Doee the 'Guy Fawkes Tradition' Predate Guy Fawkes?

[MrRING]

In the tradition of religious co-opting of holidays and other meaningful days, is there any older tradition that involves burning human effigies that Guy Fawkes Day might have taken over?

I'm thinking in terms of the book "Santa: Last of the Wildmen" which showed how Halloween, Christmas, and New Years used to be more of all the same holiday.

 

[Anonymous]

An obvious connection would be to the kinds of festivals that formed the basis of The Wicker man. Also, I seem to recall hearing of one of the old pagan celebrations (in Scotland at least) involved the lighting of bonfires: can't recall offhand which it was tho'.

 

[Anonymous]

Samahain was one of the major festivals of the Celtic world - it took place around late October/early November. It certainly involved a bonfire; well, everything did in those pre-electric days. It was a mainly agricultural festival, when the non-breeding stock animals were killed and their flesh salted away for winter.

 

[rynner2]

Yes, I'm sure I've read that the Samhain bonfires (=bone-fires, remember) were shifted a few days after the Guy Fawkes affair.

 

[Jerry_B]

Some fire festivals did get rearranged to the 5th of November, others did not. They are not only of Celtic origin in the UK - some have Viking and Saxon roots. Others are more 'modern'.

 

[_Lizard23_]

In Frazier's Golden Bough there is a great deal about European fire festivals in autumn and in spring, which he largely attributes to worship of / giving thanks to / insuring the return of etc. the sun, if I recall correctly.
This is definitely a great source for this kind of material, even though his sneery old writing style can be a little bothersome at times.

 

[Anonymous]

I think the tradition of these huge fires was just that the ancients wanted one last beer bust and it's too doggone cold to have one without a bonfire.

Eventually it became traditional.

After a while, kids started asking, "Why do we have this huge fire every October, and why do you get drunk?" And the grown ups made up the samhain thing....

 

[Jerry_B]

Some fire-related celebrations are to do with purification and health/fertility - people would jump though fire, livestock would be driven through small fires, etc..

 

[James_H]

Samahain was one of the major festivals of the Celtic world - it took place around late October/early November. It certainly involved a bonfire; well, everything did in those pre-electric days. It was a mainly agricultural festival, when the non-breeding stock animals were killed and their flesh salted away for winter.

IIRC I read that from this, both Haloween and Guy fawkes nite are descendents of the same festival.

 

[Anonymous]

bonfires

This is the time of year to burn bush cuttings in your garden- surely this applied in iron age/medieval times as well, and so it grew into a celebration, as well it might.
Or was biomass too precious to waste on bonfires in those wood burning times?
Burning bones? how does that enter the picture?
steve b

 

[rynner2]

Re: bonfires

Burning bones? how does that enter the picture?

That was the historical origin of the word bonfire.

I tried Google and found a lot of interesting sites - I'll let you browse a few for yourselves.

Here's an interesting snippet from one of them:

Guy Fawkes Day was even celebrated by the pilgrims at the first settlement at Plymouth. However, as the young nation began to develop its own history, Guy Fawkes was celebrated less frequently and eventually died out.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm sure that I once read that it was already common for human effigies to be burnt on bonfires around Halloween before the gunpowder plot, and all that happened afterwards was that the effigies were made specifically to be of Guy Fawkes (and in time the date of the festivities moved to 5th November). Unfortunately I can't find the reference anywhere, and my memory isn't exactly infallible.......

However, since Guy Fawkes wasn't burnt on a bonfire, why else would the tradition of building a 'guy' have started?

 

[JamesWhitehead]

The burning of effigies is ancient and widespread. Depending on the
time of year, the symbolic figure could represent Old Winter or the
end of Harvest. The Golden Bough is famously full of this stuff.

Attributing Guy Fawkes Night to any single early festival might be a
difficult job. As Anasdottir suggests, bonfire festivals tend to have
a strong family resemblance. A new excuse for an old celebration!

I can remember being told as a young Catholic lad that we really
should not have a Guy Fawkes on our bonfire. I think that teacher
secretly hoped we would take our fireworks off to some quiet corner
underneath the Houses of Parliament.

Incidentally, is there still a ritual hunt through the cellars of Parliament
every year? I have dim memories of such a thing being shown on
Blue Peter years ago. A lot of Beefeaters camping about for the
cameras.

 

[Anonymous]

When looking into the history of Guy Fawkes (in a "why the hell do we do this every year?" kind of way) I found that at the time the effigy could also be the Pope (Protestant England and all that), which after the Gunpowder plot was largely replaced by Fawkes, a Catholic hate-figure a little more close to home.

 

[minordrag]

"Why do we have this huge fire every October, and why do you get drunk?"

As if either of those questions need answering! Self-explanatory, really.

 

[carole]

I found this on part of the Kids' Ark site:

"24 August - Burning Bartle
So who was Bartle? At West Witton, people make a straw dummy called Bartle, carry him through the town in a procession, and burn him on a bonfire on the Saturday nearest the 24th. Nobody knows for sure how this custom started. The original Bartle may have been a local thief who was burned at the stake."

And there's a fuller account here:

http://www.youhaventlived.com/bartle/dalesman.htm

Carole

 

[marion]

Without looking through rynners links ( I know I should , I'm bad ), I thought bonfires were for the burning of the bones of people whose bodies had been defleshed in the open air , by insects and birds , ( perhaps on platforms to keep larger predators away ) . All the people who had died over the year would be gathered up and burned at halloween , hence the connection with spirits and skulls etc . and the bonfires . I cant remember where I read about this though .

 

[escargot]

Re: bonfires

That was the historical origin of the word bonfire.

I tried Google and found a lot of interesting sites - I'll let you browse a few for yourselves.

Here's an interesting snippet from one of them:

I was taught at school that 'bonfire' came from 'bon', as in the French for 'good'. So it was a 'good-fire'. I thought that was nonsense even then as you wouldn't have a phrase composed of two words in different languages.

 

[Moth In Relay]

Incidentally, is their still a ritual hunt through the cellars of Parliament
every year? I have dim memories of such a thing being shown on
Blue Peter years ago. A lot of Beefeaters camping about for the
cameras.

I had the same Blue Peter memory. According to Wikipedia the Searching of the Cellars still precedes the state opening of parliament.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Opening_of_Parliament#Searching_of_the_cellars

 

[escargot]

Incidentally, is their still a ritual hunt through the cellars of Parliament
every year? I have dim memories of such a thing being shown on
Blue Peter years ago. A lot of Beefeaters camping about for the
cameras.

I remember seeing this on TV too, yup, most likely Blue Peter. There was always a topical slant to its stories and I certainly saw the famous engraving of the conspirators on the programme.

 

[escargot]

Oh yeah, and Fawkes' 'before torture' and 'after torture' signatures were on display at the British Library a few years ago when I visited. A terrible thing to see.

I like the Gunpowder Plot.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

Oh yeah, and Fawkes' 'before torture' and 'after torture' signatures were on display at the British Library a few years ago when I visited. A terrible thing to see.

I like the Gunpowder Plot.

And the lamp that Fawkes used is in the Ashmolean.

What I'd (stupidly) never considered, until the recent BBC series, was how much damage would have been caused if they'd been successful. Apparently, they had gathered 2500kg of gunpowder. It's estimated this would have caused devastation over a 500m radius or so, probably destroying Westminster Abbey as well as Parliament (not to mention rather a lot of people's homes).

 

[escargot]

And the lamp that Fawkes used is in the Ashmolean.

What I'd (stupidly) never considered, until the recent BBC series, was how much damage would have been caused if they'd been successful. Apparently, they had gathered 2500kg of gunpowder. It's estimated this would have caused devastation over a 500m radius or so, probably destroying Westminster Abbey as well as Parliament (not to mention rather a lot of people's homes).

We watched the documentary too and it's scary to think how much devastation the explosion would have caused. Not to mention the mess the country would have been left in. That'd make a good fillum!

 

[Skrymr]

The Welsh Coel Coeth is the first one that springs to mind, but my flavour of paganism is the norse one and all I can think of for that is Winternights, the 5th of November is a few days late for the end of that though.

 

[Carse]

My favourite fact about Guy Fawkes is that when he was caught he gave his name as "John Johnson" - well I suppose it's difficult to come up with a false name when put on the spot.

[on topic] I'm Scottish and I've always been baffled as to why Guy Fawkes night is celebrated here given that the gunpowder plot took place more than 100 years before the Act of Union in 1707. Thinking about it in the context of this thread, however, perhaps it's more down to the adaption of traditional winter celebrations and folk memories than anything else.

 

[Frideswide]

I'm Scottish and I've always been baffled as to why Guy Fawkes night is celebrated here given that the gunpoweder plot took place more than 100 years before the Act of Union in 1707.

speaking as a Glaswegian...... any excuse for a party!

 

[Frideswide]

24 August - Burning Bartle
So who was Bartle?

In medieval documents Bartle and variants are reasonably frequent for Bartholomew....? not sure if that helps.

Also things like Bartlme, I mean by variants!

 

[pandacracker]

I always thought Bonfire Night was co-opted from the Samhain celebrations. Also, I was told by my A level history teacher (a loooooong time ago) that Elizabeth I's coronation/accession (Nov 17th) had been celebrated with bonfires every year during her reign and it continued for a few years after her death so it seems early November has always been a time of big fires.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

My favourite fact about Guy Fawkes is that when he was caught he gave his name as "John Johnson" - well I suppose it's difficult to come up with a false name when put on the spot.

That was an alias he adopted earlier during the planning of the plot, as his name was known by the authorities.

 

[GNC]

That was an alias he adopted earlier during the planning of the plot, as his name was known by the authorities.

He could have said he came from Wisconsin and worked in a lumber mill there.