by British illustrator and poet Cicely Mary Barker's series of eight books published in 1923 through 1948. Imagery of fairies in literature became prettier and smaller as time progressed.[101] Andrew Lang, complaining of "the fairies of polyanthuses and gardenias and apple blossoms" in the introduction to The Lilac Fairy Book (1910), observed that: "These fairies try to be funny, and fail; or they try to preach, and succeed."[102] A story of the origin of fairies appears in a chapter about Peter Pan in J. M. Barrie's 1902 novel The Little White Bird, and was incorporated into his later works about the character. Barrie wrote: "When the first baby laughed for the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skipping about. That was the beginning of fairies."[103] Fairies are seen in Neverland, in Peter and Wendy, the 1911 novel version of J. M. Barrie's famous Peter Pan stories, and its character Tinker Bell has become a pop culture icon. When Peter Pan is guarding Wendy from pirates, the story says: "After a time he fell asleep, and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on."[104] In visual art See also: Fairy painting A fairy pictured in the coat of arms of Haljala Parish Images of fairies have appeared as illustrations, often in books of fairy tales, as well as in photographic media and sculpture. Some artists known for their depictions of fairies include Cicely Mary Barker, Amy Brown, David Delamare, Meredith Dillman, Gustave Doré, Brian Froud, Warwick Goble, Jasmine Becket-Griffith, Rebecca Guay, Florence Harrison, Kylie InGold, Greta James, Alan Lee, Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, Myrea Pettit, Arthur Rackham, Suza Scalora, and Nene Thomas.[105] The Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor, MI are small doors installed into local buildings. Local children believe these are the front doors of fairy houses, and in some cases, small furniture, dishes, and various other things can be seen beyond the doors. The Victorian era was particularly noted for fairy paintings. The Victorian painter Richard Dadd created paintings of fairy-folk with a sinister and malign tone. Other Victorian artists who depicted fairies include John Anster Fitzgerald, John Atkinson Grimshaw, Daniel Maclise, and Joseph Noel Paton.[106] Interest in fairy-themed art enjoyed a brief renaissance following the publication of the Cottingley Fairies photographs in 1917, and a number of artists turned to painting fairy themes." (wikipedia,org) "A legendary creature (mythical or mythological creature) is a type of fictional entity, typically a hybrid, that has not been proven and that is described in folklore (including myths and legends), but may be featured in historical accounts before modernity. In the classical era, monstrous creatures such as the Cyclops and the Minotaur appear in heroic tales for the protagonist to destroy. Other creatures, such as the unicorn, were claimed in accounts of natural history by various scholars of antiquity.[1][2][3] Some legendary creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and were believed to be real creatures, for example dragons, griffins, and unicorns. Others were based on real encounters, originating in garbled accounts of travellers' tales, such as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary, which supposedly grew tethered to the earth.... Creatures Further information: List of legendary creatures by type and List of Greek mythological creatures In classical mythology, the Minotaur was defeated by the hero Theseus. Medieval bestiaries included mythical animals like the monoceros (above) alongside real animals like the bear. A variety of mythical animals appear in the art and stories of the Classical era. For example, in the Odyssey, monstrous creatures include the Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis for the hero Odysseus to confront. In other tales there appear the Medusa to be defeated by Perseus, the (human/bull) Minotaur to be destroyed by Theseus, and the Hydra to be killed by Heracles, while Aeneas battles with the harpies. These monsters thus have the basic function of emphasizing the greatness of the heroes involved.[5][6][7] Some classical era creatures, such as the (horse/human) centaur, chimaera, Triton and the flying horse, are found also in Indian art. Similarly, sphinxes appear as winged lions in Indian art and the Piasa Bird of North America.[8][9] In medieval art, animals, both real and mythical, played important roles. These included decorative forms as in medieval jewellery, sometimes with their limbs intricately interlaced. Animal forms were used to add humor or majesty to objects. In Christian art, animals carried symbolic meanings, where for example the lamb symbolized Christ, a dove indicated the Holy Spirit, and the classical griffin represented a guardian of the dead. Medieval bestiaries included animals regardless of biological reality; the basilisk represented the devil, while the manticore symbolised temptation.[10] Allegory Further information: Allegory Symbolic power: a dragon in the Imperial City, Huế, Vietnam One function of mythical animals in the Middle Ages was allegory. Unicorns, for example, were described as extraordinarily swift and uncatchable by traditional methods.[11]: 127  It was believed that the only way for one to catch this beast was to lead a virgin to its dwelling. Then, the unicorn was supposed to leap into her lap and go to sleep, at which point a hunter could finally capture it.[11]: 127  In terms of symbolism, the unicorn was a metaphor for Christ. Unicorns represented the idea of innocence and purity. In the King James Bible, Psalm 92:10 states, "My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn." This is because the translators of the King James erroneously translated the Hebrew word re'em as unicorn.[11]: 128  Later versions translate this as wild ox.[12] The unicorn's small size signifies the humility of Christ.[11]: 128  Another common legendary creature which served allegorical functions within the Middle Ages was the dragon. Dragons were identified with serpents, though their attributes were greatly intensified. The dragon was supposed to have been larger than all other animals.[11]: 126  It was believed that the dragon had no harmful poison but was able to slay anything it embraced without any need for venom. Biblical scriptures speak of the dragon in reference to the devil, and they were used to denote sin in general during the Middle Ages.[11]: 126  Dragons were said to have dwelled in places like Ethiopia and India, based on the idea that there was always heat present in these locations.[11]: 126  Physical detail was not the central focus of the artists depicting such animals, and medieval bestiaries were not conceived as biological categorizations. Creatures like the unicorn and griffin were not categorized in a separate "mythological" section in medieval bestiaries,[13]: 124  as the symbolic implications were of primary importance. Animals we know to have existed were still presented with a fantastical approach. It seems the religious and moral implications of animals were far more significant than matching a physical likeness in these renderings. Nona C. Flores explains, "By the tenth century, artists were increasingly bound by allegorical interpretation, and abandoned naturalistic depictions."" (wikipedia.orG) "Folklore is the body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends,[1] proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas and weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain in a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration. The academic study of folklore is called folklore studies or folkloristics, and it can be explored at undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels.... Overview Indian Folk Worship at Batu Caves, Selangor Malaysia Folk dancing, Plovdiv Bulgaria Serbian Folk Group, Music and Costume. A group of performers sharing traditional Serbian folk music on the streets of Belgrade, Serbia. The word folklore, a compound of folk and lore, was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms,[3] who contrived the term as a replacement for the contemporary terminology of "popular antiquities" or "popular literature". The second half of the word, lore, comes from Old English lār 'instruction'. It is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, frequently passed along by word of mouth.[4] The concept of folk has varied over time. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor and illiterate peasants. A more modern definition of folk is a social group that includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. "Folk is a flexible concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family."[5] This expanded social definition of folk supports a broader view of the material, i.e. the lore, considered to be folklore artifacts. These now include all "things people make with words (verbal lore), things they make with their hands (material lore), and things they make with their actions (customary lore)".[6] Folklore is no longer considered to be limited to that which is old or obsolete. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, and always in multiple variants. The folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. "As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, computer programmers".[7] In direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within a common social group.[8] Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, and objects for the group, since these cultural units[9] would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group. That meaning can however shift and morph, for example: the Halloween celebration of the 21st century is not the All Hallows' Eve of the Middle Ages, and even gives rise to its own set of urban legends independent of the historical celebration; the cleansing rituals of Orthodox Judaism were originally good public health in a land with little water, but now these customs signify for some people identification as an Orthodox Jew. By comparison, a common action such as tooth brushing, which is also transmitted within a group, remains a practical hygiene and health issue and does not rise to the level of a group-defining tradition.[10] Tradition is initially remembered behavior; once it loses its practical purpose, there is no reason for further transmission unless it has been imbued with meaning beyond the initial practicality of the action. This meaning is at the core of folkloristics, the study of folklore.[11] With an increasingly theoretical sophistication of the social sciences, it has become evident that folklore is a naturally occurring and necessary component of any social group; it is indeed all around us.[12] Folklore does not have to be old or antiquated, it continues to be created and transmitted, and in any group it is used to differentiate between "us" and "them". Origin and development of folklore studies Main article: History of folklore studies Folklore began to distinguish itself as an autonomous discipline during the period of romantic nationalism in Europe. A particular figure in this development was Johann Gottfried von Herder, whose writings in the 1770s presented oral traditions as organic processes grounded in locale. After the German states were invaded by Napoleonic France, Herder's approach was adopted by many of his fellow Germans who systematized the recorded folk traditions and used them in their process of nation building. This process was enthusiastically embraced by smaller nations like Finland, Estonia, and Hungary, which were seeking political independence from their dominant neighbours.[13] Folklore as a field of study further developed among 19th century European scholars who were contrasting tradition with the newly developing modernity. Its focus was the oral folklore of the rural peasant populations, which were considered as residue and survivals of the past that continued to exist within the lower strata of society.[14] The "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" of the Brothers Grimm (first published 1812) is the best known but by no means only collection of verbal folklore of the European peasantry of that time. This interest in stories, sayings and songs continued throughout the 19th century and aligned the fledgling discipline of folkloristics with literature and mythology. By the turn into the 20th century the number and sophistication of folklore studies and folklorists had grown both in Europe and North America. Whereas European folklorists remained focused on the oral folklore of the homogenous peasant populations in their regions, the American folklorists, led by Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, chose to consider Native American cultures in their research, and included the totality of their customs and beliefs as folklore. This distinction aligned American folkloristics with cultural anthropology and ethnology, using the same techniques of data collection in their field research. This divided alliance of folkloristics between the humanities in Europe and the social sciences in America offers a wealth of theoretical vantage points and research tools to the field of folkloristics as a whole, even as it continues to be a point of discussion within the field itself.[15] The term folkloristics, along with the alternative name folklore studies,[note 1] became widely used in the 1950s to distinguish the academic study of traditional culture from the folklore artifacts themselves. When the American Folklife Preservation Act (Public Law 94-201) was passed by the U.S. Congress in January 1976,[16] to coincide with the Bicentennial Celebration, folkloristics in the United States came of age.     "…[Folklife] means the traditional expressive culture shared within the various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, regional; expressive culture includes a wide range of creative and symbolic forms such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, literature, art, architecture, music, play, dance, drama, ritual, pageantry, handicraft; these expressions are mainly learned orally, by imitation, or in performance, and are generally maintained without benefit of formal instruction or institutional direction." Added to the extensive array of other legislation designed to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the United States, this law also marks a shift in national awareness. It gives voice to a growing understanding that cultural diversity is a national strength and a resource worthy of protection. Paradoxically, it is a unifying feature, not something that separates the citizens of a country. "We no longer view cultural difference as a problem to be solved, but as a tremendous opportunity. In the diversity of American folklife we find a marketplace teeming with the exchange of traditional forms and cultural ideas, a rich resource for Americans".[17] This diversity is celebrated annually at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and many other folklife fests around the country. There are numerous other definitions. According to William Bascom major article on the topic there are "four functions to folklore":[18]     Folklore lets people escape from repressions imposed upon them by society.     Folklore validates culture, justifying its rituals and institutions to those who perform and observe them.     Folklore is a pedagogic device which reinforces morals and values and builds wit.     Folklore is a means of applying social pressure and exercising social control. Definition of "folk" Friends in the farm Folklore theater in Mansoura, Egypt The folk of the 19th century, the social group identified in the original term "folklore", was characterized by being rural, illiterate and poor. They were the peasants living in the countryside, in contrast to the urban populace of the cities. Only toward the end of the century did the urban proletariat (on the coattails of Marxist theory) become included with the rural poor as folk. The common feature in this expanded definition of folk was their identification as the underclass of society.[19] Moving forward into the 20th century, in tandem with new thinking in the social sciences, folklorists also revised and expanded their concept of the folk group. By the 1960s it was understood that social groups, i.e. folk groups, were all around us; each individual is enmeshed in a multitude of differing identities and their concomitant social groups. The first group that each of us is born into is the family, and each family has its own unique family folklore. As a child grows into an individual, its identities also increase to include age, language, ethnicity, occupation, etc. Each of these cohorts has its own folklore, and as one folklorist points out, this is "not idle speculation… Decades of fieldwork have demonstrated conclusively that these groups do have their own folklore."[7] In this modern understanding, folklore is a function of shared identity within any social group.[8] This folklore can include jokes, sayings and expected behavior in multiple variants, always transmitted in an informal manner. For the most part it will be learned by observation, imitation, repetition or correction by other group members. This informal knowledge is used to confirm and re-inforce the identity of the group. It can be used both internally within the group to express their common identity, for example in an initiation ceremony for new members. Or it can be used externally to differentiate the group from outsiders, like a folkdance demonstration at a community festival. Significant to folklorists here is that there are two opposing but equally valid ways to use this in the study of a group: you can start with an identified group in order to explore its folklore, or you can identify folklore items and use them to identify the social group.[20] Beginning in the 1960s, a further expansion of the concept of folk began to unfold through the study of folklore. Individual researchers identified folk groups that had previously been overlooked and ignored. One notable example of this is found in an issue of the Journal of American Folklore, published in 1975, which is dedicated exclusively to articles on women's folklore, with approaches that had not come from a man's perspective.[note 2] Other groups that were highlighted as part of this broadened understanding of the folk group were non-traditional families, occupational groups, and families that pursued the production of folk items over multiple generations. Folklore genres United Arab Emirates traditional folk dance, the women flip their hair sideways in brightly coloured traditional dress. Individual folklore artifacts are commonly classified as one of three types: material, verbal or customary lore. For the most part self-explanatory, these categories include physical objects (material folklore), common sayings, expressions, stories and songs (verbal folklore), and beliefs and ways of doing things (customary folklore). There is also a fourth major subgenre defined for children's folklore and games (childlore), as the collection and interpretation of this fertile topic is particular to school yards and neighborhood streets.[21] Each of these genres and their subtypes is intended to organize and categorize the folklore artifacts; they provide common vocabulary and consistent labeling for folklorists to communicate with each other. That said, each artifact is unique; in fact one of the characteristics of all folklore artifacts is their variation within genres and types.[22] This is in direct contrast to manufactured goods, where the goal in production is to create identical products and any variations are considered mistakes. It is however just this required variation that makes identification and classification of the defining features a challenge. And while this classification is essential for the subject area of folkloristics, it remains just labeling, and adds little to an understanding of the traditional development and meaning of the artifacts themselves.[23] Necessary as they are, genre classifications are misleading in their oversimplification of the subject area. Folklore artifacts are never self-contained, they do not stand in isolation but are particulars in the self-representation of a community. Different genres are frequently combined with each other to mark an event.[24] So a birthday celebration might include a song or formulaic way of greeting the birthday child (verbal), presentation of a cake and wrapped presents (material), as well as customs to honor the individual, such as sitting at the head of the table, and blowing out the candles with a wish. There might also be special games played at birthday parties which are not generally played at other times. Adding to the complexity of the interpretation, the birthday party for a seven-year-old will not be identical to the birthday party for that same child as a six-year-old, even though they follow the same model. For each artifact embodies a single variant of a performance in a given time and space. The task of the folklorist becomes to identify within this surfeit of variables the constants and the expressed meaning that shimmer through all variations: honoring of the individual within the circle of family and friends, gifting to express their value and worth to the group, and of course, the festival food and drink as signifiers of the event. Verbal tradition The story of Jahangir and Anarkali is popular folklore in the former territories of the Mughal Empire. The formal definition of verbal lore is words, both written and oral, that are "spoken, sung, voiced forms of traditional utterance that show repetitive patterns."[25] Crucial here are the repetitive patterns. Verbal lore is not just any conversation, but words and phrases conforming to a traditional configuration recognized by both the speaker and the audience. For narrative types by definition have consistent structure, and follow an existing model in their narrative form.[note 3] As just one simple example, in English the phrase "An elephant walks into a bar…" instantaneously flags the following text as a joke. It might be one you've already heard, but it might be one that the speaker has just thought up within the current context. Another example is the child's song Old MacDonald Had a Farm, where each performance is distinctive in the animals named, their order and their sounds. Songs such as this are used to express cultural values (farms are important, farmers are old and weather-beaten) and teach children about different domesticated animals.[26] Verbal folklore was the original folklore, the artifacts defined by William Thoms as older, oral cultural traditions of the rural populace. In his 1846 published call for help in documenting antiquities, Thoms was echoing scholars from across the European continent to collect artifacts of verbal lore. By the beginning of the 20th century these collections had grown to include artifacts from around the world and across several centuries. A system to organize and categorize them became necessary.[27] Antti Aarne published a first classification system for folktales in 1910. This was later expanded into the Aarne–Thompson classification system by Stith Thompson and remains the standard classification system for European folktales and other types of oral literature. As the number of classified oral artifacts grew, similarities were noted in items that had been collected from very different geographic regions, ethnic groups and epochs, giving rise to the Historic–Geographic Method, a methodology that dominated folkloristics in the first half of the 20th century. When William Thoms first published his appeal to document the verbal lore of the rural populations, it was believed these folk artifacts would die out as the population became literate. Over the past two centuries this belief has proven to be wrong; folklorists continue to collect verbal lore in both written and spoken form from all social groups. Some variants might have been captured in published collections, but much of it is still transmitted orally and indeed continues to be generated in new forms and variants at an alarming rate. Below is listed a small sampling of types and examples of verbal lore.     Aloha     Ballads     Blessings     Bluegrass     Chants     Charms     Cinderella     Country music     Cowboy poetry     Creation stories     Curses     English similes     Epic poetry     Fable     Fairy tale     Folk belief     Folk etymologies     Folk metaphors     Folk poetry     Folk music     Folksongs     Folk speech     Folktales of oral tradition     Ghostlore     Greetings     Hog-calling     Insults     Jokes     Keening     Latrinalia     Legends     Limericks     Lullabies     Myth     Oaths     Leave-taking formulas     Fakelore     Place names     Prayers at bedtime     Proverbs     Retorts     Riddle     Roasts     Sagas     Sea shanties     Street vendors     Superstition     Tall tale     Taunts     Toasts     Tongue-twisters     Urban legends     Word games     Yodeling Material culture Horse and sulky weathervane, Smithsonian American Art Museum The genre of material culture includes all artifacts that can be touched, held, lived in, or eaten. They are tangible objects with a physical presence, either intended for permanent use or to be used at the next meal. Most of these folklore artifacts are single objects that have been created by hand for a specific purpose; however, folk artifacts can also be mass-produced, such as dreidels or Christmas decorations. These items continue to be considered folklore because of their long (pre-industrial) history and their customary use. All of these material objects "existed prior to and continue alongside mechanized industry. … [They are] transmitted across the generations and subject to the same forces of conservative tradition and individual variation"[25] that are found in all folk artifacts. Folklorists are interested in the physical form, the method of manufacture or construction, the pattern of use, as well as the procurement of the raw materials.[28] The meaning to those who both make and use these objects is important. Of primary significance in these studies is the complex balance of continuity over change in both their design and their decoration. 0:45 Traditional highlanders' pins hand-made by a goldsmith in Podhale, Poland In Europe, prior to the Industrial Revolution, everything was made by hand. While some folklorists of the 19th century wanted to secure the oral traditions of the rural folk before the populace became literate, other folklorists sought to identify hand-crafted objects before their production processes were lost to industrial manufacturing. Just as verbal lore continues to be actively created and transmitted in today's culture, so these handicrafts can still be found all around us, with possibly a shift in purpose and meaning. There are many reasons for continuing to handmake objects for use, for example these skills may be needed to repair manufactured items, or a unique design might be required which is not (or cannot be) found in the stores. Many crafts are considered as simple home maintenance, such as cooking, sewing and carpentry. For many people, handicrafts have also become an enjoyable and satisfying hobby. Handmade objects are often regarded as prestigious, where extra time and thought is spent in their creation and their uniqueness is valued.[29] For the folklorist, these hand-crafted objects embody multifaceted relationships in the lives of the craftsmen and the users, a concept that has been lost with mass-produced items that have no connection to an individual craftsman.[30] Many traditional crafts, such as ironworking and glass-making, have been elevated to the fine or applied arts and taught in art schools;[31] or they have been repurposed as folk art, characterized as objects whose decorative form supersedes their utilitarian needs. Folk art is found in hex signs on Pennsylvania Dutch barns, tin man sculptures made by metalworkers, front yard Christmas displays, decorated school lockers, carved gun stocks, and tattoos. "Words such as naive, self-taught, and individualistic are used to describe these objects, and the exceptional rather than the representative creation is featured."[32] This is in contrast to the understanding of folklore artifacts that are nurtured and passed along within a community.[note 4] Many objects of material folklore are challenging to classify, difficult to archive, and unwieldy to store. The assigned task of museums is to preserve and make use of these bulky artifacts of material culture. To this end, the concept of the living museum has developed, beginning in Scandinavia at the end of the 19th century. These open-air museums not only display the artifacts, but also teach visitors how the items were used, with actors reenacting the everyday lives of people from all segments of society, relying heavily on the material artifacts of a pre-industrial society. Many locations even duplicate the processing of the objects, thus creating new objects of an earlier historic time period. Living museums are now found throughout the world as part of a thriving heritage industry. This list represents just a small sampling of objects and skills that are included in studies of material culture.     Autograph books     Bunad     Embroidery     Folk art     Folk costume     Folk medicines     Food recipes and presentation     Foodways     Common handicrafts     Handmade toys     Haystacks     Hex signs     Decorative ironworks     Pottery     Quilting     Stone sculpting     Tipis     Traditional fences     Vernacular architecture     Weather vanes     Woodworking Customs Customary culture is remembered enactment, i.e. re-enactment. It is the patterns of expected behavior within a group, the "traditional and expected way of doing things"[33][34] A custom can be a single gesture, such as thumbs down or a handshake. It can also be a complex interaction of multiple folk customs and artifacts as seen in a child's birthday party, including verbal lore (Happy Birthday song), material lore (presents and a birthday cake), special games (Musical chairs) and individual customs (making a wish as you blow out the candles). Each of these is a folklore artifact in its own right, potentially worthy of investigation and cultural analysis. Together they combine to build the custom of a birthday party celebration, a scripted combination of multiple artifacts which have meaning within their social group. Santa Claus giving gifts to children, a common folk practice associated with Christmas in Western nations Hajji Firuz is a fictional character in Iranian folklore who appears in the streets by the beginning of Nowruz, dances through the streets while singing and playing tambourine. Folklorists divide customs into several different categories.[33] A custom can be a seasonal celebration, such as Thanksgiving or New Year's. It can be a life cycle celebration for an individual, such as baptism, birthday or wedding. A custom can also mark a community festival or event; examples of this are Carnival in Cologne or Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This category also includes the Smithsonian Folklife Festival celebrated each summer on the Mall in Washington, DC. A fourth category includes customs related to folk beliefs. Walking under a ladder is just one of many symbols considered unlucky. Occupational groups tend to have a rich history of customs related to their life and work, so the traditions of sailors or lumberjacks.[note 5] The area of ecclesiastical folklore, which includes modes of worship not sanctioned by the established church[35] tends to be so large and complex that it is usually treated as a specialized area of folk customs; it requires considerable expertise in standard church ritual in order to adequately interpret folk customs and beliefs that originated in official church practice. Customary folklore is always a performance, be it a single gesture or a complex of scripted customs, and participating in the custom, either as performer or audience, signifies acknowledgment of that social group. Some customary behavior is intended to be performed and understood only within the group itself, so the handkerchief code sometimes used in the gay community or the initiation rituals of the Freemasons. Other customs are designed specifically to represent a social group to outsiders, those who do not belong to this group. The St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York and in other communities across the continent is a single example of an ethnic group parading their separateness (differential behavior[36]), and encouraging Americans of all stripes to show alliance to this colorful ethnic group. Practitioners of hoodening, a folk custom found in Kent, southeastern England, in 1909 These festivals and parades, with a target audience of people who do not belong to the social group, intersect with the interests and mission of public folklorists, who are engaged in the documentation, preservation, and presentation of traditional forms of folklife. With a swell in popular interest in folk traditions, these community celebrations are becoming more numerous throughout the western world. While ostensibly parading the diversity of their community, economic groups have discovered that these folk parades and festivals are good for business. All shades of people are out on the streets, eating, drinking and spending. This attracts support not only from the business community, but also from federal and state organizations for these local street parties.[37] Paradoxically, in parading diversity within the community, these events have come to authenticate true community, where business interests ally with the varied (folk) social groups to promote the interests of the community as a whole. This is just a small sampling of types and examples of customary lore.     Amish     Barn raising     Birthday     Cakewalk     Cat's cradle     Chaharshanbe Suri     Christmas     Crossed fingers     Folk dance     Folk drama     Folk medicine     Giving the finger     Halloween     Hoodening     Gestures     Groundhog Day     Louisiana Creole people     Mime     Native Hawaiians     Ouiji board     Powwows     Practical jokes     Saint John's Eve     Shakers     Symbols     Thanksgiving     Thumbs down     Trick or Treating     Whaling     Yo-yos Childlore and games Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1560; there are five boys playing a game of buck buck in the lower right-hand corner of the painting. Childlore is a distinct branch of folklore that deals with activities passed on by children to other children, away from the influence or supervision of an adult.[38] Children's folklore contains artifacts from all the standard folklore genres of verbal, material, and customary lore; it is however the child-to-child conduit that distinguishes these artifacts. For childhood is a social group where children teach, learn and share their own traditions, flourishing in a street culture outside the purview of adults. This is also ideal where it needs to be collected; as Iona and Peter Opie demonstrated in their pioneering book Children's Games in Street and Playground.[21] Here the social group of children is studied on its own terms, not as a derivative of adult social groups. It is shown that the culture of children is quite distinctive; it is generally unnoticed by the sophisticated world of adults, and quite as little affected by it.[39] Of particular interest to folklorists here is the mode of transmission of these artifacts; this lore circulates exclusively within an informal pre-literate children's network or folk group. It does not include artifacts taught to children by adults. However children can take the taught and teach it further to other children, turning it into childlore. Or they can take the artifacts and turn them into something else; so Old McDonald's farm is transformed from animal noises to the scatological version of animal poop. This childlore is characterized by "its lack of dependence on literary and fixed form. Children…operate among themselves in a world of informal and oral communication, unimpeded by the necessity of maintaining and transmitting information by written means.[40] This is as close as folklorists can come to observing the transmission and social function of this folk knowledge before the spread of literacy during the 19th century. As we have seen with the other genres, the original collections of children's lore and games in the 19th century was driven by a fear that the culture of childhood would die out.[41] Early folklorists, among them Alice Gomme in Britain and William Wells Newell in the United States, felt a need to capture the unstructured and unsupervised street life and activities of children before it was lost. This fear proved to be unfounded. In a comparison of any modern school playground during recess and the painting of "Children's Games" by Pieter Breugel the Elder we can see that the activity level is similar, and many of the games from the 1560 painting are recognizable and comparable to modern variations still played today. These same artifacts of childlore, in innumerable variations, also continue to serve the same function of learning and practicing skills needed for growth. So bouncing and swinging rhythms and rhymes encourage development of balance and coordination in infants and children. Verbal rhymes like Peter Piper picked... serve to increase both the oral and aural acuity of children. Songs and chants, accessing a different part of the brain, are used to memorize series (Alphabet song). They also provide the necessary beat to complex physical rhythms and movements, be it hand-clapping, jump roping, or ball bouncing. Furthermore, many physical games are used to develop strength, coordination and endurance of the players. For some team games, negotiations about the rules can run on longer than the game itself as social skills are rehearsed.[42] Even as we are just now uncovering the neuroscience that undergirds the developmental function of this childlore, the artifacts themselves have been in play for centuries. Below is listed just a small sampling of types and examples of childlore and games.     Buck buck     Counting rhymes     Dandling rhymes     Finger and toe rhymes     Counting-out games     Dreidel     Eeny, meeny, miny, moe     Games     Traditional games     London Bridge Is Falling Down     Lullabies     Nursery rhymes     Playground songs     Ball-bouncing rhymes     Rhymes     Riddles     Ring a Ring o Roses     Jump-rope rhymes     Stickball     Street games Folk history Mythology Mythologies Types Lists Related concepts See also     vte See also: Ethnohistory A case has been made for considering folk history as a distinct sub-category of folklore, an idea that has received attention from such folklorists as Richard Dorson. This field of study is represented in The Folklore Historian, an annual journal sponsored by the History and Folklore Section of the American Folklore Society and concerned with the connections of folklore with history, as well as the history of folklore studies.[43] The study of folk history is particularly well developed in Ireland, where the Handbook of Irish Folklore (the standard book used by field workers of the Irish Folklore Commission) recognizes "historical tradition" as a separate category, traditionally referred to as seanchas.[44] Henry Glassie made a pioneering contribution in his classic study, Passing the Time in Ballymenone.[45] Another notable exponent is historian Guy Beiner who has presented in-depth studies of Irish folk history, identifying a number of characteristic genres for what he has named "history telling", such as stories (divided into tales and "mini-histories"), songs and ballads (especially rebel songs), poems, rhymes, toasts, prophecies, proverbs and sayings, place-names, and a variety of commemorative ritual practices. These are often recited by dedicated storytellers (seanchaithe) and folk historians (staireolaithe).[46] Beiner has since adopted the term vernacular historiography in an attempt to move beyond the confines of "the artificial divides between oral and literary cultures that lie at the heart of conceptualizations of oral tradition".[47] Folklore performance in context Folk-dance-kalash in Pakistan Slovene Folklore Dancers Lacking context, folklore artifacts would be uninspiring objects without any life of their own. It is only through performance that the artifacts come alive as an active and meaningful component of a social group; the intergroup communication arises in the performance and this is where transmission of these cultural elements takes place. American folklorist Roger D. Abrahams has described it thus: "Folklore is folklore only when performed. As organized entities of performance, items of folklore have a sense of control inherent in them, a power that can be capitalized upon and enhanced through effective performance."[48] Without transmission, these items are not folklore, they are just individual quirky tales and objects. This understanding in folkloristics only occurred in the second half of the 20th century, when the two terms "folklore performance" and "text and context" dominated discussions among folklorists. These terms are not contradictory or even mutually exclusive. As borrowings from other fields of study, one or the other linguistic formulation is more appropriate to any given discussion. Performance is frequently tied to verbal and customary lore, whereas context is used in discussions of material lore. Both formulations offer different perspectives on the same folkloric understanding, specifically that folklore artifacts need to remain embedded in their cultural environment if we are to gain insight into their meaning for the community. The concept of cultural (folklore) performance is shared with ethnography and anthropology among other social sciences. The cultural anthropologist Victor Turner identified four universal characteristics of cultural performance: playfulness, framing, the use of symbolic language, and employing the subjunctive mood.[49] In viewing the performance, the audience leaves the daily reality to move into a mode of make-believe, or "what if?" It is self-evident that this fits well with all types of verbal lore, where reality has no place among the symbols, fantasies, and nonsense of traditional tales, proverbs, and jokes. Customs and the lore of children and games also fit easily into the language of a folklore performance. Material culture requires some moulding to turn it into a performance. Should we consider the performance of the creation of the artifact, as in a quilting party, or the performance of the recipients who use the quilt to cover their marriage bed? Here the language of context works better to describe the quilting of patterns copied from the grandmother, quilting as a social event during the winter months, or the gifting of a quilt to signify the importance of the event. Each of these—the traditional pattern chosen, the social event, and the gifting—occur within the broader context of the community. Even so, when considering context, the structure and characteristics of performance can be recognized, including an audience, a framing event, and the use of decorative figures and symbols, all of which go beyond the utility of the object. Backstory Before the Second World War, folk artifacts had been understood and collected as cultural shards of an earlier time. They were considered individual vestigial artifacts, with little or no function in the contemporary culture. Given this understanding, the goal of the folklorist was to capture and document them before they disappeared. They were collected with no supporting data, bound in books, archived and classified more or less successfully. The Historic–Geographic Method worked to isolate and track these collected artifacts, mostly verbal lore, across space and time. Following the Second World War, folklorists began to articulate a more holistic approach toward their subject matter. In tandem with the growing sophistication in the social sciences, attention was no longer limited to the isolated artifact, but extended to include the artifact embedded in an active cultural environment. One early proponent was Alan Dundes with his essay "Texture, Text and Context", first published 1964.[50] A public presentation in 1967 by Dan Ben-Amos at the American Folklore Society brought the behavioral approach into open debate among folklorists. In 1972 Richard Dorson called out the "young Turks" for their movement toward a behavioral approach to folklore. This approach "shifted the conceptualization of folklore as an extractable item or 'text' to an emphasis on folklore as a kind of human behavior and communication. Conceptualizing folklore as behavior redefined the job of folklorists..."[51][note 6] Folklore became a verb, an action, something that people do, not just something that they have.[52] It is in the performance and the active context that folklore artifacts get transmitted in informal, direct communication, either verbally or in demonstration. Performance includes all the different modes and manners in which this transmission occurs. Tradition-bearer and audience 0:52 Presentation of traditional Wallachian pipes at the Wallachian Open Air Museum, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Czech Republic, 2017 Transmission is a communicative process requiring a binary: one individual or group who actively transmits information in some form to another individual or group. Each of these is a defined role in the folklore process. The tradition-bearer[53] is the individual who actively passes along the knowledge of an artifact; this can be either a mother singing a lullaby to her baby, or an Irish dance troupe performing at a local festival. They are named individuals, usually well known in the community as knowledgeable in their traditional lore. They are not the anonymous "folk", the nameless mass without of history or individuality. The audience of this performance is the other half in the transmission process; they listen, watch, and remember. Few of them will become active tradition-bearers; many more will be passive tradition-bearers who maintain a memory of this specific traditional artifact, in both its presentation and its content. There is active communication between the audience and the performer. The performer is presenting to the audience; the audience in turn, through its actions and reactions, is actively communicating with the performer.[54] The purpose of this performance is not to create something new but to re-create something that already exists; the performance is words and actions which are known, recognized and valued by both the performer and the audience. For folklore is first and foremost remembered behavior. As members of the same cultural reference group, they identify and value this performance as a piece of shared cultural knowledge. Dancing Hungarians by J. B. Heinbucher, 1816 Some elements of folk culture might be in the center of local culture and an import part of self-identity. For instance folk dance is highly popular in Estonia and it has evolved into a sort of a national sport.[note 7] XIX Estonian Dance Celebration in 2015 that was held together with Estonian Song Festival. Framing the performance To initiate the performance, there must be a frame of some sort to indicate that what is to follow is indeed performance. The frame brackets it as outside of normal discourse. In customary lore such as life cycle celebrations (ex. birthday) or dance performances, the framing occurs as part of the event, frequently marked by location. The audience goes to the event location to participate. Games are defined primarily by rules,[55] it is with the initiation of the rules that the game is framed. The folklorist Barre Toelken describes an evening spent in a Navaho family playing string figure games, with each of the members shifting from performer to audience as they create and display different figures to each other.[56] In verbal lore, the performer will start and end with recognized linguistic formulas. An easy example is seen in the common introduction to a joke: "Have you heard the one...", "Joke of the day...", or "An elephant walks into a bar". Each of these signals to the listeners that the following is a joke, not to be taken literally. The joke is completed with the punch line of the joke. Another traditional narrative marker in English is the framing of a fairy tale between the phrases "Once upon a time" and "They all lived happily ever after." Many languages have similar phrases which are used to frame a traditional tale. Each of these linguistic formulas removes the bracketed text from ordinary discourse, and marks it as a recognized form of stylized, formulaic communication for both the performer and the audience. In the subjunctive voice Framing as a narrative device serves to signal to both the story teller and the audience that the narrative which follows is indeed a fiction (verbal lore), and not to be understood as historical fact or reality. It moves the framed narration into the subjunctive mood, and marks a space in which "fiction, history, story, tradition, art, teaching, all exist within the narrated or performed expressive 'event' outside the normal realms and constraints of reality or time."[57] This shift from the realis to the irrealis mood is understood by all participants within the reference group. It enables these fictional events to contain meaning for the group, and can lead to very real consequences.[58] Anderson's law of auto-correction The theory of self-correction in folklore transmission was first articulated by the folklorist Walter Anderson in the 1920s; this posits a feedback mechanism which would keep folklore variants closer to the original form.[59][note 8] This theory addresses the question about how, with multiple performers and multiple audiences, the artifact maintains its identity across time and geography. Anderson credited the audience with censoring narrators who deviated too far from the known (traditional) text.[60] Any performance is a two-way communication process. The performer addresses the audience with words and actions; the audience in turn actively responds to the performer. If this performance deviates too far from audience expectations of the familiar folk artifact, they will respond with negative feedback. Wanting to avoid more negative reaction, the performer will adjust his performance to conform to audience expectations. "Social reward by an audience [is] a major factor in motivating narrators..."[61] It is this dynamic feedback loop between performer and audience which gives stability to the text of the performance.[62] In reality, this model is not so simplistic; there are multiple redundancies in the active folklore process. The performer has heard the tale multiple times, he has heard it from different story tellers in multiple versions. In turn, he tells the tale multiple times to the same or a different audience, and they expect to hear the version they know. This expanded model of redundancy in a non-linear narrative process makes it difficult to innovate during any single performance; corrective feedback from the audience will be immediate.[63] "At the heart of both autopoetic self-maintenance and the 'virality' of meme transmission... it is enough to assume that some sort of recursive action maintains a degree of integrity [of the artifact] in certain features ... sufficient to allow us to recognize it as an instance of its type."[64] Context of material lore For material folk artifacts, it becomes more fruitful to return to the terminology of Alan Dundes: text and context. Here the text designates the physical artifact itself, the single item made by an individual for a specific purpose. The context is then unmasked by observation and questions concerning both its production and its usage. Why was it made, how was it made, who will use it, how will they use it, where did the raw materials come from, who designed it, etc. These questions are limited only by the skill of the interviewer. In his study of southeastern Kentucky chair makers, Michael Owen Jones describes production of a chair within the context of the life of the craftsman.[65] For Henry Glassie in his study of Folk Housing in Middle Virginia, the investigation concerns the historical pattern he finds repeated in the dwellings of this region: the house is planted in the landscape just as the landscape completes itself with the house.[66] The artisan in his roadside stand or shop in the nearby town wants to make and display products which appeal to customers. There is "a craftsperson's eagerness to produce 'satisfactory items' due to a close personal contact with the customer and expectations to serve the customer again." Here the role of consumer "... is the basic force responsible for the continuity and discontinuity of behavior."[61] In material culture the context becomes the cultural environment in which the object is made (chair), used (house), and sold (wares). None of these artisans is "anonymous" folk; they are individuals making a living with the tools and skills learned within and valued in the context of their community. Toelken's conservative-dynamic continuum No two performances are identical. The performer attempts to keep the performance within expectations, but this happens despite a multitude of changing variables. He has given this performance one time more or less, the audience is different, the social and political environment has changed. In the context of material culture, no two hand-crafted items are identical. Sometimes these deviations in the performance and the production are unintentional, just part of the process. But sometimes these deviations are intentional; the performer or artisan want to play with the boundaries of expectation and add their own creative touch. They perform within the tension of conserving the recognized form and adding innovation. The folklorist Barre Toelken identifies this tension as "a combination of both changing ('dynamic') and static ('conservative') elements that evolve and change through sharing, communication and performance."[67] Over time, the cultural context shifts and morphs: new leaders, new technologies, new values, new awareness. As the context changes, so must the artifact, for without modifications to map existing artifacts into the evolving cultural landscape, they lose their meaning. Joking as an active form of verbal lore makes this tension visible as joke cycles come and go to reflect new issues of concern. Once an artifact is no longer applicable to the context, transmission becomes a nonstarter; it loses relevancy for a contemporary audience. If it is not transmitted, then it is no longer folklore and becomes instead an historic relic.[61] In the electronic age Folklorists have begun to identify how the advent of electronic communications will modify and change the performance and transmission of folklore artifacts. It is clear that the internet is modifying folkloric process, not killing it, as despite the historic association between folklore and anti-modernity, people continue to use traditional expressive forms in new media, including the internet.[68] Jokes and joking are as plentiful as ever both in traditional face-to-face interactions and through electronic transmission. New communication modes are also transforming traditional stories into many different configurations. The fairy tale Snow White is now offered in multiple media forms for both children and adults, including a television show and video game." (wikipedia.org) " Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since the term myth is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly controversial: many adherents of religions view their own religion's stories as true, and therefore object to those stories being characterized as myths, while seeing the stories of other religions as being myth. As such, some scholars label all religious narratives as myths for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another.[1] Other scholars avoid using the term "myth" altogether and instead utilize different terms like "sacred history", "holy story", or simply "history" to avoid placing pejorative overtones on any sacred narrative.[2] Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality.[3] Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be true accounts of their remote past.[3][4][5][6] In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form.[3][7][8] Other myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified.[3][8] There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals. The main characters in myths are usually non-humans, such as gods, demigods, and other supernatural figures.[9][4][10][11] However, others also include humans, animals, or combinations in their classification of myth.[12] Stories of everyday human beings, although often of leaders of some type, are usually contained in legends, as opposed to myths.[9][11] Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.... Myth Definitions of myth vary to some extent among scholars, though Finnish folklorist Lauri Honko offers a widely-cited definition:     Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.[2] Another definition of myth comes from myth criticism theorist and professor José Manuel Losada. According to Cultural myth criticism, the studies of myth must understand and explain a global and imaginary reality and be able to better understand contemporary culture.     Myth is an oral, symbolic, evolutionary and apparently simple account (in the sense of a tale, a diegesis, or a series of narrative and representative actions) of an extraordinary experience or event with a transcendental and personal referent that shows social classification. Considered, in principle, as bereft of historical testimony, myth is composed by a series of constant or invariable cultural semantic elements which can be reduced to themes, and is endowed with a conflictive (it invariably contains a trial or ordeal), functional character (understood as the transmission of common values and beliefs, and the provision of factual schemata of rites and actions) and etiological nature (expressing in some way a particular or universal cosmogony or eschatology).[14] Scholars in other fields use the term myth in varied ways.[15][16][17] In a broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story,[18][19][20] popular misconception or imaginary entity.[21] However, while myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives.[22][23] Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories, are not considered true by anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason.[24][25][26] Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans,[3][27][28] while legends generally feature humans as their main characters.[3][29] However, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.[30][31] Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants, elves and faeries.[27][32][33] Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table)[34] and the Matter of France, seem distantly to originate in historical events of the 5th and 8th-centuries respectively, and became mythologised over the following centuries. In colloquial use, the word myth can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story.[35] This usage, which is often pejorative,[36] arose from labelling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well.[37] However, as commonly used by folklorists and academics in other relevant fields, such as anthropology, the term myth has no implication whether the narrative may be understood as true or otherwise.[38] Among biblical scholars of both the Old and New Testament, the word "myth" has a technical meaning, in that it usually refers to "describe the actions of the other‐worldly in terms of this world" such as the Creation and the Fall.[39] Related terms Mythology Opening lines of one of the Mabinogi myths from the Red Book of Hergest (written pre-13c, incorporating pre-Roman myths of Celtic gods): Gereint vab Erbin. Arthur a deuodes dala llys yg Caerllion ar Wysc... (Geraint the son of Erbin. Arthur was accustomed to hold his Court at Caerlleon upon Usk...) In present use, mythology usually refers to the collection of myths of a group of people.[40] For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Celtic mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures.[41] Mythology can also refer to the study of myths and mythologies. Mythography The compilation or description of myths is sometimes known as mythography, a term which can also be used of a scholarly anthology of myths (or, confusingly, of the study of myths generally).[42] Key mythographers in the Classical tradition include:[43]     Ovid (43 BCE–17/18 CE), whose tellings of myths have been profoundly influential;     Fabius Planciades Fulgentius, a Latin writer of the late-5th to early-6th centuries, whose Mythologies (Latin: Mitologiarum libri III) gathered and gave moralistic interpretations of a wide range of myths;     the anonymous medieval Vatican Mythographers, who developed anthologies of Classical myths that remained influential to the end of the Middle Ages; and     Renaissance scholar Natalis Comes, whose ten-book Mythologiae became a standard source for classical mythology in later Renaissance Europe. Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the Middle Ages. Jeffrey G. Snodgrass (professor of anthropology at the Colorado State University[44]) has termed India's Bhats as mythographers.[45] Myth criticism Myth criticism is a system of anthropological interpretation of culture created by French philosopher Gilbert Durand. Scholars have used myth criticism to explain the mythical roots of contemporary fiction, which means that modern myth criticism needs to be interdisciplinary. Cultural myth criticism, without abandoning the analysis of the symbolic, invades all cultural manifestations and delves into the difficulties in understanding myth today. This cultural myth criticism studies mythical manifestations in fields as wide as literature, film and television, theater, sculpture, painting, video games, music, dancing, the Internet and other artistic fields.     Myth criticism, a discipline that studies myths (mythology contains them, like a pantheon its statues), is by nature interdisciplinary: it combines the contributions of literary theory, the history of literature, the fine arts and the new ways of dissemination in the age of communication. Likewise, it undertakes its object of study from its interrelation with other human and social sciences, in particular sociology, anthropology and economics. The need for an approach, for a methodology that allows us to understand the complexity of the myth and its manifestations in contemporary times, is justified.[46] Mythos "Mythos" redirects here. For other uses, see Myth (disambiguation) and Mythos (disambiguation). Further information: Fictional universe Because myth is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted to use the term mythos instead.[41] However, mythos now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.[47] It is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft. Mythopoeia Main article: Mythopoeia Mythopoeia (mytho- + -poeia, 'I make myth') was termed by J. R. R. Tolkien, amongst others, to refer to the "conscious generation" of mythology.[48][49] It was notoriously also suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg. Etymology Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus' Song, by Francesco Hayez, 1813–15 The word myth comes from Ancient Greek μῦθος (mȳthos),[50] meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."[35][47] In turn, Ancient Greek μυθολογία (mythología, 'story,' 'lore,' 'legends,' or 'the telling of stories') combines the word mȳthos with the suffix -λογία (-logia, 'study') in order to mean 'romance, fiction, story-telling.'[51] Accordingly, Plato used mythología as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind. The Greek term mythología was then borrowed into Late Latin, occurring in the title of Latin author Fulgentius' 5th-century Mythologiæ to denote what we now call classical mythology—i.e., Greco-Roman etiological stories involving their gods. Fulgentius' Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events.[52] The Latin term was then adopted in Middle French as mythologie. Whether from French or Latin usage, English adopted the word mythology in the 15th century, initially meaning 'the exposition of a myth or myths,' 'the interpretation of fables,' or 'a book of such expositions'. The word is first attested in John Lydgate's Troy Book (c. 1425).[53][55][56] From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, mythology was used to mean a moral, fable, allegory or a parable, or collection of traditional stories,[53][58] understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world.[53] Thus the word mythology entered the English language before the word myth. Johnson's Dictionary, for example, has an entry for mythology, but not for myth.[61] Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos[63] (pl. mythoi) and Latinate mythus[65] (pl. mythi) both appeared in English before the first example of myth in 1830.[68] Interpreting myths Comparative mythology Main article: Comparative mythology Comparative mythology is a systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to the myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between separate mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common "protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture.[69] Functionalism A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior[70][71] and that myths may provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby coming closer to the divine.[5][71][72] Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society reenacts a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age. For example, it might reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.[2] Similarly, Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present.[73] Pattanaik defines mythology as "the subjective truth of people communicated through stories, symbols and rituals."[74] He says, "Facts are everybody's truth. Fiction is nobody's truth. Myths are somebody's truth."[75] Euhemerism Main article: Euhemerism See also: Herodotus One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of historical events.[76][77] According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborate upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gain the status of gods.[76][77] For example, the myth of the wind-god Aeolus may have evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret the winds.[76] Herodotus (fifth-century BCE) and Prodicus made claims of this kind.[77] This theory is named euhemerism after mythologist Euhemerus (c. 320 BCE), who suggested that Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.[77][78] Allegory Some theories propose that myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents the sun, Poseidon represents water, and so on.[77] According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise judgment, Aphrodite romantic desire, and so on.[77] Müller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature and gradually came to be interpreted literally. For example, a poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally and the sea was then thought of as a raging god.[79] Personification See also: Mythopoeic thought Some thinkers claimed that myths result from the personification of objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshiped natural phenomena, such as fire and air, gradually deifying them.[80] For example, according to this theory, ancients tended to view things as gods, not as mere objects.[81] Thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, giving rise to myths.[82] Myth-ritual theory See also: Myth and ritual According to the myth-ritual theory, myth is tied to ritual.[83] In its most extreme form, this theory claims myths arose to explain rituals.[84] This claim was first put forward by Smith,[85] who argued that people begin performing rituals for reasons not related to myth. Forgetting the original reason for a ritual, they account for it by inventing a myth and claiming the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth.[86] James George Frazer — author of "The Golden Bough", a book on the comparative study of mythology and religion — argued that humans started out with a belief in magical rituals; later, they began to lose faith in magic and invented myths about gods, reinterpreting their rituals as religious rituals intended to appease the gods.[87] History of the academic discipline Historically, important approaches to the study of mythology have included those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lévy-Bruhl, Lévi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.[88] Ancient Greece Myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916) The critical interpretation of myth began with the Presocratics.[89] Euhemerus was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events, though distorted over many retellings. Sallustius divided myths into five categories:[90]     theological;     physical (or concerning natural law);     animistic (or concerning soul);     material; and     mixed, which concerns myths that show the interaction between two or more of the previous categories and are particularly used in initiations. Plato famously condemned poetic myth when discussing education in the Republic. His critique was primarily on the grounds that the uneducated might take the stories of gods and heroes literally. Nevertheless, he constantly referred to myths throughout his writings. As Platonism developed in the phases commonly called Middle Platonism and neoplatonism, writers such as Plutarch, Porphyry, Proclus, Olympiodorus, and Damascius wrote explicitly about the symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths.[91] Mythological themes were consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer. The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself becoming part of a body of myths (Cupid and Psyche). Medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism, as stated earlier, refers to the rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts. An example of this would be following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization). European Renaissance The ancient Roman poet Ovid, in his "The Metamorphoses," told the story of the nymph Io who was seduced by Jupiter, the king of the gods. When his wife Juno became jealous, Jupiter transformed Io into a heifer to protect her. This panel relates the second half of the story. In the upper left, Jupiter emerges from clouds to order Mercury to rescue Io. In the lower-left, Mercury guides his herd to the spot where Io is guarded by the hundred-eyed Argus. In the upper center, Mercury, disguised as a shepherd, lulls Argus to sleep and beheads him. Juno then takes Argus's eyes to ornament the tail feathers of her peacock and sends the Furies to pursue Io, who flees to the Nile River. At last, Jupiter prevails on his wife to cease tormenting the nymph, who, upon resuming her natural form, escapes to the forest and ultimately becomes the Egyptian goddess Isis This panel by Bartolomeo di Giovanni relates the second half of the Metamorphoses. In the upper left, Jupiter emerges from clouds to order Mercury to rescue Io.[92][93] Interest in polytheistic mythology revived during the Renaissance, with early works of mythography appearing in the sixteenth century, among them the Theologia Mythologica (1532). Nineteenth century Väinämöinen, the wise demigod and one of the significant characters of Finnish mythological 19th-century epic poetry, The Kalevala. (Väinämöinen's Play, Robert Wilhelm Ekman, 1866) The first modern, Western scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the 19th century[89]—at the same time as the word myth was adopted as a scholarly term in European languages.[35][47] They were driven partly by a new interest in Europe's ancient past and vernacular culture, associated with Romantic Nationalism and epitomised by the research of Jacob Grimm (1785–1863). This movement drew European scholars' attention not only to Classical myths, but also material now associated with Norse mythology, Finnish mythology, and so forth. Western theories were also partly driven by Europeans' efforts to comprehend and control the cultures, stories and religions they were encountering through colonialism. These encounters included both extremely old texts such as the Sanskrit Rigveda and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and current oral narratives such as mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas or stories told in traditional African religions.[94] The intellectual context for nineteenth-century scholars was profoundly shaped by emerging ideas about evolution. These ideas included the recognition that many Eurasian languages—and therefore, conceivably, stories—were all descended from a lost common ancestor (the Indo-European language) which could rationally be reconstructed through the comparison of its descendant languages. They also included the idea that cultures might evolve in ways comparable to species.[94] In general, 19th-century theories framed myth as a failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science within a unilineal framework that imagined that human cultures are travelling, at different speeds, along a linear path of cultural development.[95] Nature mythology One of the dominant mythological theories of the latter 19th century was nature mythology, the foremost exponents of which included Max Müller and Edward Burnett Tylor. This theory posited that "primitive man" was primarily concerned with the natural world. It tended to interpret myths that seemed distasteful to European Victorians—such as tales about sex, incest, or cannibalism—as being metaphors for natural phenomena like agricultural fertility.[96] Unable to conceive impersonal natural laws, early humans tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, thus giving rise to animism. According to Tylor, human thought evolved through stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas.[97] Müller also saw myth as originating from language, even calling myth a "disease of language." He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages. Anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were in actuality conscious beings or gods.[79] Not all scholars, not even all 19th-century scholars, accepted this view, however: Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that "the primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind and not a stage in its historical development."[98] Recent scholarship, noting the fundamental lack of evidence for "nature mythology" interpretations among people who actually circulated myths, has likewise abandoned the key ideas of "nature mythology."[99][96] Myth and ritual Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law. This idea was central to the "myth and ritual" school of thought.[100] According to Frazer, humans begin with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When they realize applications of these laws do not work, they give up their belief in natural law in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature, thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, humans continue practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally, humans come to realize nature follows natural laws, and they discover their true nature through science. Here again, science makes myth obsolete as humans progress "from magic through religion to science."[87] Segal asserted that by pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories imply modern humans must abandon myth.[101] Twentieth century Prometheus (1868) by Gustave Moreau. In the mythos of Hesiodus and possibly Aeschylus (the Greek trilogy Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus Pyrphoros), Prometheus is bound and tortured for giving fire to humanity. The earlier 20th century saw major work developing psychoanalytical approaches to interpreting myth, led by Sigmund Freud, who, drawing inspiration from Classical myth, began developing the concept of the Oedipus complex in his 1899 The Interpretation of Dreams. Jung likewise tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung asserted that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes. He believed similarities between the myths of different cultures reveals the existence of these universal archetypes.[102] The mid-20th century saw the influential development of a structuralist theory of mythology, led by Lévi-Strauss. Strauss argued that myths reflect patterns in the mind and interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites (good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than unconscious feelings or urges.[103] Meanwhile, Bronislaw Malinowski developed analyses of myths focusing on their social functions in the real world. He is associated with the idea that myths such as origin stories might provide a "mythic charter"—a legitimisation—for cultural norms and social institutions.[104] Thus, following the Structuralist Era (c. 1960s–1980s), the predominant anthropological and sociological approaches to myth increasingly treated myth as a form of narrative that can be studied, interpreted, and analyzed like ideology, history, and culture. In other words, myth is a form of understanding and telling stories that are connected to power, political structures, and political and economic interests.[citation needed] These approaches contrast with approaches, such as those of Joseph Campbell and Eliade, which hold that myth has some type of essential connection to ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics. In particular, myth was studied in relation to history from diverse social sciences. Most of these studies share the assumption that history and myth are not distinct in the sense that history is factual, real, accurate, and truth, while myth is the opposite.[citation needed] In the 1950s, Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies, which stood as an early work in the emerging post-structuralist approach to mythology, which recognised myths' existence in the modern world and in popular culture.[73] The 20th century saw rapid secularisation in Western culture. This made Western scholars more willing to analyse narratives in the Abrahamic religions as myths; theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann argued that a modern Christianity needed to demythologize;[105] and other religious scholars embraced the idea that the mythical status of Abrahamic narratives was a legitimate feature of their importance.[101] This, in his appendix to Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, and in The Myth of the Eternal Return, Eliade attributed modern humans’ anxieties to their rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred.[citation needed] The Christian theologian Conrad Hyers wrote:[106]     [M]yth today has come to have negative connotations which are the complete opposite of its meaning in a religious context... In a religious context, however, myths are storied vehicles of supreme truth, the most basic and important truths of all. By them, people regulate and interpret their lives and find worth and purpose in their existence. Myths put one in touch with sacred realities, the fundamental sources of being, power, and truth. They are seen not only as being the opposite of error but also as being clearly distinguishable from stories told for entertainment and from the workaday, domestic, practical language of a people. They provide answers to the mysteries of being and becoming, mysteries which, as mysteries, are hidden, yet mysteries which are revealed through story and ritual. Myths deal not only with truth but with ultimate truth. Twenty-first century Both in 19th-century research, which tended to see existing records of stories and folklore as imperfect fragments of partially lost myths, and in 20th-century structuralist work, which sought to identify underlying patterns and structures in often diverse versions of a given myth, there had been a tendency to synthesise sources to attempt to reconstruct what scholars supposed to be more perfect or underlying forms of myths. From the late 20th century, however, researchers influenced by postmodernism tended instead to argue that each account of a given myth has its own cultural significance and meaning, and argued that rather than representing degradation from a once more perfect form, myths are inherently plastic and variable.[107] There is, consequently, no such thing as the 'original version' or 'original form' of a myth. One prominent example of this movement was A. K. Ramanujan's essay "Three Hundred Ramayanas".[108][109] Correspondingly, scholars challenged the precedence that had once been given to texts as a medium for mythology, arguing that other media, such as the visual arts or even landscape and place-naming, could be as or more important.[110] Myth in modernity 1929 Belgian banknote, depicting Ceres, Neptune and caduceus Scholars in the field of cultural studies research how myth has worked itself into modern discourses. Mythological discourse can reach greater audiences than ever before via digital media. Various mythic elements appear in popular culture, as well as television, cinema and video games.[111] Although myth was traditionally transmitted through the oral tradition on a small scale, the film industry has enabled filmmakers to transmit myths to large audiences via film.[112] In Jungian psychology myths are the expression of a culture or society’s goals, fears, ambitions and dreams.[113] The basis of modern visual storytelling is rooted in the mythological tradition. Many contemporary films rely on ancient myths to construct narratives. The Walt Disney Company is well-known among cultural study scholars for "reinventing" traditional childhood myths.[114] While many films are not as obvious as Disney fairy tales, the plots of many films are based on the rough structure of myths. Mythological archetypes, such as the cautionary tale regarding the abuse of technology, battles between gods and creation stories, are often the subject of major film productions. These films are often created under the guise of cyberpunk action films, fantasy, dramas and apocalyptic tales.[115] 21st-century films such as Clash of the Titans, Immortals and Thor continue the trend of using traditional mythology to frame modern plots. Authors use mythology as a basis for their books, such as Rick Riordan, whose Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is situated in a modern-day world where the Greek deities are manifest." (wikipedia.org) "Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The group comprises the large superfamily Papilionoidea, which contains at least one former group, the skippers (formerly the superfamily "Hesperioidea"), and the most recent analyses suggest it also contains the moth-butterflies (formerly the superfamily "Hedyloidea"). Butterfly fossils date to the Paleocene, about 56 million years ago. Butterflies have a four-stage life cycle, as like most insects they undergo complete metamorphosis. Winged adults lay eggs on the food plant on which their larvae, known as caterpillars, will feed. The caterpillars grow, sometimes very rapidly, and when fully developed, pupate in a chrysalis. When metamorphosis is complete, the pupal skin splits, the adult insect climbs out, and after its wings have expanded and dried, it flies off. Some butterflies, especially in the tropics, have several generations in a year, while others have a single generation, and a few in cold locations may take several years to pass through their entire life cycle. Butterflies are often polymorphic, and many species make use of camouflage, mimicry, and aposematism to evade their predators.[1] Some, like the monarch and the painted lady, migrate over long distances. Many butterflies are attacked by parasites or parasitoids, including wasps, protozoans, flies, and other invertebrates, or are preyed upon by other organisms. Some species are pests because in their larval stages they can damage domestic crops or trees; other species are agents of pollination of some plants. Larvae of a few butterflies (e.g., harvesters) eat harmful insects, and a few are predators of ants, while others live as mutualists in association with ants. Culturally, butterflies are a popular motif in the visual and literary arts. The Smithsonian Institution says "butterflies are certainly one of the most appealing creatures in nature".... Etymology Possibly the original butter-fly.[3] A male brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) in flight The Oxford English Dictionary derives the word straightforwardly from Old English butorflēoge, butter-fly; similar names in Old Dutch and Old High German show that the name is ancient, but modern Dutch and German use different words (vlinder and Schmetterling) and the common name often varies substantially between otherwise closely-related languages. A possible source of the name is the bright yellow male of the brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni); another is that butterflies were on the wing in meadows during the spring and summer butter season while the grass was growing.[3][4] Taxonomy and phylogeny Further information: Prehistoric Lepidoptera Prodryas persephone, a Late Eocene butterfly from the Florissant Fossil Beds, 1887 engraving Lithopsyche antiqua, an Early Oligocene butterfly from the Bembridge Marls, Isle of Wight, 1889 engraving The earliest Lepidoptera fossils date to the Triassic-Jurassic boundary, around 200 million years ago.[5] Butterflies evolved from moths, so while the butterflies are monophyletic (forming a single clade), the moths are not. The oldest known butterfly is Protocoeliades kristenseni from the Palaeocene aged Fur Formation of Denmark, approximately 55 million years old, which belongs to the family Hesperiidae (skippers).[6] Molecular clock estimates suggest that butterflies originated sometime in the mid-Cretaceous, but only significantly diversified during the Cenozoic.[7] The oldest American butterfly is the Late Eocene Prodryas persephone from the Florissant Fossil Beds,[8][9] approximately 34 million years old.[10] Traditionally, butterflies have been divided into the superfamily Papilionoidea excluding the smaller groups of the Hesperiidae (skippers) and the more moth-like Hedylidae of America. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that the traditional Papilionoidea is paraphyletic with respect to the other two groups, so they should both be included within Papilionoidea, to form a single butterfly group, thereby synonymous with the clade Rhopalocera.... In culture Ancient Egyptian relief sculpture, 26th dynasty, Thebes. c. 664–525 BC In art and literature Butterfly and Chinese wisteria, by Xü Xi. Early Song Dynasty, c. 970 A butterfly in the coat of arms of Perho Butterflies have appeared in art from 3500 years ago in ancient Egypt.[100] In the ancient Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacan, the brilliantly coloured image of the butterfly was carved into many temples, buildings, jewellery, and emblazoned on incense burners. The butterfly was sometimes depicted with the maw of a jaguar, and some species were considered to be the reincarnations of the souls of dead warriors. The close association of butterflies with fire and warfare persisted into the Aztec civilisation; evidence of similar jaguar-butterfly images has been found among the Zapotec and Maya civilisations.[101] Butterflies are widely used in objects of art and jewellery: mounted in frames, embedded in resin, displayed in bottles, laminated in paper, and used in some mixed media artworks and furnishings.[102] The Norwegian naturalist Kjell Sandved compiled a photographic Butterfly Alphabet containing all 26 letters and the numerals 0 to 9 from the wings of butterflies.[103] Alice meets the caterpillar. Illustration by Sir John Tenniel in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, c. 1865 Sir John Tenniel drew a famous illustration of Alice meeting a caterpillar for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, c. 1865. The caterpillar is seated on a toadstool and is smoking a hookah; the image can be read as showing either the forelegs of the larva, or as suggesting a face with protruding nose and chin.[3] Eric Carle's children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar portrays the larva as an extraordinarily hungry animal, while also teaching children how to count (to five) and the days of the week.[3] A butterfly appeared in one of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, "The Butterfly that Stamped".[104] One of the most popular, and most often recorded, songs by Sweden's eighteenth-century bard, Carl Michael Bellman, is "Fjäriln vingad syns på Haga" (The butterfly wingèd is seen in Haga), one of his Fredman's Songs.[105] Madam Butterfly is a 1904 opera by Giacomo Puccini about a romantic young Japanese bride who is deserted by her American officer husband soon after they are married. It was based on John Luther Long's short story written in 1898.[106] In mythology and folklore Der Schmetterlingsjäger (The butterfly hunter) painting by Carl Spitzweg, 1840 According to Lafcadio Hearn, a butterfly was seen in Japan as the personification of a person's soul; whether they be living, dying, or already dead. One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guest room and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. Large numbers of butterflies are viewed as bad omens. When Taira no Masakado was secretly preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of butterflies that the people were frightened—thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil.[107] A serving tray decorated with butterfly wings Diderot's Encyclopédie cites butterflies as a symbol for the soul. A Roman sculpture depicts a butterfly exiting the mouth of a dead man, representing the Roman belief that the soul leaves through the mouth.[108] In line with this, the ancient Greek word for "butterfly" is ψυχή (psȳchē), which primarily means "soul" or "mind".[109] According to Mircea Eliade, some of the Nagas of Manipur claim ancestry from a butterfly.[110] In some cultures, butterflies symbolise rebirth.[111] The butterfly is a symbol of being transgender, because of the transformation from caterpillar to winged adult.[112] In the English county of Devon, people once hurried to kill the first butterfly of the year, to avoid a year of bad luck.[113] In the Philippines, a lingering black or dark butterfly or moth in the house is taken to mean an impending or recent death in the family.[114] Several American states have chosen an official state butterfly.[115] Collecting, recording, and rearing Nō robe Japan 1700s. Silk embroidered with silk thread and stenciled with gold foil "Collecting" means preserving dead specimens, not keeping butterflies as pets.[116][117] Collecting butterflies was once a popular hobby; it has now largely been replaced by photography, recording, and rearing butterflies for release into the wild.[3][dubious – discuss][full citation needed] The zoological illustrator Frederick William Frohawk succeeded in rearing all the butterfly species found in Britain, at a rate of four per year, to enable him to draw every stage of each species. He published the results in the folio sized handbook The Natural History of British Butterflies in 1924.[3] Butterflies and moths can be reared for recreation or for release.[118] In technology Further information: Biomimetics Study of the structural coloration of the wing scales of swallowtail butterflies has led to the development of more efficient light-emitting diodes,[119] and is inspiring nanotechnology research to produce paints that do not use toxic pigments and the development of new display technologies." (wikipedia.org) "Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of "All Hallows' evening"),[5] less commonly known as Allhalloween,[6] All Hallows' Eve,[7] or All Saints' Eve,[8] is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide,[9] the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the departed.[10][11] One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.[12][13][14][15] Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.[16] Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow's Day.[17][18][19][20] Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish migrants brought many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,[21][22] and then through American influence, Halloween spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.[23][24] Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films.[25] For some people, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular,[26][27][28] although it is a secular celebration for others.[29][30][31] Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.... Etymology The word appears as the title of Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785), a poem traditionally recited by Scots. The word Halloween or Hallowe'en dates to about 1745[36] and is of Christian origin.[37] The word Hallowe'en means "Saints' evening".[38] It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day).[39] In Scots, the word eve is even, and this is contracted to e'en or een.[40] Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en evolved into Hallowe'en. Although the phrase "All Hallows'" is found in Old English, "All Hallows' Eve" is itself not seen until 1556.[39][41] History Christian origins and historic customs Halloween is thought to have roots in Christian beliefs and practices.[42][43] The English word 'Halloween' comes from "All Hallows' Eve", being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (All Saints' Day) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November.[44] Since the time of the early Church,[45] major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows'.[46][42] These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time when Christians honour saints and pray for recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime.[47] In 4th-century Roman Edessa it was held on 13 May, and on 13 May 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs".[48] This was the date of Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead.[49] Beginning in the 4th century, the feast of All Hallows' in the Western Christian Church commemorated Christian martyrs and in the 8th century, Pope Gregory III (731–741) founded of an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors".[42][50] Some sources say it was dedicated on 1 November,[51] while others say it was on Palm Sunday.[52][53] By 800, there is evidence that churches in Ireland[54] and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on 1 November.[55] Alcuin of Northumbria, a member of Charlemagne's court, may then have introduced this 1 November date in the Frankish Empire.[56] In 835, it became the official date in the Frankish Empire.[55] Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea,[55] although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter.[57] They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of 'dying' in nature.[55][57] It is also suggested the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health concerns over Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives during Rome's sultry summers.[58][42] On All Hallows' Eve, Christians in some parts of the world visit cemeteries to pray and place flowers and candles on the graves of their loved ones.[59] Top: Christians in Bangladesh lighting candles on the headstone of a relative. Bottom: Lutheran Christians praying and lighting candles in front of the central crucifix of a graveyard. By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation in Western Christianity and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for souls in purgatory. It was also "customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls".[60] The Allhallowtide custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls,[61] has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating.[62] The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century[63] and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria.[64] Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. This was called "souling".[63][65][66] Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat,[64] or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives.[67] As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms.[68] Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[69] While souling, Christians would carry "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips", which could have originally represented souls of the dead;[70][71] jack-o'-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits.[72][73] On All Saints' and All Souls' Day during the 19th century, candles were lit in homes in Ireland,[74] Flanders, Bavaria, and in Tyrol, where they were called "soul lights",[75] that served "to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes".[76] In many of these places, candles were also lit at graves on All Souls' Day.[75] In Brittany, libations of milk were poured on the graves of kinfolk,[64] or food would be left overnight on the dinner table for the returning souls;[75] a custom also found in Tyrol and parts of Italy.[77][75] Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh linked the wearing of costumes to the belief in vengeful ghosts: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes".[78] It is claimed that in the Middle Ages, churches that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead.[79][80] Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today.[81] Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom.[82] Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre, which was often depicted in church decoration.[83] Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that the danse macabre urged Christians "not to forget the end of all earthly things".[84] The danse macabre was sometimes enacted at village pageants and court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and this may be the origin of Halloween costume parties.[85][86][87][70] In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. State-sanctioned ceremonies associated with the intercession of saints and prayer for souls in purgatory were abolished during the Elizabethan reform, though All Hallow's Day remained in the English liturgical calendar to "commemorate saints as godly human beings".[88] For some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined; "souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits".[89] Other Protestants believed in an intermediate state known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham).[90] In some localities, Catholics and Protestants continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead;[44][91] the Anglican church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing.[92] Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth".[93] After 1605, Hallowtide was eclipsed in England by Guy Fawkes Night (5 November), which appropriated some of its customs.[94] In England, the ending of official ceremonies related to the intercession of saints led to the development of new, unofficial Hallowtide customs. In 18th–19th century rural Lancashire, Catholic families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows' Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen'lay.[95] There was a similar custom in Hertfordshire, and the lighting of 'tindle' fires in Derbyshire.[96] Some suggested these 'tindles' were originally lit to "guide the poor souls back to earth".[97] In Scotland and Ireland, old Allhallowtide customs that were at odds with Reformed teaching were not suppressed as they "were important to the life cycle and rites of passage of local communities" and curbing them would have been difficult.[21] In parts of Italy until the 15th century, families left a meal out for the ghosts of relatives, before leaving for church services.[77] In 19th-century Italy, churches staged "theatrical re-enactments of scenes from the lives of the saints" on All Hallow's Day, with "participants represented by realistic wax figures".[77] In 1823, the graveyard of Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome presented a scene in which bodies of those who recently died were arrayed around a wax statue of an angel who pointed upward towards heaven.[77] In the same country, "parish priests went house-to-house, asking for small gifts of food which they shared among themselves throughout that night".[77] In Spain, they continue to bake special pastries called "bones of the holy" (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and set them on graves.[98] At cemeteries in Spain and France, as well as in Latin America, priests lead Christian processions and services during Allhallowtide, after which people keep an all night vigil.[99] In 19th-century San Sebastián, there was a procession to the city cemetery at Allhallowtide, an event that drew beggars who "appeal[ed] to the tender recollectons of one's deceased relations and friends" for sympathy.[100] Gaelic folk influence An early 20th-century Irish Halloween mask displayed at the Museum of Country Life Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots.[101] Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that "there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived".[102] The origins of Halloween customs are typically linked to the Gaelic festival Samhain.[103] Samhain is one of the quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and has been celebrated on 31 October – 1 November[104] in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.[105][106] A kindred festival has been held by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany; a name meaning "first day of winter". For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset; thus the festival begins the evening before 1 November by modern reckoning.[107] Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century,[108] and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween. Snap-Apple Night, painted by Daniel Maclise in 1833, shows people feasting and playing divination games on Halloween in Ireland.[109] Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year.[110][111] It was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí, the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into this world and were particularly active.[112][113] Most scholars see them as "degraded versions of ancient gods [...] whose power remained active in the people's minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs".[114] They were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings.[115][116] At Samhain, the Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for them.[117][118][119] The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.[120] Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them.[121] The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures.[64] In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin".[122] Throughout Ireland and Britain, especially in the Celtic-speaking regions, the household festivities included divination rituals and games intended to foretell one's future, especially regarding death and marriage.[123] Apples and nuts were often used, and customs included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others.[124] Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke, and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers.[110] In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them.[108] It is suggested the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun and held back the decay and darkness of winter.[121][125][126] They were also used for divination and to ward off evil spirits.[72] In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes.[127] In Wales, bonfires were also lit to "prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth".[128] Later, these bonfires "kept away the devil".[129] photograph A plaster cast of a traditional Irish Halloween turnip (rutabaga) lantern on display in the Museum of Country Life, Ireland[130] From at least the 16th century,[131] the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales.[132] This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to 'souling'. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[133] In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses – some of which had pagan overtones – in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[134] In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[132] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked or blackened with ashes from the sacred bonfire.[131] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod.[132] In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.[132] Elsewhere in Europe, mumming was part of other festivals, but in the Celtic-speaking regions, it was "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[132] From at least the 18th century, "imitating malignant spirits" led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween did not spread to England until the 20th century.[132] Pranksters used hollowed-out turnips or mangel wurzels as lanterns, often carved with grotesque faces.[132] By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits,[132] or used to ward off evil spirits.[135][136] They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century,[132] as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of Britain and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.[132] Spread to North America The annual New York Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, is the world's largest Halloween parade. Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott write that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland "recognized All Hallow's Eve in their church calendars",[137][138] although the Puritans of New England strongly opposed the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas.[139] Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America.[21] It was not until after mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in America.[21] Most American Halloween traditions were inherited from the Irish and Scots,[22][140] though "In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside".[141] Originally confined to these immigrant communities, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and was celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial, and religious backgrounds by the early 20th century.[142] Then, through American influence, these Halloween traditions spread to many other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century, including to mainland Europe.[23][24] Symbols At Halloween, yards, public spaces, and some houses may be decorated with traditionally macabre symbols including skeletons, ghosts, cobwebs, headstones, and scary looking witches. Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits.[71][143] There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern,[144] which in folklore is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell":[145]     On route home after a night's drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest.[146] In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween,[147][148] but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip.[147] The American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837[149] and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.[150] Decorated house in Weatherly, Pennsylvania The modern imagery of Halloween comes from many sources, including Christian eschatology, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus and Dracula) and classic horror films such as Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932).[151][152] Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in the Christian tradition, serves as "a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life" and is consequently found in memento mori and vanitas compositions;[153] skulls have therefore been commonplace in Halloween, which touches on this theme.[154] Traditionally, the back walls of churches are "decorated with a depiction of the Last Judgment, complete with graves opening and the dead rising, with a heaven filled with angels and a hell filled with devils", a motif that has permeated the observance of this triduum.[155] One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween; "What fearfu' pranks ensue!", as well as the supernatural associated with the night, "Bogies" (ghosts), influencing Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785).[156] Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, and mythical monsters.[157] Black cats, which have been long associated with witches, are also a common symbol of Halloween. Black, orange, and sometimes purple are Halloween's traditional colors.[158] Trick-or-treating and guising Main article: Trick-or-treating Trick-or-treaters in Sweden Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" implies a "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.[62] The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling.[159] John Pymm wrote that "many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church."[160] These feast days included All Hallows' Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.[161][162] Mumming practiced in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe,[163] involved masked persons in fancy dress who "paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence".[164] Girl in a Halloween costume in 1928, Ontario, Canada, the same province where the Scottish Halloween custom of guising was first recorded in North America In England, from the medieval period,[165] up until the 1930s,[166] people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic,[91] going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends.[65] In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluwa and is practiced on All Hallow's Eve among children in rural areas.[25] People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.[25] In Scotland and Ireland, guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins – is a traditional Halloween custom.[167] It is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money.[148][168] In Ireland, the most popular phrase for kids to shout (until the 2000s) was "Help the Halloween Party".[167] The practice of guising at Halloween in North America was first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[169] American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America".[170] In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".[171] While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.[172] The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, in the Blackie Herald, of Alberta, Canada.[173] An automobile trunk at a trunk-or-treat event at St. John Lutheran Church and Early Learning Center in Darien, Illinois The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating.[174] Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice in North America until the 1930s, with the first US appearances of the term in 1934,[175] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.[176] A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when "children are offered treats from the trunks of cars parked in a church parking lot", or sometimes, a school parking lot.[98][177] In a trunk-or-treat event, the trunk (boot) of each automobile is decorated with a certain theme,[178] such as those of children's literature, movies, scripture, and job roles.[179] Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being more safe than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it "solves the rural conundrum in which homes [are] built a half-mile apart".[180][181] Costumes Main article: Halloween costume Halloween costumes were traditionally modeled after figures such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, scary looking witches, and devils.[62] Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses. Halloween shop in Derry, Northern Ireland, selling masks Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century.[148] A Scottish term, the tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children.[168] In Ireland the masks are known as 'false faces'.[182] Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the US in the 1920s and 1930s.[173][183] Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows' Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures "who at one time caused us to fear and tremble", people are able to poke fun at Satan "whose kingdom has been plundered by our Saviour". Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento mori.[184][185] "Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a fundraising program to support UNICEF,[62] a United Nations Programme that provides humanitarian aid to children in developing countries. Started as a local event in a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $118 million for UNICEF since its inception. In Canada, in 2006, UNICEF decided to discontinue their Halloween collection boxes, citing safety and administrative concerns; after consultation with schools, they instead redesigned the program.[186][187] The yearly New York's Village Halloween Parade was begun in 1974; it is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience.[188] Since the late 2010s, ethnic stereotypes as costumes have increasingly come under scrutiny in the United States.[189] Such and other potentially offensive costumes have been met with increasing public disapproval.[190][191] Pet costumes According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumblebee in third place.[192] Games and other activities In this 1904 Halloween greeting card, divination is depicted: the young woman looking into a mirror in a darkened room hopes to catch a glimpse of her future husband. There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one's future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a "rare few" in rural communities as they were considered to be "deadly serious" practices.[193] In recent centuries, these divination games have been "a common feature of the household festivities" in Ireland and Britain.[123] They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom.[194] Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona.[62] Children bobbing for apples at Hallowe'en The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th–20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today. One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called "dooking" in Scotland)[195] in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth.[196] Image from the Book of Hallowe'en (1919) showing several Halloween activities, such as nut roasting Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one's future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[197][198] Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire; one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match.[199][200] A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked; the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst.[201] Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror.[202] The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards[203] from the late 19th century and early 20th century. Another popular Irish game was known as púicíní ("blindfolds"); a person would be blindfolded and then would choose between several saucers. The item in the saucer would provide a hint as to their future: a ring would mean that they would marry soon; clay, that they would die soon, perhaps within the year; water, that they would emigrate; rosary beads, that they would take Holy Orders (become a nun, priest, monk, etc.); a coin, that they would become rich; a bean, that they would be poor.[204][205][206][207] The game features prominently in the James Joyce short story "Clay" (1914).[208][209][210] In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food – usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon – and portions of it served out at random. A person's future would be foretold by the item they happened to find; for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.[211] Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.[108] Telling ghost stories, listening to Halloween-themed songs and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday. Haunted attractions Main article: Haunted attraction (simulated) Humorous tombstones in front of a house in California Humorous display window in Historic 25th Street, Ogden, Utah Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides,[212] and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown. The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam.[213][214] The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection. It was during the 1930s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children's Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children's Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.[215] The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on 12 August 1969.[216] Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott's Scary Farm, which opened in 1973.[217] Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first "hell houses" in 1972.[218] The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was cosponsored by WSAI, an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It was last produced in 1982.[219] Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a "Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes" in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.[220] On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle (Six Flags Great Adventure) caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished.[221] The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum.[222][223] Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.[224][225][226] In the late 1980s and early 1990s, theme parks entered the business seriously. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott's Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990s as a result of America's obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States.[227] The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.[228] Food Pumpkins for sale during Halloween On All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.[229] A candy apple Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel apples or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts. At one time, candy apples were commonly given to trick-or-treating children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the United States.[230] While there is evidence of such incidents,[231] relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.[232] One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish: báirín breac), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking.[233] It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it.[233] It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany. A jack-o'-lantern Halloween cake with a witches hat List of foods associated with Halloween:     Barmbrack (Ireland)     Bonfire toffee (Great Britain)     Candy apples/toffee apples (Great Britain and Ireland)     Candy apples, candy corn, candy pumpkins (North America)     Chocolate     Monkey nuts (peanuts in their shells) (Ireland and Scotland)     Caramel apples     Caramel corn     Colcannon (Ireland; see below)     Halloween cake     Sweets/candy     Novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.     Roasted pumpkin seeds     Roasted sweet corn     Soul cakes     Pumpkin Pie Christian religious observances The Vigil of All Hallows' is being celebrated at an Episcopal Christian church on Hallowe'en On Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve), in Poland, believers were once taught to pray out loud as they walk through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort; in Spain, Christian priests in tiny villages toll their church bells in order to remind their congregants to remember the dead on All Hallows' Eve.[234] In Ireland, and among immigrants in Canada, a custom includes the Christian practice of abstinence, keeping All Hallows' Eve as a meat-free day and serving pancakes or colcannon instead.[235] In Mexico children make an altar to invite the return of the spirits of dead children (angelitos).[236] The Christian Church traditionally observed Hallowe'en through a vigil. Worshippers prepared themselves for feasting on the following All Saints' Day with prayers and fasting.[237] This church service is known as the Vigil of All Hallows or the Vigil of All Saints;[238][239] an initiative known as Night of Light seeks to further spread the Vigil of All Hallows throughout Christendom.[240][241] After the service, "suitable festivities and entertainments" often follow, as well as a visit to the graveyard or cemetery, where flowers and candles are often placed in preparation for All Hallows' Day.[242][243] In Finland, because so many people visit the cemeteries on All Hallows' Eve to light votive candles there, they "are known as valomeri, or seas of light".[244] Halloween Scripture Candy with gospel tract Today, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve.[245][246] Some of these practices include praying, fasting and attending worship services.[1][2][3]     O LORD our God, increase, we pray thee, and multiply upon us the gifts of thy grace: that we, who do prevent the glorious festival of all thy Saints, may of thee be enabled joyfully to follow them in all virtuous and godly living. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen. —Collect of the Vigil of All Saints, The Anglican Breviary[247] Votive candles in the Halloween section of Walmart Other Protestant Christians also celebrate All Hallows' Eve as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation, alongside All Hallow's Eve or independently from it.[248] This is because Martin Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-five Theses to All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve.[249] Often, "Harvest Festivals" or "Reformation Festivals" are held on All Hallows' Eve, in which children dress up as Bible characters or Reformers.[250] In addition to distributing candy to children who are trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en, many Christians also provide gospel tracts to them. One organization, the American Tract Society, stated that around 3 million gospel tracts are ordered from them alone for Hallowe'en celebrations.[251] Others order Halloween-themed Scripture Candy to pass out to children on this day.[252][253] Belizean children dressed up as Biblical figures and Christian saints Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[254] Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[255] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween.[256] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[257] Christian minister Sam Portaro wrote that Halloween is about using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death".[258] In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is acknowledged, and Halloween celebrations are common in many Catholic parochial schools in the United States.[259][260] Many fundamentalist and evangelical churches use "Hell houses" and comic-style tracts in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[261] Others consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith due to its putative origins in the Festival of the Dead celebration.[262] Indeed, even though Eastern Orthodox Christians observe All Hallows' Day on the First Sunday after Pentecost, The Eastern Orthodox Church recommends the observance of Vespers or a Paraklesis on the Western observance of All Hallows' Eve, out of the pastoral need to provide an alternative to popular celebrations.[263] Analogous celebrations and perspectives Judaism According to Alfred J. Kolatch in the Second Jewish Book of Why, in Judaism, Halloween is not permitted by Jewish Halakha because it violates Leviticus 18:3, which forbids Jews from partaking in gentile customs. Many Jews observe Yizkor communally four times a year, which is vaguely similar to the observance of Allhallowtide in Christianity, in the sense that prayers are said for both "martyrs and for one's own family".[264] Nevertheless, many American Jews celebrate Halloween, disconnected from its Christian origins.[265] Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser has said that "There is no religious reason why contemporary Jews should not celebrate Halloween" while Orthodox Rabbi Michael Broyde has argued against Jews' observing the holiday.[266] Islam Sheikh Idris Palmer, author of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, has ruled that Muslims should not participate in Halloween, stating that "participation in Halloween is worse than participation in Christmas, Easter, ... it is more sinful than congratulating the Christians for their prostration to the crucifix".[267] It has also been ruled to be haram by the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia because of its alleged pagan roots stating "Halloween is celebrated using a humorous theme mixed with horror to entertain and resist the spirit of death that influence humans".[268][269] Dar Al-Ifta Al-Missriyyah disagrees provided the celebration is not referred to as an 'eid' and that behaviour remains in line with Islamic principles.[270] Hinduism Hindus remember the dead during the festival of Pitru Paksha, during which Hindus pay homage to and perform a ceremony "to keep the souls of their ancestors at rest". It is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, usually in mid-September.[271] The celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali sometimes conflicts with the date of Halloween; but some Hindus choose to participate in the popular customs of Halloween.[272] Other Hindus, such as Soumya Dasgupta, have opposed the celebration on the grounds that Western holidays like Halloween have "begun to adversely affect our indigenous festivals".[273] Neopaganism There is no consistent rule or view on Halloween amongst those who describe themselves as Neopagans or Wiccans. Some Neopagans do not observe Halloween, but instead observe Samhain on 1 November,[274] some neopagans do enjoy Halloween festivities, stating that one can observe both "the solemnity of Samhain in addition to the fun of Halloween". Some neopagans are opposed to the celebration of Hallowe'en, stating that it "trivializes Samhain",[275] and "avoid Halloween, because of the interruptions from trick or treaters".[276] The Manitoban writes that "Wiccans don't officially celebrate Halloween, despite the fact that 31 Oct. will still have a star beside it in any good Wiccan's day planner. Starting at sundown, Wiccans celebrate a holiday known as Samhain. Samhain actually comes from old Celtic traditions and is not exclusive to Neopagan religions like Wicca. While the traditions of this holiday originate in Celtic countries, modern day Wiccans don't try to historically replicate Samhain celebrations. Some traditional Samhain rituals are still practised, but at its core, the period is treated as a time to celebrate darkness and the dead – a possible reason why Samhain can be confused with Halloween celebrations."[274] Geography Main article: Geography of Halloween Halloween display in Kobe, Japan The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going "guising", holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays.[167][277][278] In Brittany children would play practical jokes by setting candles inside skulls in graveyards to frighten visitors.[279] Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations.[167] This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as Ecuador, Chile,[280] Australia,[281] New Zealand,[282] (most) continental Europe, Finland,[283] Japan, and other parts of East Asia." (wikipedia.orG) "Halloween costumes are costumes worn on Halloween, a festival which falls on October 31. An early reference to wearing costumes at Halloween comes from Scotland in 1585, but they may pre-date this. There are many references to the custom during the 18th and 19th centuries in the Celtic countries of Scotland, Ireland, Mann and Wales. It has been suggested that the custom comes from the Celtic festivals of Samhain and Calan Gaeaf, or from the practise of "souling" during the Christian observance of Allhallowtide. The Christian tradition of acknowledging the danse macabre is also suggested as the origin of dressing up on Halloween [1][2][3][4] Dressing up is not strictly restricted to Halloween among Christians, with similar practices being observed on holidays like Christmas.[5] Halloween costumes are traditionally based on frightening supernatural or folkloric beings. However, by the 1930s costumes based on characters in mass media such as film, literature, and radio were popular. Halloween costumes have tended to be worn mainly by young people, but since the mid-20th century they have been increasingly worn by adults also.... History of Halloween costumes An early 20th-century Irish Halloween mask (a "rhymer" or a "vizor") displayed at the Museum of Country Life. The wearing of costumes at Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or the souls of the dead, roamed the earth at this time. The practice may have originated in a Celtic festival, held on 31 October–1 November, to mark the beginning of winter. It was called Samhain in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, and Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. The festival is believed to have pre-Christian roots. After the Christianization of Ireland in the 5th century, some of these customs may have been retained in the Christian observance of All Hallows' Eve in that region—which continued to be called Samhain/Calan Gaeaf—blending the traditions of their ancestors with Christian ones.[6][7] It was seen as a liminal time, when the spirits or fairies (the Aos Sí), and the souls of the dead, could more easily come into our world.[8] It was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. From at least the 16th century,[9] the festival included mumming and guising,[10] which involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food.[10] It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[11] It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".[12] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient pagan festival included people wearing masks or costumes to represent the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire.[9] In parts of southern Ireland, a man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses—some of which had pagan overtones—in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[13] In 19th century Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[10] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod,[10] while in some places, young people cross-dressed.[10] Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and costumes were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions they were "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[10] It has also been suggested that the wearing of Halloween costumes developed from the custom of souling, which was practised by Christians in parts of Western Europe from at least the 15th century.[14][15] At Allhallowtide, groups of poor people would go door-to-door, collecting soul cakes – either as representatives of the dead,[16] or in return for saying prayers for them.[17] One 19th century English writer said it "used to consist of parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume, who went round to the farm houses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as "Soal-cakes"), apples, money, or anything that the goodwives would give them".[18] The soulers typically asked for "mercy on all Christian souls for a soul cake".[19] The practice was mentioned by Shakespeare his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[20][21] Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote on the wearing of costumes: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".[22] In the Middle Ages, statues and relics of martyred saints were paraded through the streets at Allhallowtide. Some churches who could not afford these things had people dress as saints instead.[23][24] Some believers continue the practice of dressing as saints, biblical figures, and reformers in Halloween celebrations today.[25] Many Christians in continental Europe, especially in France, believed that on Halloween "the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival," known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration.[26] An article published by Christianity Today claimed the danse macabre was enacted at village pageants and at court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and suggested this was the origin of Halloween costume parties.[27][28] People in Halloween Costumes The custom of guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[29] In 19th century America, Halloween was often celebrated with costume parades and "licentious revelries".[30] However, efforts were made to "domesticate" the festival to conform with Victorian era morality. Halloween was made into a private rather than public holiday, celebrations involving liquor and sensuality de-emphasized, and only children were expected to celebrate the festival.[31] Early Halloween costumes emphasized the gothic nature of Halloween, and were aimed primarily at children. Costumes were also made at home, or using items (such as make-up) which could be purchased and utilized to create a costume. But in the 1930s, A.S. Fishbach, Ben Cooper, Inc., and other firms began mass-producing Halloween costumes for sale in stores as trick-or-treating became popular in North America. Halloween costumes are often designed to imitate supernatural and scary beings. Costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as vampires, werewolves, zombies, ghosts,[32] skeletons, witches, goblins, trolls, devils, etc. or in more recent years such science fiction-inspired characters as aliens and superheroes. There are also costumes of pop culture figures like presidents, athletes, celebrities, or characters in film, television, literature, etc. Another popular trend is for women (and in some cases, men) to use Halloween as an excuse to wear sexy or revealing costumes, showing off more skin than would be socially acceptable otherwise.[33] Young girls also often dress as entirely non-scary characters at Halloween, including princesses, fairies, angels, cute animals and flowers. Child in a plain white mask Halloween costume parties generally take place on or around October 31, often on the Friday or Saturday prior to the holiday. Halloween parties are the 3rd most popular type of party held in Western countries, falling behind only to Super Bowl & New Year's Eve parties.[34] College students dressed up for Halloween. A couple trying Halloween face masks at a costume store in Iowa Economics of Halloween costumes [35] Researchers conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3 percent of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up $10 from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year.[36] The troubled economy has caused many Americans to cut back on Halloween spending. In 2009, the National Retail Federation anticipated that American households would decrease Halloween spending by as much as 15% to $56.31.[37] In 2013, Americans spent an estimated $6.9 billion to celebrate Halloween, including a predicted $2.6 billion on costumes (with more spent on adult costumes than for children's costumes) and $330 million on pet costumes.[38][39] In 2017 it was estimated that Americans would spend $9.1 billion on Halloween merchandise with $3.4 billion of that being on spend on Halloween costumes.[40] Another survey by NRF showed that 67% of Halloween shoppers would buy Halloween costumes spending $3.2 Billion in 2019.[41] And it is estimated that the Halloween spending in 2020 could reach $8 billion despite the effect42] Politics of Halloween costumes Part of a series on Costume P culture.svg Background Society and culture Design Elements and methods Traditional Theatrical Period Children Fictional Organizations Awards People Museums     vte Halloween costumes in the contemporary Western world sometimes depict people and things from present times and are sometimes read in terms of their political and cultural significance. Halloween costumes are sometimes denounced for cultural appropriation when they uncritically use stereotypical representations of other groups of people such as gypsies and Native Americans.[43][44] Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secretary Julie Myers was involved in a scandal when she awarded "Best Costume" at the ICE Halloween party to an 'escaped Jamaican prisoner' dressed in dreadlocks and blackface." (wikipedia.orG) "Tinker Bell is a fictional character from J. M. Barrie's 1904 play Peter Pan and its 1911 novelisation Peter and Wendy. She has appeared in a variety of film and television adaptations of the Peter Pan stories, in particular the 1953 animated Walt Disney picture Peter Pan. She also appears in the official 2006 sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital as well as the "Peter and the Starcatchers" book series by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry. At first only a supporting character described by her creator as "a common fairy", her animated incarnation was a hit and has since become a widely recognized unofficial mascot of The Walt Disney Company, next to the Walt Disney company's official mascot Mickey Mouse, and the centrepiece of its Disney Fairies media franchise including the direct-to-DVD film series Tinker Bell and Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. ... In original play and novel Barrie described Tinker Bell as a fairy who mended pots and kettles, an actual tinker of the fairy folk.[1] Her speech consists of the sounds of a tinkling bell, which is understandable only to those familiar with the language of the fairies. Though sometimes ill-tempered, spoiled, jealous, vindictive and inquisitive, she is also helpful and kind to Peter.[2] The extremes in her personality are explained in the story by the fact that a fairy's size prevents her from holding more than one feeling at a time, so when she is angry she has no counterbalancing compassion. At the end of the novel, when Peter flies back to find an older Wendy, it is mentioned that Tinker Bell died in the year after Wendy and her brothers left Neverland, and Peter no longer remembers her. In the first draft of the play, she is called Tippy-toe, but became Tinker Bell in the later drafts and final version.[3] On stage In the original stage productions, Tinker Bell was represented on stage by a darting light "created by a small mirror held in the hand off-stage and reflecting a little circle of light from a powerful lamp"[4] and her voice was "a collar of bells and two special ones that Barrie brought from Switzerland".[5] However, a 'Jane (or Jenny) Wren' was listed among the cast on the programmes as playing Tinker Bell; this was a joke which also helped with the mystique of the fairy character, and fooled H.M. Inspector of Taxes, who sent Jane Wren a tax demand.[5] Originally, no fairy dust was mentioned in the play but Barrie added to the script the necessity to sprinkle it to enable the children to fly because "so many children tried [to fly] from their beds and needed surgical attention."[6] In the musical version of the play, she was also represented by a darting light, accompanied by a celesta. Her favourite insult (as in Barrie's play) is "You silly ass!", which the audience learns to recognise because it is always represented by the same motif: four notes (presumably one for each syllable of the phrase), followed by a growl on the bassoon. In film Film adaptations provided the first vocal effects for the character, whether through sound, such as musical expressions or the sound of a tinkling bell, or human speech. Peter Pan (1924) In the 1924 film, Tinker Bell was played by Virginia Browne Faire. Peter Pan (1953) and other Disney media Tinker Bell (Disney version) TinkerbellDisney.jpg Tinker Bell as depicted in Disney media; the character has become one of the company's most important icons since her debut First appearance    Peter Pan (1953) Created by    Walt Disney Marc Davis Voiced by    Mae Whitman (Disney Fairies, Kinect: Disneyland Adventures, Disney Infinity) In Walt Disney's 1953 film version of Peter Pan, the character is blonde, wears a green dress and white slippers. She doesn't speak but as in the original play, Peter verbally interprets her communications for the sake of the audience, and bell noises are used when she makes gestures. Tinker Bell has become one of Disney's most important branding icons for over half a century along with Jiminy Cricket, and Mickey Mouse, and is generally known as "a symbol of 'the magic of Disney'".[7] She has been featured in television commercials and show opening credits sprinkling pixie dust with a wand in order to shower a magical feeling over various other Disney personalities, though the 1953 animated version of Tinker Bell never actually used a wand. In the picture and the official Disney Character Archives, she is referred to as a pixie. There is a myth that the original animated version of Tinker Bell was modelled after Marilyn Monroe. However, Disney animator Marc Davis's primary reference was actress Margaret Kerry.[8][9] He illustrated Tinker Bell as an attractive, blonde blue-eyed young white female, with an exaggerated hourglass figure. She is dressed in a bright green strapless dress and wears green slippers with white puffs. A trail of pixie dust follows her when she moves. Davis' first model for the character was 19-year-old Ginni Mack,[10] who had previously been used as the face of the company's Ink and Paint Department for promotional material, and served as a facial expression model. For the character's body, Davis worked at first with Kathryn Beaumont, who had served as his model for Alice. Looking for someone more "adult" who was "sexy" and shapely they turned to Margaret Kerry, who had been named “World’s Most Beautiful Legs” in Hollywood in 1949, and whose experience as a dancer helped convey the character's emotions.[11] Since 1954, Tinker Bell has featured as a hostess for much of Disney's live-action television programming and in every Disney film advertisements flying over Disneyland with her magic wand and her fairy dust, beginning with Disneyland (which first introduced the theme park to the public while it was still under construction), to Walt Disney Presents, Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color, and The Wonderful World of Disney. In 1988, she appeared in the final shot of the ending scene of Disney's film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, along with Porky Pig; sprinkling fairy dust on the screen after Porky's trademark farewell as it goes black prior to the closing credits. She also starred alongside other Disney characters, such as Chip 'n Dale, in many Disney comics, where she was also able to speak. Tinker Bell also appears as a healing summon in the Kingdom Hearts series of video games and the card appearance in the video game Mickey's Memory Challenge on 1993. A Disney Cast Member poses as Tinker Bell in Pixie Hollow, at Disneyland. Tinker Bell is a meetable character at all of the Disney Parks and Resorts, and is based in Fantasyland. She is also featured in Peter Pan's Flight, a suspended dark ride based on the artwork from the animated film. Beginning in 1961, she was featured as a live performer who "flew" suspended from a wire from the top of the Matterhorn Bobsled Ride at the beginning of the nightly fireworks displays. She was played by 70-year-old former circus performer Tiny Kline until her retirement three years later for health reasons.[12] Kline was followed for one summer by Mimi Zerbini, a 19-year-old French circus acrobat, then by Judy Kaye from 1966 to 1977, and by 27-year-old Gina Rock from 1983 to 2005.[11] That was the year the zipline from the Matterhorn became a pulley system that could make the performer go back and forth and up and down.[13] On the 2008 Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade special on ABC, Disney announced that a Tinker Bell float would be added to the classic Disney's Electrical Parade at Disney California Adventure Park at the Disneyland Resort, the first new float to be added in decades. Disney Fairies Tinker Bell was the central character of the new Disney Fairies franchise, launched in 2005. In addition to an extensive line of merchandise, 2008's Tinker Bell film is the first of six direct-to-DVD features set in Pixie Hollow.[14] In the film, Tinker Bell is a Tinker. Tinker Bell, who speaks in the Fairies universe, unlike her original appearances, is voiced by Mae Whitman in these digitally animated DVD features. Tinker Bell waxwork at Madame Tussauds, London At Disneyland, a Pixie Hollow meet-and-greet area opened on October 28, 2008, near the Matterhorn, where guests are able to interact with Tinker Bell and her companions. A similar area called "Tinker Bell's Magical Nook" is in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Florida. In November 2009, Tinker Bell became the smallest waxwork ever to be made at Madame Tussauds, measuring only five and a half inches. On September 21, 2010, Tinker Bell was presented with the 2,418th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the thirteenth fictional character and the fifth Disney character to receive this honor. Tinker Bell's star celebrated Hollywood Walk of Fame's 50th anniversary. Since 2012's Secret of the Wings, Tinker Bell is the first Disney fairy to have a sibling, a fraternal twin sister named Periwinkle, a frost fairy of the Winter Woods. In 2015, it was announced that Disney had begun work on Tink, a live-action film, with Reese Witherspoon playing Tinker Bell and Victoria Strouse writing the script.[15] In 2020, however, the project's status was in question following the casting of Yara Shahidi as Tinker Bell in Peter Pan & Wendy.[16] In 2021, the project re-entered development as a part of Gary Marsh's overall deal with Disney.[17] Witherspoon is still attached to the film as a producer and Maria Melnik (Escape Room) was hired to rewrite the script.[18] Hook In the 1991 film Hook, Tinker Bell is portrayed by Julia Roberts. After taking the now-adult Peter to Neverland to rescue his children, Tinker Bell persuades Captain Hook to give her three days to restore Peter's lost memories (including his abilities to fly, fight, and crow) in order to ensure a fair fight between Peter and Hook. After Peter's memory is restored, Tinker Bell "wishes" herself into a human-size woman to share a kiss with Peter. After Peter returns to London, Tinker Bell appears to him one last time on the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens to tell him that she will always love him. In this version, Tinker Bell is portrayed as a winged, six-inch-tall tomboyish sprite with a red "pixie cut" hairstyle. She wears a ragged leather tunic with matching shorts and carries a dagger strapped to her leg. Only while flying does she appear as the traditional ball of light. Tinker Bell displays strength beyond all proportion to her size and is capable of picking up and carrying a grown man, as well as wielding a human sword while flying (giving the impression that the sword is hovering in mid-air). This is also the first interpretation in which Tinker Bell has the ability to transform into a human-size version of herself. Hook subverts Tinker Bell's canon by having her survive well into the modern era, whereas the original novel states that fairies are naturally short-lived and that Tinker Bell died a year after the Darling children's adventures. Peter Pan (2003) In the 2003 film Peter Pan, P.J. Hogan originally planned to use a computer-generated version of the character, but instead used Ludivine Sagnier in combinations with digital models and effects to take advantage of the actress's expressions. Peter Pan & Wendy Yara Shahidi will be portraying Tinker Bell in the upcoming film Peter Pan & Wendy.[19] Other literary works Peter Pan in Scarlet Tinker Bell returns in the official sequel Peter Pan in Scarlet. When Wendy and the rest of the group reach Neverland and ask Peter where she is, he replies that he does not know anyone by the name Tinker Bell, which is explained as him not remembering her after she died. She is mentioned by Wendy and the rest of the Lost Boys to Fireflyer, a silly blue fairy, who when he reaches the top of Neverpeak, makes the wish to meet her. When they open Captain Hook's treasure chest, among other things, Tinker Bell is seen inside it to Fireflyer's joy. Initially, Tinker Bell does not like him, but eventually she comes to see that Fireflyer is not as bad as he seems to be. In the end, they get married and start selling dreams to the Roamers, previous Lost Boys that have been outcast by Peter, while having many adventures. Peter and the Starcatchers In the Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson Peter and the Starcatchers book series, Tinker Bell makes her first appearance at the end of the first novel. Originally, she was a green and yellow coloured bird who was put in a bag of starstuff, turning her into a fairy. Molly's father, the famous starcatcher Lord Leonard Aster, made her Peter's guardian and she follows him on all of his adventures. She doesn't like being called a fairy and would much rather be called "birdwoman" because of her origins. She is very protective of Peter, and hates his paying attention to any other female. She can be very impolite to others (only Peter is able to understand her perfectly, and most of the time he does not reveal what she says about others, because they are mostly insults). She is also able to emit a very bright light, which she uses as an attack against other creatures, especially Lord Ombra, one of the main villains of the series. Cheshire Crossing In the Andy Weir and Sarah Andersen Cheshire Crossing series, Tinker "Tink" Bell firstly appears alongside Peter as they attempt to rescue captured fairies from Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch of the West, with Peter being captured and Tink fleeing to get Wendy's help, alongside that of Dorothy Gale and Alice Liddell, providing the latter two with fairy dust to fly. Later, after Dorothy is captured, Tink frees her and goes to Castle West to warn Jack the Knave of Hearts of the incoming flying pirate ship, preventing the Cheshire Cat from eating her when they attempt to do so. Later, after the Witch defeats Mary Poppins in battle, Tink lends Poppins her power against the Witch as Poppins utters "Say hello to my little friend!", leaving them evenly matched. Later, after the Witch has been defeated, Alice places Peter (now shrunken to Tink's size and having matured due to consuming size-altering berries in Wonderland) next to Tink, having recognized her as being in love with him, and after being complimented by Peter as to her appearance, the pair kiss. On television Tinker Bell was voiced or portrayed by:     Sumi Shimamoto in the 1989 anime series The Adventures of Peter Pan.     Debi Derryberry in the 1990 Fox animated program Peter Pan and the Pirates.     Keira Knightley in the 2011 Neverland miniseries.     Rose McIver in season three (2013) of ABC's Once Upon A Time, debuting in the episode "Quite a Common Fairy".     In Peter Pan Live!, a TV production of the musical broadcast by NBC in 2014, a computer-generated version of Tinker Bell was used, controlled live by a technician.     Paloma Faith in the 2015 Peter & Wendy ITV film.[20] In World of Winx, Tinker Bell is a powerful fairy from the world of dreams (also called Neverland) and a friend of Peter Pan. When Peter Pan eventually left her for Wendy Darling, she became dark and cold, turning into the evil Queen. In art In addition to the illustrations in the original editions of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell has also been depicted by fantasy artists such as Brian Froud and Myrea Pettit. She also appears in the edition of Peter Pan in Scarlet illustrated by David Wyatt. A bronze sculpture of Tinker Bell by London artist Diarmuid Byron O'Connor was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital, to whom Barrie bequeathed the copyright to the character, to be added to his original four-foot statue of Peter Pan, wresting a thimble from Peter's finger. The figure has a nine-and-a-half-inch wingspan and is seven inches tall, and was unveiled on 29 September 2005 by Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Tinker Bell in other languages     This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) When translated into other languages, Tinker Bell's name is sometimes rendered more or less phonetically, but is often replaced by a name that evokes her character or one that refers to a bell or represents its sound.     Arabic — تنة ورنة (Tanna we Ranna)     Albanian — Tringëllima     Armenian — Թինկերբել (T’inkerbel)     Bengali — টিংকার বেল     Bulgarian — Камбанка (Kambanka)     Cantonese — 小叮噹 (Xiǎo dīngdāng, "Little Jingle"), 奇妙仙子 (Qímiào xiānzǐ, "Wonderful Fairy")     Catalan — Campaneta     Chinese — 奇妙仙子 (Qímiào xiānzǐ)     Czech — Zvonilka or Zvoněnka     Danish — Klokkeblomst ("Bellflower")     Dutch — Rinkelbel and Tinkerbel (in early translations), Tinkelbel (current)     Finnish — Helinä-keiju ("Ring-a-ling Fairy")     French — Tinn Tamm (in early translations), Clochette (current)     Georgian — ტინკერბელი (T’ink’erbeli)     German — Glöckchen, Glitzerklang, Naseweis, Klingklang     Greek — Τίνκερ Μπελ (Tínker Bel)     Gujarati — ટીંકરબેલ (Ṭīṅkarabēla)     Hebrew — טינקרבל (Tinkerbell)     Hindi — टिंकर बेल (Tinkar bel)     Hungarian — Giling Galang (in early translations), Csingiling (current)     Icelandic — Skellibjalla     Indonesian — Ling Kelinting (Kelinting means "little bell")     Italian — Campanellino (in early translations), Trilli (Disney versions)     Japanese — ティンカー ベル (Tinkā Beru)     Korean — 팅커벨 (Tingkeobel)     Latvian — Zvārgulīte (Little Sleigh Bell)     Lithuanian — Auksarankė (Golden Hands)     Macedonian — Ѕвончица (Dzvončica)     Marathi — टिंकरबेल (Ṭiṅkarabēla)     Mongolian — Тэнүүлч хонх ("Urchin Bell")     Nepali — टिंकरबेल (Ṭiṅkarabēla)     Norwegian — Tingeling     Persian — بند انگشتی     Polish — Blaszany Dzwoneczek, usually shortened to Dzwoneczek ("Tin Tinker")     Portuguese — Sininho or Tilim-Tim (Portugal and Brazil in older dubs), Tinker Bell (Brazil)     Russian — Динь-Динь (Din'-Din')     Romanian — Clopoţica     Serbo-Croatian — Звончица/Zvončica (Bells)     Slovak — Cililing     Slovenian — Zvončica     Swedish — Tingeling     Spanish — Campanilla (Spain), Campanita (Hispanic America), Tinker Bell (Latin America)     Taiwanese — 奇妙仙子-叮叮     Tamil — டிங்கர் பெல் (Ṭiṅkar pel)     Thai — ทิงเกอร์เบลล์ (Thingkoebeo)     Turkish — Çan Çiçeği (Bellflower)     Ukrainian — Дінь-Дінь (Din'-Din')" (wikipedia.org) "Glitter is an assortment of small, reflective particles that come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Glitter particles reflect light at different angles, causing the surface to sparkle or shimmer. Glitter is similar to confetti, sparkles and sequins, but somewhat smaller. Since prehistoric times, glitter has been made from many different materials including stones such as malachite, and mica,[1] as well as insects[2] and glass.[3] Modern glitter is usually manufactured from the combination of aluminum and plastic which is rarely recycled leading some scientists to call for bans on plastic glitter... Antiquity Mica Glittering surfaces have been found to be used since prehistoric times in the arts and in cosmetics. The modern English word "glitter" comes from the Middle English word gliteren, possibly by way of the Old Norse word glitra.[5] However, as early as 30,000 years ago, mica flakes were used to give cave paintings a glittering appearance.[1] Prehistoric humans are believed to have used cosmetics,[6] made of powdered hematite, a sparkling mineral.[7] From 40,000 BC to 200 BC, ancient Egyptians, produced "glitter-like substances from crushed beetles"[8] as well as finely ground green malachite crystal. Researchers believe Mayan temples were sometimes painted with red, green, and grey glitter paint made from mica dust, based on infrared scans of the remnants of paint still found on the structures in present-day Guatemala.[9] People of the Americas 8,000 years ago were using powdered galena, a form of lead, to produce a bright greyish-white glittering paint used for objects of adornment.[10] The collecting and surface mining of galena was prevalent in the Upper Mississippi Valley region by the Cahokia native peoples, for regional trade both raw and crafted into beads or other objects.[10] Modern glitter Magnified nail polish Development The first production of modern plastic glitter is credited to the American machinist Henry F. Ruschmann who invented a machine to cut photo films and paper in the 1930s. Sometimes, the machine "stuttered" generating small pieces of glossy cellulose that employees picked up and used as "snow" to decorate their Christmas trees, and modern glitter was born.[11][1] With his partner, Harry Goetz, Ruschmann cut mica into washers and glitter from metallized cellulose acetate film. During World War II, glass glitter became unavailable so Ruschmann found a market for scrap plastics, which were ground into glitter.[1][12] In 1943, he purchased Meadowbrook Farm in Bernardsville, New Jersey where he founded Meadowbrook Farm Inventions (MFI) in 1948 to produce industrial glitter.[13] MFI became Meadowbrook Inventions, Inc. in 1953.[11] Ruschmann filed a patent for a mechanism for cross-cutting films as well as other glitter-related inventions.[14] Substrates for cutting glitter expanded from metalized cellulose and aluminum foil to metalized and iridescent film, polyester, PVC, and laminations cut into various shapes.[11] Production Today over 20,000 varieties of glitter are manufactured in a vast number of different colors, sizes, and materials.[15] One estimate suggests 10 million pounds (4.5 million kilograms) of glitter was either purchased or produced between the years of 1989 and 2009, however the source[16] provides no evidence or reference point. Commercial glitter ranges in size from 0.002 to .25 inches (0.05 to 6.35 mm)[17] a side. First, flat multi-layered sheets are produced combining plastic, coloring, and reflective material such as aluminium, titanium dioxide, iron oxide, and bismuth oxychloride. These sheets are then cut into tiny particles of many shapes including squares, triangles, rectangles, and hexagons.[17] Use Glitter nail polish Iridescent fishing lures Furniture made of glitter PVC. Prior to fabrics made with modern glitter, sequins were sewn or woven on to fabric to give it a glittering appearance. Edible glitter made from gum arabic and other ingredients is even used by culinary artists.[18] Glitter is used in cosmetics to make the face and nails shiny or sparkly. Additionally, it is commonly used in arts and crafts to color, accessorise and texture items. The small, brightly colored particles often stick to clothing, skin, and furniture, and can be difficult to remove. It is also used on optically variable inks. Glitter coatings or finishes are frequently used on fishing lures to draw attention by simulating the scales of prey fish.[19] Due to its unique characteristics, glitter has also proven to be useful forensic evidence. Because of the tens of thousands of different commercial glitters, identical glitter particles can be compelling evidence that a suspect has been at a crime scene. Forensic scientist Edwin Jones has one of the largest collections of glitter consisting of over 1,000 different samples used in comparison of samples taken from crime scenes. Glitter particles are easily transferred through the air or by touch, yet cling to bodies and clothing, often unnoticed by suspects.[20] Glitter in culture Glitter can be seen as a tool of fashion used by various subcultures, as it allows for a visible statement to be worn and seen on the body. This is because it has been theorized to be a "flickering signifier", or something that destabilizes known notions of popular culture, identity, and society.[21] Glitter is associated with "fringe cultures", which often use excessive glam and glamor such as glitter to evoke a deeper understanding between the relationships of commercialized popular culture and "high" culture, or "high-brow" art.[22] Used by glam rockers, such as David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Iggy Pop, glitter is also used as a tool to help blur gender lines. This helped to create the more extreme "glitter rock" – an even more heightened version of glam rock.[23] Glitter is also used by nail artists and make-up artists to make statements about femininity and beauty standards. The flashy, sparkling nature of glitter allows users to push standard ideas of beauty and what is and isn't considered "excessive" in terms of make-up. Glitter is usually associated with nightlife and not professionalism, but wearing it in different settings can push these boundaries.[21] Because of its tendency to shed off of items it is applied to and stick onto unwanted surfaces, including skin, hair, and clothes, glitter is also used for glitter bombing, which is an act of protest in which activists throw glitter on people at public events.[24] Glitter bombers have frequently been motivated by, though not limited to, their targets' opposition to same-sex marriage.[25] Some legal officials argue glitter bombing is technically assault and battery. It is possible for glitter to enter the eyes or nose and cause damage to the cornea or other soft tissues potentially irritating them or leading to infection,[26] depending on the size of the glitter. Whether a prosecutor would pursue the charges depends on a number of factors." (wikipedia.orG) "Ombré /ˈɒmbreɪ/ (literally "shaded" in French) is the blending of one color hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark.[1] It has become a popular feature for hair coloring, nail art, and even baking, in addition to its uses in home decorating and graphic design.[2] In contrast to ombré, sombré is a much softer and gradual shading of one color to another.... In fashion History Further information: Shading Using shading or creating an ombré effect is ubiquitous. For instance in fabric printing, a special printing block, called a "rainbowed" block, was used in the early 19th century to produce textiles with graduated color designs.[4] Ombré as a textile treatment came back into fashion in around 1840 and was used throughout the 19th century.[4][5] In machine embroidery, an ombré effect was achieved by dyeing the threads in graded colors beforehand.[6] 21st century A woman with ombré hair “Ombré” as a hair-coloring technique had been popularized in 2000 when the singer Aaliyah had her hair dyed in a subtle gradual fade from black at the roots to lighter towards the hair tips. As of 2010, the ombré hair trend was still popular.[7] The style has been adopted by many celebrities, such as Britney Spears, Alexa Chung, Lauren Conrad, Vanessa Hudgens, Drew Barrymore, Beyoncé, and even Jared Leto, among others.[7] One stylist found that the ombré hairstyle requires very little upkeep, making it easier for it to remain on trend.[2] While ombre was initially the gradual lightening of the hair from dark to light, it has expanded to take on various other techniques, including the fading of a natural color from the roots to a more unnatural color (such as turquoise or lavender) at the tips. The popularization of ombré hair encouraged the spread of this technique to other facets of beauty, such as nail art. The adoption of the ombré nails trend by celebrities such as Lauren Conrad, Victoria Beckham, and Katy Perry, helped popularise it.[8] Home A cake with purple ombré frosting Following the early 21st-century trend, many popular home decorators have incorporated ombré into their home decorating styles. Ombré can be used in many products from textiles to glassware, and as a wall-painting technique, where walls are painted in colors graduating to a lighter or darker tone towards the other end. Martha Stewart describes the gentle progression of color in ombré as a transition from wakefulness to slumber.[9] David Kohn Architects have explored the ombré effect in the design of the floor tiling of the interior of an apartment, Carrer Avinyó, Barcelona.[10] The tile pattern is graded in colour from green at one end of the apartment to red at the other to differentiate the two owners' private spaces. The encaustic tiles were manufactured by Mosaics Martí, suppliers of tiles to Antoni Gaudí. Baking In baking, ombré effects are typically achieved through applied techniques such as frosting on a cake, but baking individual cake layers in graduated tones from light to dark is possible.[11][12] The effect can also be achieved by dyeing and stacking the layers of a cake in the ombré fade.[13] Makeup Due to the colour range available for different types of cosmetic products, an ombré effect can be achieved by blending two or more shades together on the eyes, lips, [14] or cheeks.[15] The gradient from dark to light is similar to the practice of contouring, where different tints and shades of natural skin tones are blended, but differs in that contouring is often intended to artificially sculpt the face, whereas ombré can be said to simply mean the blending of any two or more shades, natural or otherwise." (wikipedia.org) "In computer graphics, a color gradient specifies a range of position-dependent colors, usually used to fill a region.[1] For example, many window managers allow the screen background to be specified as a gradient. The colors produced by a gradient vary continuously with position, producing smooth color transitions. A color gradient is also known as a color ramp or a color progression. In assigning colors to a set of values, a gradient is a continuous colormap, a type of color scheme. ... Definitions     Color gradient is a set of colors arranged in a linear order ( ordered)     A continuous colormap is a curve through a colorspace     curve through RGB colorspace     gray     gray     cubehelix[2]     cubehelix[2]     HSV rainbow     HSV rainbow     diverging[3]     diverging[3] Strict definition A colormap[4] is a function which associate a real value r with point c in color space C {\displaystyle C} C     f : [ r m i n , r m a x ] ⊂ R → C {\displaystyle f:[r_{min},r_{max}]\subset \mathbf {R} \to C} {\displaystyle f:[r_{min},r_{max}]\subset \mathbf {R} \to C} which is defined by:     a colorspace C     an increasing sequence of sampling points r 0 < . . . < r m ∈ [ r m i n , r m a x ] {\displaystyle r_{0}<...<r_{m}\in [r_{min},r_{max}]} {\displaystyle r_{0}<...<r_{m}\in [r_{min},r_{max}]}     a series of values in the colorspace c 0 , . . . , c m ∈ C {\displaystyle c_{0},...,c_{m}\in C} {\displaystyle c_{0},...,c_{m}\in C}     the mapping f ( r i ) = c i , i = 0 , . . . , m {\displaystyle f(r_{i})=c_{i},i=0,...,m} {\displaystyle f(r_{i})=c_{i},i=0,...,m}     a rule for interpolating the intermediate values r i − 1 < r < r i ∈ [ r m i n , r m a x ] {\displaystyle r_{i-1}<r<r_{i}\in [r_{min},r_{max}]} {\displaystyle r_{i-1}<r<r_{i}\in [r_{min},r_{max}]} where:     r is a real number r ∈ [ r m i n , r m a x ] ⊂ R {\displaystyle r\in [r_{min},r_{max}]\subset \mathbf {R} } {\displaystyle r\in [r_{min},r_{max}]\subset \mathbf {R} }     R {\displaystyle \mathbf {R} } \mathbf {R} is a set of real numbers     c is a color = point in colorspace C Types Criteria for classification:     dimension     discrete ( clasessed [5]) / continuous     shape     range: full or limited. Example : pastel color with limited range of saturation.     perceptual uniformity[6]     order         ordered (sequential) and non-ordered (categorical)         perceptual order     readability for color-vision deficient or color-blind people ( colorblind-friendly)     color space Dimension     1D     2D[7]     3D Shapes Axial gradients An axial color gradient, with a white line segment connecting the two points An axial color gradient (sometimes also called a linear color gradient) is specified by two points, and a color at each point. The colors along the line through those points are calculated using linear interpolation, then extended perpendicular to that line. In digital imaging systems, colors are typically interpolated in an RGB color space, often using gamma compressed RGB color values, as opposed to linear. CSS and SVG both support linear gradients.[8][9] Radial gradients A radial color gradient A radial gradient is specified as a circle that has one color at the edge and another at the center. Colors are calculated by linear interpolation based on distance from the center. This can be used to approximate the diffuse reflection of light from a point source by a sphere.[citation needed] Both CSS and SVG support radial gradients.[10][11] Conic gradients conic gradient Conic or conical gradients are gradients with color transitions rotated around a center point (rather than radiating from the center). Example conic gradients include pie charts and color wheels.[12] Other shapes In vector graphics polygon meshes can be used, e.g., Adobe Illustrator supported gradient meshes. color space     LCH     LCH     HSV     HSV Effect of color space The appearance of a gradient not only varies by the color themselves, but also by the color space the calculation is performed in. The problem usually becomes important for two reasons:     Gamma correction to a color space. With a typical γ of around 2, it is easy to see that a gamma-enabled color space will blend darker than a linear-intensity color space, since the sum of squares of two numbers is never more than the square of their sum. The effect is most apparent in blending complementary colors like red and green, with the middle color being a dark color instead of the expected yellow.[13][14] The radial and conic examples on this page clearly exhibit this error.     Handling of other perceptual properties. In information visualization, it is undesirable to have a supposedly "flat" gradient show non-monotonic variations in lightness and saturation along the way. This is because human vision emphasizes these qualities, causing bias or confusion in interpretation.[15] A "linear" blend would match physical light blending and has been the standard in game engines for a long time.[16] On the web, however, it has long been neglected for both color gradients and image scaling.[17] Such a blend still has a subtle difference from one done in a perceptually-uniform color space." (wikipedia.org)
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: In excellent, pre-owned condition. Unused with some storage wear. Please see photos and description.
  • Brand: Fun World
  • Department: Unisex
  • Occasion: Halloween
  • Time Period Manufactured: Current (1991-Now)
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: China
  • Handmade: No

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