Scary times again

Everybody's familiar with the ghosts, goblins and scary creatures of all kinds at Halloween. That's why we get all dressed up, put on costumes to confuse the evil spirits and go about playing tricks and getting treats. But did you know, that precisely six months prior, things can get scary as well?

Halloween may be the time of bidding the sun good-bye for the dark half of the year, but the other half is light. It only makes sense. The time to celebrate the banishing of the dark, then, is now; that is, on 30 April, for this marks the other halfway point in the year. Why don't we celebrate it?

It's not like we don't have a name for it. It is Walpurgis Night. Unfortunately, it's fallen into some disrepute over the years. Too bad, really. I think it's a great time to celebrate. Walpurgis Night is often associated with witches and their sabbath, with strange goings-on out in the woods and on the mountain tops. Goethe is his epic Faust included a Walpurgis-Night scene in both parts. The last chapter in book five of Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain is named thereafter, as is Act Two of Albee's play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Not a one of these literary associations has done anything to rehabilitate the day ... or night, if you will. Too bad.

The next day, of course, is May Day. No, not as in our ship is sinking and we're in desperate need of help, but as in dancing-around-the-maypole-day. Now, there's a light-hearted, carefree, slightly bawdy, luscious, if not voluptuous image to pursue. If there ever was a day for romping and frolicking, I suppose that's it, especially since we decided we'd have no more of Midsummer, which is really oddly named since it is the beginning of the season, not the middle of it. But, that doesn't matter.

I suppose this all got suppressed in Puritanical America (I mean, what doesn't get suppressed there?), though I can't help but think we have to lay the blame squarely at the feet of those evil communists. For whatever reason, they decided to make the 1st of May their day honoring Labor (not work, mind you), and the moment the communists are in play, well, it's clear that Americans, at any rate can have nothing to do with that so they let their paranoia force them to create their own Labor Day, which they stuck out in September. The only value it serves anymore is to let school kids know that they're either back or about to be back in school. Yeah, great reason to celebrate.

Here in tradition-rich Europe, however, May Day is still May Day, and Walpurgis Night, instead of being one of dark, foreboding, witches' rituals will see a lot of partying and dancing going on. On the evening of the 30th there will Dances into May country-wide, and the party won't stop, of course, till the wee hours of the morning. But there's a workfree day there to greet them.

We can honor labor ... in the sense that we can be thankful we don't have to work the day after the night before.