On the evening of Hallows Day on 31 October the boundaries  with the Otherworld fade and the dead can cross over to temporarily rejoin the living.

Experience our oldest and lost cemeteries at Flagstaff Gardens and Queen Victoria Market where thousands of bodies lie shamefully unacknowledged and uncelebrated. 

Alternatively travel though the back world of St Kilda at night experiencing historic paranormal stories, unsolved cold cases and a lost graveyard.

Tours are normally 2.5 hours by arrangement.

 Email:  melbwalks@gmail.com

HALLOWEEN or All Hallows’ Eve is an annual celebration observed in a number of countries. October 31st is the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows or All Saints.

It was apparently influenced by western European harvest festivals and festivals of the dead with possible pagan roots, particularly the Celtic Samhain. Others maintain that it has Christian origins.

Samhain was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other spirit beings to come into our world. The souls of the dead came to revisit their homes on Samhain. Feasts were held where the souls of dead kin were beckoned to attend and a place set at the table for them. Lewis Spence described it as a “feast of the dead” and “festival of the fairies”. However, harmful spirits were also thought to be active at Samhain.

So people took steps to ward-off these harmful spirits which is thought to have influenced our ‘scary’ Halloween customs today. Wearing costumes may have originated as a means of disguising oneself from these harmful spirits. In Ireland, people went about before nightfall collecting for Samhain feasts and sometimes wore costumes while doing so. In Moray during the 18th century, boys called at each house in their village asking for fuel for the Samhain bonfire.  The modern custom of trick-or-treating may have come from these practices.

 

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Map Victoria Market cemetery

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