The reasons for the season's traditions
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
This week, at the Nantucket Historical Association's Sixth Annual Fall Festival, Nantucketers will be able to participate in the ageless traditions of a New England harvest. In addition to making fresh butter to go with cornbread made of the cornmeal ground at the old mill (weather permitting), Nantucketers will be decorating pumpkins, bobbing for apples and making corn husk dolls. But where did these traditions originate?

Bobbing for apples is a fall tradition, and healthy too.

BOBBING FOR APPLES

Many fall and Halloween traditions are based on the Celtic holiday of Samhain, celebrating the final harvest. During Samhain, the Celts - who had been subsumed by the Roman Empire - celebrated the Roman goddess of the harvest, Pomona. The apple was her sacred fruit. During Samhain, unmarried singles would compete to be the first to bite an apple bobbing in water or on a string. The superstition went that the first person to do so would be the next to marry.

JACK-O-LANTERNS

The Halloween tradition of pumpkin carving is descended from Irish folklore - specifically the story of a miserable, cruel old miser name Jack.

Jack spent his life belittling friends and family with tricks, and when he died, Heaven refused him. He would have wound up in hell had he not tricked the devil some years back into promising Jack that he would never wind up in hell. In death, Jack was stuck amidst the darkness between heaven and hell. The devil took pity on Jack and tossed him a burning ember from hell, which Jack carried around in a hollowed-out turnip. On All Hallow's Eve, the Irish hollowed out turnips, rutabagas, gourds, potatoes and beets, then lit them and placed them around the house to keep Jack moving. In the 1800s, Irish immigrants brought the tradition to America.

MAKING CORN HUSK DOLLS

Native Americans created the cornhusk dolls from the byproducts of their corn harvests - the husks, when soaked, became a soft and malleable medium. Children were given their own dolls to outfit. Traditionally, cornhusk dolls have no face. Native American

legend attributes this to the doll's vanity - once put in charge by the Creator of watching children, the doll eventually discovered her own beautiful reflection in water and became so enamored of herself that she neglected her childwatching duties to stare at herself. So the Creator sent an owl down to take the doll's face. During the harvest time, cornhusk dolls were used to remind children of the need to take care of responsibilities, and to value of hard work over vanity.

I

SIXTH ANNUAL HARVEST FAIR
When: Saturday, Oct. 14, 11 a.m. -
  2 p.m., (rain date Saturday, Oct. 21)
Where: Old Mill, 50 Prospect Street
Cost: Suggested family donation, $5
For more information, call 228-1894.