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BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en
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Subject: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 14 Sep 03 - 04:31 PM As I spent part of the morning sweeping spider webs from various nooks and crannies in my house, a daily task here this time of year, I realized that we have always associated spiders and spider webs with old haunted houses, Hallowe'en and supernatural beliefs. However, it occurred to me, (maybe I'm slow to connect the dots, while others just take this as a matter of course) that the reason that spider webs might have been originally connected with Hallowe'en, has nothing to do with old, ghostly, unoccupied houses. This is the time of year when spiders venture into our houses in great numbers, the time when the night grow a little damp and chilly and the days get shorter, the Harvest Season and as such have everything to do with the natural and nothing with the supernatural. Anyone else, (southern hemisphere exempt), plagued by spiders now or is this just a rural BC phenomenon? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Rapparee Date: 14 Sep 03 - 04:40 PM They're in Idaho, knocking on the doors, wanting to move in with their extended families. I've always thought that we associated spiders and Hallowe'en for several reasons: 1. Many people are frightened of spiders. 2. You find lots of spiders in uninhabited buildings. 3. "Haunted houses" are usually uninhabitated and hence have spiders. 4. There's a vampiric element to the way spiders feed. 5. Some spider venom can sicken and even kill you. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Peg Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:11 PM here's another bit of lore: it has been said that, centuries ago, the current western system of astrology possessed not twelve, but thirteen, signs of the zodiac. That thirteenth sign was a Spider Woman. The dates? It was placed between the signs of Libra and Scorpio; that cusp falls on October 23rd (my birthday) which places it very near Hallowe'en. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:32 PM true Rapiaire, I was speculating on another reason, that they are just more prevalent in our dwellings this time of year, therefore the natural association with the season, which probably preceeds our more stereotyped association with haunted houses and the declaration by the church that Hallowe'en was a time to honour departed Christian spirits. If pumpkins popped out of the ground in June they would probably have had bugger all to do with Hallowe'en. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: katlaughing Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:37 PM I've always thought it was to do with weaving, too, equating with women/witches. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:46 PM interesting Peg, an appropriate symbol and date. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:48 PM Could that be an association between wicca and wicker baskets kat? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: katlaughing Date: 14 Sep 03 - 05:56 PM Could be, Sins, I was thinking more in the spiritual/metaphysical sense. Some of the songs we used to sing in pagan groups included songs about weaving and spinning, both of which always brought to mind the Spider Woman mentioned above and wimmin's work. We used to do a weaving in and out dance to the songs, too, holding hands in a long line, then following the leader. One May Eve we did this at our house in CT, which had a HUGE lone Oak tree out in a meadow with a pond. It was so much fun to lead my friends out to the meadow, dance and singing, then round the oak tree and back. I think there is a piece I wrote called "The Web" posted here in one of the Thoughts for the Day. You might enjoy it. If I find it, I'll put in a link. Also, did you hear the story I read for Ron Olesko's Christemas radio show two years ago, in which he featured Mudcatters? It was from an old story book of my grandma's and explain how we came to have Golden Cobwebs (tinsel) on the Christmas Tree. I think I posted it, too, so will look for a link. Thanks, kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: katlaughing Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:01 PM Forgot to say the story involves friendly, curious spiders. You will find it in this thread and also in Aine's Mudcat Storytellers' pages. Couldn't find the other pieee. If you are interested, I'll post it later. kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Rapparee Date: 14 Sep 03 - 06:31 PM Spider is an important feature of the myths of the Southwestern nations, I believe. Pumpkins are associated with Hallowe'en, if I remember aright, because they were available in America and could substitute for the original Jack O'Lanterns, which were carved from hollowed-out turnips (swedes), among other things. With the Celtic Samhain (probably spelled wrong) being the night when the spirits of the Dead were closest to the Living, folks originally just locked the doors and hoped for the best. Then they got into rites to placate and honor the Dead, the Roman church didn't like it and changed the reason for it, and the next thing you know we have Hallowe'en and all that stuff of today. Of course, I simplified it a little bit. I don't think that there is a spider/weaving/women/Wicca connection, but I could, of course, be wrong. Maybe I'll carve a turnip this year for old times' sake. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 14 Sep 03 - 07:17 PM They also loom large (no pun intended) in African folktales, I believe, although I think Anancy? is male. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Ebbie Date: 14 Sep 03 - 11:43 PM The other night I watched the news on TV originating, I believe, in Seattle- there was a small segment on a current problem there with spiders. 'Hobo' Spiders is what they are called, and the newscaster said that because of the weather/season/whatever? they're there in record numbers this year. They showed a supporating sore and said that a bite could send you to the hospital. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 15 Sep 03 - 01:07 AM Yeah Ebbie, Hobos are bad news and the males are out in large numbers this time of year searching for females. We didn't have any on the Island until fairly recently, although they have been found in the Seattle area since the 1930's, where they were first introduced from Europe, I believe. My cousins wife was bitten on the face by one a couple of years ago and it was a bit of a mess. It sort of behaved like necretizing faceitus (sp?) Fortunately she got an early diagnosis and it did not leave a serious scar. Fortunately too, most of the spiders in and around my house are native benign Orb Spinners, Jumping Spiders and Wolf Spiders, which prey upon Hobos. We have Black Widows on the Island too, but I have never seen one out where we live. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Liz the Squeak Date: 15 Sep 03 - 09:08 AM My garden is positively festooned with Garden Orb spider webs, I counted 30 last Saturday, and it's only a 35ft X 30ft garden! There was one that was just caught in a shaft of sunlight - it looked exquisite. Then there's the opportunist bugger who keeps spinning across the path at face height - she ever pulls that one off, she won't need to eat for a year! Webs may be associated with "witches" because of the healing uses cobwebs were put to. Cobwebs, freshly gathered were put over wounds to help them close. It does work, don't ask me how, but if there are no secondary infections started up by a web that's been hanging in the garden or shed for a while, the wound would heal quickly and cleanly. There are reports that Wellington's Army surgeons used them during the Peninsular war (1798 - 1812) and it's mentioned in several tomes of folklore. The association comes when you use the term witch to describe the local 'wise woman' - usually the one who knows most about healing too! LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Peg Date: 15 Sep 03 - 09:21 AM I think this association may also go back to the goddess Arachne, something of a sorceress, and the fates associated with magic. The idea of "weaving a web" is a metaphor used to describe magic, as well as the idea that a spell to control others etc. can be "woven." In any case, modern witchcraft/wicca is full of the imagery: "Then weave the web of the mystic measure, from the depths of the sky to the ends of the earth; come swift spirits of night and of pleasure, and fill our dance with the music of mirth." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Rapparee Date: 15 Sep 03 - 09:30 AM The web most likely gives the blood something to clot around, instead of it having to create its own threads around which to clot. Gauze does the same sort of thing. (This is pretty simplified; coagulation is complex and wonderful and entirely worth looking into.) If you're going to do this, try to avoid the dead flies and things which might be stuck in the web. In fact, a fresh, unused web would be best. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: sian, west wales Date: 15 Sep 03 - 10:07 AM Peg, I was born on the 24th ... and I really didn't need to know that I might have been born under a spider sign. yuk and shiver. I caught and evicted a house spider last week which had delusions of mammal-hood. So big I almost couldn't fit the drinking glass over her. But I'm very impressed with myself - I wouldn't have been able to do that a couple of years ago ... sian |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 15 Sep 03 - 11:49 AM sian, when my kids were small we encouraged them to give the spiders names. They always seemed less yucky and frightening to them that way. We had a lot of George's and Gloria's running around here....and of course the proverbial Boris. Liz, I sympathize, I get at least one stuck in my hair every morning when I leave home. However, I always feel a bit badly because she has expended so much energy on her creation and I've managed to wipe it away in a moment.....but not badly enough to stop sweeping the ceilings in the house. I have a lovely Victorian horse hair duster on a very long handle, expressly for the purpose. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: sian, west wales Date: 15 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM Naming spider, eh? OK. (((suspension of disbelief))) Liz - my postman does a nice job of clearing the path of a morning. sian |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Liz the Squeak Date: 15 Sep 03 - 05:11 PM Ah, our postperson arrives around midday, several hours too late.... Did for one today, she was on the shed door. I'd have been better off leaving her because as I stepped under her, I got a splinter in my foot which is too small to see (or is glass) and I can't get it out. LTS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: GUEST,mmario Date: 16 Sep 03 - 04:17 PM goddess Arachne? Since *when*?!? Wasn';t the whole point of her story that she was changed into a spider for challenging the goddesses? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: katlaughing Date: 16 Sep 03 - 04:55 PM Interesting page on Minerva and Arachne with a couple of poems as well. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Mudlark Date: 16 Sep 03 - 05:30 PM This is definitely spider time in California, mostly long leggity high corner dwellers, but also tarantulas, nearly as big wolf spiders, and always a black widow or two--they all find their way into my old shack of a house, about as tight as a seive. the black widows give a nasty bite, but not a bad, I think, as what in Arkansas was called the violin, or fiddleback spider, an innocuous looking house type spider that was everywhere and with a bite much like the above mentioned hobo spider (which I've never heard of). My stepdaughter has a place on Salt Spring Island, across from Vancouver--she claims there are no poisonous snakes or spiders on the island...sounds like paradise to me, given my spider and rattlesnake population! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Peg Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:19 PM oh was she a mortal? (shrug) Guess I have forgotten some of my mythology. I should have said "figure from Greco-Roman lore". |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: NicoleC Date: 16 Sep 03 - 10:21 PM Black Widow bites are supposed to be *extremely* painful, although not deadly to most adults and larger children. I'm a total arachnaphobe, so I've never been bitten by one although I've had ample opportunity as a kid, but I have seen folks afbter being itten by one. Nasty big black swollen wounds. Eeeek! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: LadyJean Date: 17 Sep 03 - 01:37 AM The child and grandchild of professionals, I am never sure whether the Irish tradition I learned from my parents came from their parents, or their parents' Irish maids. BUT, as I know that you must pay a friend a penny if they give you a gift with a sharp edge (Otherwise it will cut the friendship.) As I know that if you wish bad luck on someone else it will come back to you three times, as I know that if you put wedding cake under your pillow you will dream of your future mate, so I know that if you kill a spider you will bring on rain. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:49 AM Ah!! so it was my spider sacrifices that ended the drought here....maybe I should do more than sweep the webs away, like deliberately kill the little buggers, so that things will really get back to normal...*BG* |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: LadyJean Date: 17 Sep 03 - 10:36 PM Singing "Johnny Appleseed" works too. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: GUEST Date: 17 Sep 03 - 11:07 PM Interest YES - PLEASE KatLaughing post your story later.
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: open mike Date: 18 Sep 03 - 11:16 PM what island are you on, Metchosin? I jsut saw pictures from my friend who just got back from an island off of B.C. i think the name is like lesquiti. close 2 u? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: open mike Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:09 AM the fiddle back ones i thin are a.k.a. brown recluse and i once met a man who had to have one of his finger bones replaced because of the venom of a brown recluse, which is a digestive enzyme and it dissolved (digested) his finger! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Spiders and Hallowe'en From: Metchosin Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:50 AM open mike, I'm at the southern end of Vancouver Island. Vancouver Island is about 280 miles long and Lasqueti Island is between Vancouver Island and the mainland, about one third the way up Vancouver Island or about 100 miles and a ferry ride from here. |
