Samhain

Tufts students with Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, circa 1990

I knew we had an eclectic collection, but searching for Halloweeny materials in the Tufts Digital Library showed me just how eclectic. For example, Walks in London, vol. 1 is a text in Tufts' Edwin C. Bolles collection on the history of London, and chapter 9, "In the Heart of the City" describes the Church of All Hallows, baptismal site of John Milton.

20th-century poet and Tufts English professor John Holmes reminisces in his poem "My old schools" about seeing his wife "waiting at that bus-stop / For me one rainy Halloween".

And of course, Tufts students have their own say about Halloween, as in this 1996 Halloween edition of the Tufts Daily that complains about the inadequate spookiness of Spooky World. Tufts students have Halloween traditions, as well; the Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History lets us know that the Tufts Mountain Club puts pumpkins on top of Goddard Chapel every Halloween.

(If you aren't interested in Halloween, just wait a few more days and it will be time for Guy Fawkes Day and the commemoration of the gunpowder plot!)