I should think Halloween has been buzzing with weirdness for as long as there's been a Halloween; after all, it is All Souls' Eve - the night before the annual commemoration of all the saints who don't get a day of their own. The Night of Forgotten Saints - put that way it sounds positively Lovecraftian.

Ironically, I think my difference with JB is that I think popular ritual practices are much more creative and spontaneous - and hence much more variable over time - than he seems to allow. I think there's a deep human urge to Do Stuff - symbolic, excessive stuff - and the stuff attaches itself in different ways to different occasions and seasons. I've never done factory work, but I used to work with people who had done and I remember two guys reminiscing about the treatment meted out to the low man on the totem pole in the warehouse where they used to work. The detail about Shrove Tuesday sticks in my mind – if you were the youngest guy on the team, on Shrove Tuesday you would make yourself very scarce; if your workmates found you, you'd get your balls painted black with boot polish. Why Shrove Tuesday? Why black knackers? Why not? Perhaps the reason why people hunted a wren on Boxing Day was just that hunting a wren is something that seems loaded with meaning and Boxing Day is a significant occasion.