What were they celebrating?
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illbeoneasystreet — 11 years ago(April 05, 2014 06:07 PM)
There is no such thing as a pagan calendar unless you are referring to the neopagan calendar. Pagans essentially means any religion but the Abrahamic ones. The Romans during the reign of the Holy Roman Empire used the term Pagan as a blanket term for all of the polytheistic religions scattered across Europe which includes various Scandinavian cultures including the Vikings who celebrated no such calendar. Neopagans which I am assuming you are, try to emulate cultures that we know next to nothing about mainly the celts. There was no one celtic religion, they were a tribal society that didn't have a set, set of beliefs. Religion and mythos actually varied from tribe to tribe. When the Roman Empire expanded into the British Isles eventually bringing with them Christianity they attempted to assimilate the Celts in Ireland and Scotland through missionary work. The Celts not really having a strict religion assimilated rather easily. The Romans realizing that it would be easier to convince their new subjects to convert if they could keep some of their own traditions made Christmas a winter celebration and moved many of their other celebrations to the dates we know now. The Celts in turn brought with them a whole spring of traditions that we now consider Christian traditions. Saying it was stolen expresses a clear misunderstanding of what actually went down. The Celts in Ireland and Scotland didn't have the Holy Roman Empire breathing down their necks when they converted. The missionary work was carried out buy monks who the Celts greatly out numbered and yet they converted of their own free will.
The Celts were an interesting culture but the fact of the matter is we know almost nothing about them as they didn't write anything down. The Neopagan version of the Celtic religion has very little to do with the religion it tries to emulate. In fact a good chunk of things Neopagans like to spout contradicts the few things we actually do know about the culture and the religion.
Its something you'll get used to a mental mind beep can be nice! -
alex_lestark — 14 years ago(February 27, 2012 11:24 PM)
I think you all missed the point, or maybe i was the one missing the point, but what i understood is that the aunts were suspicious about the behaviour of Sally and Gillian, and decided to take the kids aways in preparation for the forthcoming events, inventing a celebration (that may or may not have happened) Knowing that the two Owens didnt know a lot of Wiccans celebrations (because they never were into Magic that much, yes, they perform magic every now and then, but they choose to be a little more "normals" than their aunts).
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saramacg09 — 13 years ago(June 03, 2012 09:28 AM)
No. The Aunts took the girls to the celebration BEFORE Sally and Gillian even got back. They had no idea there was any suspicious behavior of Sally and Gillian. All they knew was that Gillian was in trouble (they all sensed it) and Sally went to help her.
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Lokisgodhi — 9 years ago(September 17, 2016 07:54 PM)
My guess is most mundane people are more familiar with the term solstice and likely have heard it before. The term equinox, not as likely, so they went with solstice.
susanemccool wrote:
This is written about in Goofs; that after the Summer Solstice in June, it's somehow March when Sally is "later" being recorded by the cop. So - just a mistake? -
jannispetersen — 12 years ago(February 04, 2014 05:31 PM)
There was a Blood Moon (with a clear shot on it) and I'm pretty sure the aunts said they were going to a sabbath. I don't think the script writers put any tought into, if there would be any real sabbath dates or anything for witch-crafting people, since the vast majority wouldn't know about it anyway - so I think they just made it up and the date doesn't have any meaning, really.
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LesFleursDuMal — 11 years ago(June 19, 2014 08:10 PM)
Here's the thing - whatever form of the craft the Ownens family practiced it was probably not Wicca. Though drawn from earlier practices, Wicca was only "created" in the 20th century. Clearly the line of witches and the family curse dated back to
at least
puritan Massachusetts - far before the establishment of Wicca. Perhaps they were practitioners of traditional witchcraft or similar form.
That being said, they could have pretty much been celebrating anything. -
lwarner2005 — 11 years ago(October 08, 2014 08:40 PM)
It's been a while since I read the book, but the book and movie have only the most basic things in common. The overall stories are actually very different. IIRC, the sisters didn't even live with the aunts in the book, and they did not take the kids away to any celebration. In fact, the book was fairly light on the whole magic aspect in general.