Rituals of one kind and another.

I have recently informed friends on Facebook that I don't want to be LinkedIn. I don't need another social network. I have not ventured into the world of tweeting and twittering. My husband is even worse ( or should that be better?) as he is a Facebook refusenik. He simply doesn't want anything to do with it. Just as well, I suppose, as it takes him all his time to deal with the emails that come in. 

And now I've just read about someone employing a "social media manager" for a month. She can't keep up with her Facebook likes and comments, her tweets and her twitters and is experimenting with having an agency deal with it for her. I suppose that if you are a journalist you need to have a respectable number of "followers". It's a credibility thing apparently. But really, if you haven't the time to go through your Facebook stuff, does it matter? Surely it's better to be actually living your life and doing things than living a virtual life through the electronic media. Weird and strange! All part of modern magic and witchcraft. 

In my Italian conversation class we have been talking about Hallowe'en. Yes, I know it's been and gone but we had a week off for half term when Hallowe'en came along. Now, I am one of those who has gone on and on about Hallowe'en, at least in its modern "trick or treat" incarnation, being an American invention. A lot of the things we talked about and read about revealed that youngsters going round from house to house was a traditional part of activities at this time of year. Granted what they were doing was offering to pray for the souls of the dead but they were receiving sweets, fruits and occasionally money for it. 

It all goes back, of course, to pagan rituals. We had been asked to come prepared to talk about our own childhood memories of Hallowe'en. So I talked about "apple bobbing" at hotspot suppers and going around asking for a penny for the guy in the run up to bonfire night. A little investigation showed that the game of floating apples in a bucket of water and trying to get them out with your teeth was almost certainly introduced by the Romans as part of the celebration of the goddess Pomona, goddess of fruit trees and represented by ... wait for it ... an apple tree. It's all about fertility rites and stuff like that. 

And even the song sung by kids collecting (no, begging!!) pennies for the guy (We come a cob a coalin', come a coalin', come a coalin' We come a cob a coalin' on/(for) BonFire Night. ) is believed to have been part of old Mummers Plays before the Gunpowder Plot stuff along. 

So first we had pagan rituals, which the Romans combined with the worship of their many gods and goddesses. Then along came Christianity and overlaid it's celebrations on the pagan, Celtic, Roman stuff. And now we can put it all out into the world via social media. 

Is nothing new under the sun?