# ShadowFest

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shadowfest/328693>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 31, 2005, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shadowfest/328693 "2005-10-31T08:38:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shadowfest/328693/1 "2005-10-31T08:38:39Z")

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Happy Samhain, Pagan Dopers. Let me embrace my inner _ **DARKNESS** _. It’s the reason for the season. In contemporary Stregheria, Samhain is called _Festa dell’Ombra_—which means ShadowFest. The dead revisit the earth of the living. Three days: October 31, November 1 & 2, comparable to _Día de los Muertos_. The dead joys of my life rise from the grave and want to party down with me.

Thinking of Stregheria because Samhain puts me in mind of my ancestors. The grandmothers of my grandmothers in Sicily.

In Persian, they have a striking expression meaning to suffer extreme grief, perhaps tinged with remorse: _khûn-e jegar kh[sup]v[/sup]ordan_, literally ‘to drink the blood of the liver.’ The liver was the traditional home of bile, and later melancholia (black bile) came to be associated with it too.

Johanna D’ark

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shadowfest/328693/2 "2005-10-31T08:49:45Z")

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Bereaved Blessings of this Sombrous Sabbat to you all. \<_moan…_\>

Danse macabre,  
Giovanna

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shadowfest/328693/3 "2005-10-31T08:54:51Z")

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'Tis the Dark of the Moon this very night…