EDITORIAL

Another of the great Homosexual Festivals of the year has again just been joyously celebrated by the American public-Hallowe'en, All Hallows' Eve. It is more than likely that the majority of those who decked themselves out in the ceremonial robes and grotesque masks peculiar to this ancient rite were quite unaware of exactly what it was they were celebrating. Nevertheless, they DID celebrate.

From that, homosexuals may well derive some wry amusement and a philosophical conclusion or two, along such lines as, "What you don't know can't hurt you," or perhaps, even more appropriately, the words of that earthy though unlettered soul who exclaimed, "Is THAT what you call it? Why I've been doing it for years but never did exactly know what it was called!" With Hallowe'en it is the children who, innocently enough, have not yet learned how important it is to know what anything is called, but enter most happily and without reservation into the playful sportiveness of the Festival.

Its roots do indeed reach back into the more remote mists of history to a time even earlier than the Greek Festival of Dionysos, held in late October each year, an observance they had taken over from the earlier Mesopotamian Adonis-Festival, held in adoration and idealization of Adonis, that beautiful youth, idolized for centuries by countless millions as Istar's reluctant, and homosexual, lover and later celebrated in lushly homoerotic verse by Shakespeare. As the Festival was adopted by the Romans from the Greeks its name was changed in honor of Bacchus, the priapic and homophilic god of wine.

Anyone who is interested can easily trace the entire development of the Festival down through the centuries, as the rites of the Bacchanalia became interwoven in the popular mind with the "feast of asses," the pranks of the legendary and homosexual Robin Goodfellow of Old England, or those of Til Eulenspiegel, and the German scrats, or hermaphroditic wood-goblins. Then, there was also the famous Witches' Sabbath, that ultimate celebration of all the hobgoblins. It must not be forgotten that to the mediaeval mind witchcraft and sodomy were virtually synonymous. The Witches' Sabbath and Walpurgisnacht were celebrations of costumed revelry, dearly beloved of the common folk, while frowned upon officially by the Church.

Later, by one of those ingenious twists not infrequent in ecclesiastical annals, this infamous Festival somehow found itself in the Church calendar as All Saints', or All Hallows' Eve. It may well have been argued that it would require no assemblage less than that of all the saints to disperse the hordes of witches and hobgoblins let loose on that occasion.

In any case, we still celebrate this ancient Festival today, so keeping alive the sprightly traditions of those homosexual men and women who, down through the centuries, have contributed so richly to our culture their touches of lightness and color and added much to the merriment of the nations. Long may we celebrate the prankish Festival of Adonis -Dionysos-Bacchus-and Robin Goodfellow! Perhaps one day there may come some general understanding of its deeper meanings and of its proper place in our society. William Lambert, Associate Editor

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