Halloween

A Halloween jack o’ lantern

30 October 2020

[Edit 31 October 2021: revised the wording of the possible connection with Samhain]

Halloween is a Scottish shortening of All-Hallow’s Eve, or more exactly its older form All-Hallow-Even. It is, of course, the day before All Saint’s Day, which falls on 1 November. Many people associate the Celtic, pagan festival of Samhain with Halloween, largely because it falls on the same day and because some of the elements of the modern practice of Halloween are similar to practices associated with the Celtic holiday. But the connection to the Celtic holiday is disputed. In the early Christian church the celebration of all saints was held in the spring, associated with Easter or Pentecost. Pope Gregory III changed the date to 1 November in c.731. Why Gregory III changed the date is unknown. Some contend it was to align the holiday with Samhain—it was a common practice for the Christian church to co-opt pagan festivals in this manner—but others contend that the date was chosen because that’s when Gregory dedicated an oratory to all saints in Old St. Peter’s Basilica.

References to All Saint’s Day go back to Old English. For example, here is a reference to it from Ælfric’s homily for the feast day, written in the closing years of the tenth century:

Halige lareowas ræddon þæt seo geleaffulle gelaþung þisne dæg eallum halgum to wurðmynte mærsie.

(Holy teachers have instructed that the faithful church celebrate this day to piously honor all saints.)

A decade or so later, Wulfstan, the Archbishop of York refers to the day before All Saint’s Day in a list of days when contributions to the church are due. All Saints Eve is one of the three days of the year when payments to keep the churches lighted are due:

Ærest sulhælmessan xv niht ofer eastran, geogoðe teoðunge be pentecosten, Romfeoh be Petres mæssan, eorðwæstma be ealra halgena mæssan, cyricsceat to Martinus mæssan, and leohtgesceotu þriwa on geare, ærest on easteræfen, and oðre siðe on candelmæsseæfen, þriddan siðe on ealra halgena mæsseæfen.

(First plow-alms 15 nights over Easter, tithe of the young beasts at Pentecost, Peter’s penny by St. Peter’s mass, crops by All-Saint’s mass, church-payment at St. Martin’s mass, and the light-payment three times a year, first at Easter-Eve, and the second time at Candlemas-Eve, and the third time at All-Saint’s-Mass-Eve.)

We get a reference to All Hallows’ Eve in the Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, found in the manuscript London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A.11, which was copied c.1325. The date is mentioned because Robert died on 31 October 1147:

Roberd erl of gloucestere · of wan we speke er ·
An alle halwe eue deide · þulke sulue ȝer ·
& in þe priorie of seint iame · at bristowe ibured was ·

(Robert, earl of Gloucester, of whom we speak here,
On All-Hallow’s Eve died, this same year,
And in the Priory of Saint James at Bristol was buried.)

John Shillingford, the mayor of Exeter, England, mentions the date in a letter of 2 November 1447, not a happy day for him either, evidently:

The morun tuysday al Halwyn yeven y receyved the answeris to oure articulis at Westminster of the whiche y sende yow a true copy, yn the whiche articulis as hit appereth they have spatte out the uttmyst and worste venym that they cowde seye or thynke by me.

(The Tuesday morning of All-Hallows’ Eve I received the answers to our articles at Westminster, of which I am sending you a true copy, in these articles as it appears they have spat out the utmost and worst venom that they could say or think about me.)

And we finally get the form Halloween in the late eighteenth century. From a poem by Robert Fergusson, published in 1773:

Foul sa me gif your bridal had na been
Nae langer bygane that sin Hallow-e’en,
I cou’d hae teil’d you but a warlock’s art,
That some daft lyghtlyin quean had stown your heart.

(The foul [fiend] said to me if your wedding had not been
No longer ago than since Halloween,
I could have told you by a warlock’s art,
That some daft scornful woman had stolen your heart.)

Based on the contexts of these early citations of the word’s use, it’s no wonder why 31 October developed a bad and spooky reputation.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Ælfric. “Kalende Novembris Natale Omnium Sanctorum.” Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, The First Series. Peter Clemoes, ed. Early English Text Society, S.S. 17, Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997, 486.

Fergusson, Robert. “An Eclogue.” Poems. Edinburgh: Walter & Thomas Ruddiman, 1773, 86. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. al-halwe(n, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Hallow-e’en, n.; third edition, September 2012, s.v. All-Hallows, n.

Shillingford, John. “IV. Shillingford to his Fellows (2 November 1447). Letters and Papers of John Shillingford. Stuart A. Moore, ed. Camden Society. Westminster: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1871, 16. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wright, William Aldis, ed. Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, vol. 2 of 2. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode for the Stationary Office, 1887, lines 9536–38, 673. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Wulfstan. Canons of Edgar. Roger Fowler, ed. Early English Text Society, O.S. 266. London: Oxford UP, 1972.

Photo credit: Carole Pasquier, 2004, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

ghost / give up the ghost

The “Brown Lady” of Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England; 1936 image of a ghostly figure on a staircase; likely created by the photographers as a hoax using a double exposure, possibly of a photo of a Virgin Mary statue superimposed on that of the staircase

30 October 2020

The Present-Day English word ghost comes from the Old English gast, which carried most of the meanings that the word does today. For instance, gast could refer to the apparition of a dead person, which is perhaps the most common sense of the word today. The Old English Martyrology, a collection of some 230 saints’ lives written in the Mercian dialect has this entry for the feast day of St. Emiliana, 5 January:

On ðone fiftan dæg þæs monðes bið Sancte Emelianan tid ðære fæmnan, þæt wæs Sancte Gregorius faðe, ðæs þe us fulwiht onsænde. Hire ætywde on nihtlicre gesyhðe hire swyster gast ond cwæþ to hire: “Butan þe ic dede þone halgan dæg æt Drihtnes acennisse, ac ic do mid þe ðone halgan dæg æt Drihtnes ætywnesse, þæt is se Drihtnes halga twelfta dæg, Drihtnes fullwihtes dæg.”

(On the fifth day of the month is the feast of Saint Emiliana, the paternal aunt of Saint Gregory, who sent us baptism. Her sister’s ghost manifested to her in a nocturnal vision and said to her, I celebrated the holy day of the Lord’s birth without you, but I will celebrate with you the holy day of the Lord’s epiphany, that is the Lord’s holy twelfth day, the day of the Lord’s baptism.)

Presumably Emiliana died the next day, perhaps of fright, for having your dead sister appear to you and tell you that you’re going to die in a few days is a rather spooky occurrence.

But gast had other senses, many of them akin to the senses of the Latin spiritus, meaning breath, soul, spirit. And spirit may be the modern word with the range of meanings closest to that of the Old English gast. In the poem Andreas, gast is used to refer to the breath or spirit of life in a passage in which God has made and then commands a creature of stone:

Ða se Þeoden bebead    þryð-weorc faran,
stan on stræte    of stede-wange,
ond forð gan    fold-weg tredan,
grene grundas,    Godes ærendu
larum lædan    on þa leod-merce
to Channaneum,    cyninges worde,
beodan Habrahame    mid his eaforum twæm
of eorð-scræfe    æreest fremman,
lætan land-reste,    leoðo gadrigean,
gaste onfon    ond geogoðhade,
ed-niwinga    andweard cuman,
frode fyrn-weotan,    folce gecyðan,
hwylcne hie God mihtum    ongiten hæfdon.

(Then the Lord commanded that mighty work to go, stone on the street, from that place, and go forth, to tread the earth, the green ground, to carry God’s message as taught by the king’s words into the people’s-land of the Canaanites, to command Abraham, with his two sons, to perform a rising from the grave, to leave their tombs, to gather their limbs, to receive their ghosts and youthfulness, appear present once more, those wise ancient-counselors, to preach to the people what sort of God they had perceived through his might.)

Old English even had the idiomatic phrase give up the ghost, meaning to die, that is still used in Present-Day English. The Old English translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People found in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 279 contains this passage about the death of Aidan of Lindisfarne:

& þa gelamp hit þæt se halga bisceop hine onhylde to anre þære studa, utan to þære cyricean geseted wæs þære cyricean to wraþe, & þær þa his gast ageaf

(And it happened that the holy bishop leaned on a post there outside the church that was set there to support the church and there he gave up his ghost)

Bede’s original Latin uses spiritum uitae exhalaret ultimum (finally he exhaled the breath of life).

Gast could also be used to refer to God, especially the third part of the Christian Trinity, the Holy Spirit, which is still often called the Holy Ghost in Present-Day English. From Ælfric’s homily Feria IIII de fide catholica:

Ælmihtig God is se fæder. ælmihtig God is se sunu ælmihtig God is se halga gast

(Almighy God is the Father; almighty God is the Son; almighty God is the Holy Ghost.)

And gast could refer to the soul or essential element of a person. Again, from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History:

Forþon þrim gemetum bið gefylled gwhilc syn, þæt is, ærest þurh scynnesse, & þurh lustfullnesse, & þurh geðafunge. Seo scynis bið þurh deoful, seo lustfulnes bið þurh lichoman, seo geðafung þurh gast.

(Because each sin is fulfilled in three ways, that is, first through incitement, and through lustfulness, and through consent. The incitement is through the devil; the lustfulness is through the body; the consent is through the ghost.)

Bede’s original Latin reads consensus per spiritum (consent through the spirit).

But there are senses of ghost today that did not exist in Old English. For example, there is the verb to ghost, meaning to cut off contact with a person, to suddenly stop returning their calls and texts. This sense is in place by 2010, when it’s recorded in Urbandictionary.com.

Ghost

To avoid someone until they get the picture and stop contacting you.

The mother fucker is annoying yo. I’m guna have to ghost him until he gets the point.

The example sentence given by Urbandictionary is fictional, but here is one from 20 June 2015 on the website Jezebel.com:

According to the rumor mill Charlize Theron broke her engagement with Sean Penn by ghosting (aka, the act of never returning calls, text messages, or e-mails). “Charlize wasn’t responding to his calls and texts,” a presumable person told Us Weekly. “She just cut it off.” Ghosting might be the shittiest breakup method, but generally a person worthy of ghosting has really done something really, truly terrible. It’s worth noting again that Theron did it to Sean Penn, which might alone be a worthy reason.

If Bede or Ælfric had cell phones, maybe they would have ghosted people too, but then again maybe not. After all, it’s hard to avoid people when you live in a monastic community.

Discuss this post

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Sources:

Ælfric. “Feria IIII de fide catholica.” (“Holy Day 4: About the Catholic Faith”). Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies, the First Series. Peter Clemoes, ed. Early English Text Society, S.S. 17. Oxford UP, 1997, 336.33–34.

Andreas. In Clayton, Mary, ed. Old English Poems of Christ and His Saints. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, DOML 27. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2013, lines 773–785, 234–237.

Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bertram Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors, eds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969, 3.17, 264 and 1.27, 100.

Bede. The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, part 1. Thomas Miller, ed. Early English Text Society, O.S. 95. London: Oxford UP, 1890, 86.25–28.

Dictionary of Old English: A to I, 2018, s.v. gast, gæst.

Edwards, Stassa. “Charlize Theron Broke Up With Sean Penn by Ghosting Him.” Jezebel.com, 20 June 2015.

Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. ghost n., ghost v.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. ghost n., ghost, v.

Rauer, Christine. The Old English Martyrology. Anglo-Saxon Texts 10. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2013, 42.

Urbandictionary.com, 6 October 2010, s.v. ghost.

Photo credit: Hubert Provand and Shira Indre, 19 September 1936, originally published in Country Life, 26 December 1936.

goblin / hobgoblin

A girl paying goblins for fruit by cutting off a lock of her blonde hair, illustrating the line “Buy from us with a golden curl” from Christina Rossetti’s 1859 poem The Goblin Market, drawn by her brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti

29 October 2020

A goblin is a malevolent, gnome-like creature of folklore and fantasy. The word’s etymology is rather straightforward. It comes from the Old French gobelin, which is attested to once in the twelfth century and then becomes more common in the sixteenth century. The French presumably got it from the unattested Latin *gobalus, which in turn is from the Greek κόβαλος (kobalos), meaning rogue or knave, and its plural κόβαλοι (kobaloi), which can carry the meaning of mischievous sprites.

Goblin first appears in English in the first half of the fourteenth century in the poem “Of Rybaudȝ,” which appears in the manuscript London, British Library, MS Harley 2253. Harley 2253 is an anthology of poetry that contains a large number of early Middle English poetic works. The lines in question are:

The harlotes bueth horlynges ant haunteth the plawe,
The gedelynges bueth glotouns ant drynketh er hit dawe,
Sathanas, huere syre, seyde on is sawe:
“Gobelyn made is gerner of gromene mawe.”

(The scoundrels are fornicators and pursue pleasure;
The bastards are gluttons and drink until dawn.
Satan, their sire, said in his proverb:
“A goblin sets his storehouse in a young man’s stomach.”)  

A hobgoblin is pretty much the same creature. The hob- element comes from a familiar form of the name Robin or Robert. This hypocoristic form of the name also appears first in Harley 2253, this time in the poem “Lystneth, lordynges!,” which mocks King Robert the Bruce of Scotland:

Nou Kyng Hobbe in the mures yongeth;
Forte come to toune nout him ne longeth.
The barouns of Engelond, myhte hue him gripe,
He him wolde techen on Englysshe to pype
           Thourh streynthe.
      Ne be he ner so stout,
      Yet he bith ysoht out
      O brede ant o leynthe

(Now King Hob walks on the moors;
For to come to town doesn’t suit him
The barons of England, if they might seize him,
Would teach him to pipe in English
           By Force,
      Though he be never so brave,
      Yet he is sought out
      Far and wide.)

In the late fifteenth century, the name Robin or Robert, and the associated Hob, become associated with elves or sprites, most famously in the name of Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cf. hobbit ). But the first appearance of hob as a noun meaning such a sprite is in the second Towneley play, the “Murder of Abel.” The plays appear in the manuscript San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 1, which was copied sometime between 1475–1500 C.E. In the passage in question, Cain refers to God as a hob:

Deus.   Cam, whi art thou so rebell
            Agans thi brother Abell?

            Thar thou nowther flyte ne chyde.
            If thou tend right thou gettys thi mede;
            And be thou sekir, if thou teynd fals,
            Thou bese alowed therafter als.

Caym.  Whi, who is that hob ouer the wall?
            We? who was that piped so small?
            Com, go we hens, for parels all—
            God is out of hys wit!
            Com furth, Abell, and let vs weynd
            Me thynk that God is not my freynd.

(God    Cain, why are you so rebellious
            Against your brother Abel?

            There you should neither scold nor argue.
            If you do right, you will get your reward,

And you will be safe, but if you tend false,
You will be likewise compensated thereafter.

Cain    Why, who is that hob over the wall?
We? Who was that who chirped so faintly?
Come, let us go hence, for it is dangerous to all—
God is out of his wits!
Come forth, Abel, and let us go
I think that God is not my friend.)

The first known appearance of hobgoblin is in a glossary in John Palsgrave’s 1530 French grammar:

Hobgoblyng    gobelin s ma. mavffe s te.

And a fuller context can be gleaned from its use in Thomas Drant’s 1567 translation of Horace’s Ars poetica (The Poetic Art):

The things thats fainde for pleasure sake be nexte to true in place.
No commodie can hope to haue all credit in eche case.
To bringe in as a trim deuise an ould wyfes chat, or tale
Of wiches buggs, and hobgoblings, such trashe is noughte to sayle.
Unprofitable Poesies, the sage sorte will not heare
And austere woorkes, the youthfull sorte will ouerlooke them cleare.

(The things that are desired for pleasure’s sake should be near to the truth.
No comedy can hope to be believed in every case.
To bring in as a pretty device an old wives’ prattle or tale
Of witches bugs and hobgoblins, such trash is not to be circulated.
Unprofitable poetry the wise sort will not hear,
And austere works the young sort will clearly despise.)

Discuss this post

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Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v. goblin, n.

Horace. Horace His Art of Poesie. Thomas Drant, trans. London: Thomas Marshe, 1567, B.3–B.4. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

“Lystneth, lordynges! A newe song Ichulle bigynne / The Execution of Sir Simon Fraser.” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, vol. 2. Susanna Greer Fein, ed. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2014.

Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. gobelin, n.

“Of Rybauds Y Ryme ant Red o My Rolle.” The Complete Harley 2253 Manuscript, vol. 3. Susanna Greer Fein, ed. TEAMS Middle English Text Series. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2015.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2016, s.v. goblin, n.1; second edition, 1989, s.v. hobgoblin, n. (and adj.), Hob, n.1.

Palsgrave, John. Lesclarcissement de la Langue Francoyse. London: Richard Pynson and John Hawkins, 1530, fol. 40r. Early English Books Online (EEBO).

Robbins, Rossell Hope. Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959, 28, 216. HathTrust Digital Archive.

Stevens, Martin and A.C. Cawley, eds. The Towneley Plays, vol 1 of 2. Early English Text Society, S.S. 13. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, 20. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

Image credit: Dante G. Rossetti, frontispiece from Rossetti, Christina. Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1862.

vampire

Screenshot from the trailer for the 1931 film Dracula featuring Bela Lugosi as the title character

28 October 2020

The ultimate origin of the name of this blood-sucking fiend is somewhat in dispute, but vampire’s history in the English language is fairly well established. It’s first known appearance in English is in 1731/32. (The difference in years is because England and Wales adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1751, and New Year’s Day shifted from 25 March to 1 January. It was 1731 by the contemporary reckoning and 1732 by present-day reckoning.)

The major dictionaries are all in agreement that English borrowed vampire from the French vampyre, which borrowed it from the German vampir, which borrowed it from the Serbian vampir. Beyond that, the trail gets muddy, but the word is ultimately either of Slavic or Turkic origin.

The English word first appears in a news item published in the Grub-Street Journal of 16 March 1731/32. The story relates the tale of Arnold Paul, an alleged vampire. The story is well known in vampire lore and contains many of the tropes we currently associate with the myth, and it is one the first vampire stories to be widely disseminated in western Europe. The tale, as printed in the Grub-Street Journal bears a dateline of 10 March 1731/32 and reads as follows:

Medreyga in Hungary, Jan. 7, 1732. Upon a current Report, that in the Village of Medreyga certain dead Bodies (called here Vampyres) had killed several Persons, by sucking out all their blood, the present Enquiry was made by the Honourable Commander in Chief; and Capt. Gorschutz of the Company of Stallater, the Hadnagi Bariacrar, and the Senior Heyduke of the village were severally examined: who unanimously declared that about 5 Years ago a certain Heyduke, named Arnold Paul, was killed by the overturning of a cart load of hay, who in this life-time was often heard to say, he had been tormented near Caschaw, and upon the Borders of Turkish Servia, by a Vampyre; and that to extricate himself, he had eaten some of the Earth of the Vampyres graves, and rubb’d himself with their Blood.——That 20 or 30 Days after the decease of the said Arnold Paul, several persons complained that they were tormented, and that, in short, he had taken away the lives of four persons. In order, therefore, to put a stop to such a calamity, the inhabitants of the place, after having consulted their Hadnagi, caused the Body of the said Arnold Paul to be taken up, 40 Days after he had been dead, and found the same to be fresh and free from all manner of corruption; that he bled at the nose, mouth and ears, as pure and florid blood as ever was seen; and that his shroud and winding sheet were all over bloody; and lasty his finger and toe nails were fallen off, and new ones grown in their room.——As they observed from all these circumstances, that he was a Vampyre, they, according to custom, drove a stake through his heart; at which he gave a horrid groan, and lost a great deal of blood. Afterwards they burnt his body to ashes the same day, and threw them into his grave.——These good men say farther, that all such as have been tormented, or killed by Vampyres, become Vampyres when they are dead; and therefore they served several other dead bodies as they had done Arnold Paul’s, for tormenting the living.—Signed, Batuer, first Lieutenant of the Regiment of Alexander. Flikbenger, Surgeon Major to the Regiment of Furstemburch.—Three other Surgeons. Gurschitz, Captain a Stallath.

The story was retold and reprinted several times, becoming quite famous in England. Several weeks after the initial printing, it was reprinted in the Craftsman of 20 May 1732, which in addition to the retelling the Paul story also used vampire in a figurative sense, that of someone who uses a position of trust to embezzle money:

Give me Leave to observe, in this Place, that Private Persons may be Vampyres, in some Degree, as well as Those in publick Employments. I look upon all Sharpers, Usurers and Stockjobbers in this Light, as well as fraudulent Guardians, unjust Stewards, and the dry Nurses of great Estates. I make no Doubt that a noble Colonel, lately deceased, hath already convinced several Families that He is a Vampyre; and I could mention several other Gentlemen, in great Favour at present, who have intitled Themselves to same Denomination.

It will not, I suppose, be deny’d that many of the late South-Sea Directors were Tormenters of this Sort; and I heartily with that the present Managers of that Company may not furnish us with some Instances of the same Nature.

The Charitable Corporation hath produced a plentiful Crop of these Blood-suckers, whose Depredations have already ruin’d a Multitude of People, and I am afraid will torment others, even yet unborn.

Within a year this figurative use of vampire was being used without any reference to “real” vampires, indicating that the myth had become fully established in the English psyche. From an open letter to Robert Walpole of 28 February 1733/34:

When a Dutchman is paying his Taxes, which he does with every Bit he puts in his Mouth, it is some Satisfaction to him to know that he is not giving from his Family what he has earned with the sweat of his Brows, to build Palaces, and make magnificent Gardens; to buy glaring Equipages, sumptuous Furniture, Jewels, Plate, and costly Pictures, &c. to indulge the Luxury, and gratify the Rapine of a fat-gutted Vampire.

A similar use is by Charles Hornby in a review of a book about British peerages, where he uses vampire in a discussion of an error in the book. Evidently, the author of the book confused Robert de Brus, a.k.a. Bruce the Competitor, fifth lord of Annandale, who died in 1295, with more famous his grandson, Robert the Bruce, soon-to-be king of Scotland, who killed John Comyn in 1306:

Is there one who looks into the History of those Times, but knows, that John Comyn of Badenach was killed at Dumfries in the Beginning of the year 1306; and our Author has told us, (and very truly as it happens) that this Competitor died in the Year 1295. Now, dear Sir, is it not very miraculous, that his Disappointment should make as blood-thirsty as a Vampire, and that after about ten Years he should steal out of his Grave, with a malicious Design to commit Murder?

Our present-day conception of a suave, aristocratic vampire was invented by John William Polidori in his 1819 gothic horror story The Vampyre, which featured an English nobleman, a Lord Ruthven, as the vampire. Polidori’s novel is also of note because the germ of the story was planted during an 1816 story-telling contest with Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley. And Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was also famously the result of this contest.

Of course, the most famous vampire is Count Dracula, created by Bram Stoker in his 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Stoker’s character is named after Vlad III of Wallachia (c.1430–1476/77), a.k.a. Vlad Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. Other than the name, Stoker’s character bears little resemblance to the historical figure. Stoker is likely to have read and been influenced by Polidori’s story.

Discuss this post

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[29 October edit: added paragraph about and reference to Polidori’s novel]

Sources:

American Heritage Dictionary, fifth edition, 2020, s.v., vampire, n.

The Craftsman, 9.307, 20 May 1732. London: R. Francklin, 1737, 120–22, 127. HathiTrust Digital Archive.

“Foreign News.” (10 March 1731/32). The Grub-Street Journal (London), no. 115, 16 March 1731/32. Gale News Vault.

Forman, Charles. A Second Letter to the Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole. London: J. Wilford, 28 February 1733/34, 38. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Hornby, Charles. A Third Letter Containing Some Further Remarks on a Few More of the Numberless Errors and Defects in Dugdale’s Baronage. London: 1738, 204–05. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO).

Merriam-Webster.com, 2020, s.v. vampire, n.

Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. vampire, n.

Shapiro, Fred. “Antedating of Vampire.” ADS-L, 22 April 2013.

Photo credit: Dracula, Tod Browning and Karl Freund, dir., Universal Pictures, 1931. Public domain image in the United States.

October surprise

27 October 2020

Political columnist and word maven William Safire defined an October surprise as a “last minute disruption before an election; unexpected political stunt, revelation, or diplomatic maneuver that could affect an election’s outcome.” The term is often applied, but not exclusively so, to such events that are orchestrated by one of the political campaigns.

During the 2016 presidential election, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress on 28 October, less than two weeks before the election, announcing that the FBI was reopening its investigation into Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she had been Secretary of State. Comey’s action, which was contrary to Justice Department policy regarding such announcements that could influence an election, certainly qualified as an October surprise, although there is considerable debate as to whether or not it tipped the scales in favor of Donald Trump’s candidacy.

And with October 2020 nearly over, it doesn’t appear that there will be an October surprise this election cycle—although the bruhaha over Hunter Biden’s laptop, something that will surely be relegated to a footnote, at best, when the histories are written, was clearly a very inept attempt by the Trump campaign to generate one. But regardless of whether or not one appears, for forty years, the fear of an October surprise has hung over every presidential campaign.

The term October surprise dates to 1980, and was apparently coined by someone in Ronald Reagan’s campaign in reference to the campaign’s fear that just before the election President Jimmy Carter would announce the release of the fifty-two American hostages that were being held by Iran. The hostages had been taken on 4 November 1979, exactly one year prior to election day in 1980.

Syndicated political columnist Jack Anderson first reported on the phrase on 10 June 1980:

The biggest fear in Ronald Reagan’s inner circle right now is that Jimmy Carter will get an unexpected boost in the election campaign from an “October surprise.” Reagan’s advisers worry that a startling news development like last year’s “November surprise,” the Tehran hostage seizure, will rally support around a beleaguered president.

There’s not much the Republicans can do to forestall such an unpredictable blockbuster, so they’ll continue to hammer away at the gap between candidate Carter’s promises and President Carter’s achievements.

Meanwhile, Reagan is working on a “July surprise” of his own for unveiling at the Detroit convention. His choice of a running mate, insiders confide, will be someone who can broaden his appeal, rather than a political carbon copy who might please only a narrow base of ultraconservative true believers.

The July surprise turned out to be the naming of Reagan’s former rival for the Republican nomination, George H.W. Bush, as his running mate, just as Anderson reported. But July surprise didn’t become a catchphrase, presumably because July is too far away from a November election to be a surprise to voters.

But October surprise rapidly caught on and became a term of political art, and the term appears in numerous newspaper stories and columns starting in July. As reported by the Ithaca Journal, Reagan’s campaign was going on the record about it by 15 July 1980, although they were cagey about linking the surprise to the hostages, lest they be accused of “playing politics” with the international crisis:

Predicting an “October surprise” by President Carter, top campaign aides to Ronald Reagan said this morning they will establish an “intelligence operation” to monitor Carter’s political activities this fall.

[...]

As for the “October surprise,” neither Casey nor Meese would predict precisely what they had in mind. “it could be almost anything from a summit conference on energy to something happening in South America,” Casey said. “I don’t know if it will be wage and price controls or what.”

While July surprise did not turn out to have any legs, November surprise, however, did have a brief time in the spotlight in 1980. As October drew to a close and the prospect of release of the hostages that month dimmed, sights turned toward it happening in first few days of November. On 17 October 1980, the West Palm Beach Post quoted third-party candidate John Anderson using it, although he was referring to his hopes for surprise victory on election day:

John Anderson said yesterday he is in the race for president until the last polling place is closed, and that President Carter will get a “November surprise” on election day.

This use contrasts with the use of October surprise on the same page of the paper, this time referring to a political endorsement that Reagan received:

Reagan got what his aides call the campaign’s “October surprise” yesterday when Ralph David Abernathy, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and his colleague Hosea Williams endorsed the Republican nominee.

Such an endorsement would hardly be a surprise today, but in 1980 evangelical support for the Republican party was not a given, and Carter, an evangelical Christian himself, was widely thought to have significant support from that quarter.

But with November looming, the surprise once again turned to the release of the hostages. An editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on 24 October 1980 read:

[Carter] has a positive obligation to be alert to any Iranian initiative that might lead to the release of the 52 Americans—and respond to it.

But to the extent possible, he should do his best to prevent any such solution from taking on the appearance of a “November surprise,” not only in the posture he takes in any private negotiations but also in his comments about Iran on the campaign trail, which ought to be muted.

And on 31 October 1980 the Boston Globe reported that Carter campaign officials had all but given up hope that the hostages would be released before the election:

A spokesman for Carter’s national campaign said privately yesterday that even though it would be a big boost for the President, “in my heart, I don’t think the hostages are coming out in time for the election.” Another Carter campaign operative in Washington said privately: “Reagan’s people were talking about an October surprise. I wish we could give them the hostages as a November surprise, but I doubt it.”

Carter’s State Department, however, would continue to work for the hostages’ release, and that happened on 20 January 1981, Reagan’s inauguration day.

After the 1980 election, November surprise faded from memory—just as July was too early for a surprise, November was too late—while talk of an October surprise continued to crop up every four years.

Yet to be seen is whether or not the concept of an October surprise will continue as early voting and vote-by-mail becomes the standard methods of holding an election and the prospect of an event catching a significant number of voters by surprise in the closing days of a campaign becomes less likely.

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Sources:

Anderson, Jack. “2 Big Fish Escape ABSCAM Net” (syndicated). Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota), 10 June 1980, 2C. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“GOP Expects ‘Surprise.’” Ithaca Journal (New York), 15 July 1980, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

“The Hostage Temptation” (editorial). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 24 October 1980, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Nyhan, David. “Carter’s Pennsylvania Foes Fear an Election-Day Surprise.” Boston Globe, 31 October 1980, 6. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, March 2004, s.v. October, n.

Post Wire Services. “Anderson: ‘I Have a Chance.” The Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), 17 October 1980, A2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

———. “Reagan Gets Key Support.” The Post (West Palm Beach, Florida), 17 October 1980, A2. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

Safire, William. Safire’s Political Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008, 487.