The Mythology of Punkie Night
While it would be difficult to find someone who had not heard of Halloween, it is rare to find someone who has heard of Punkie Night, a spooky South Somerset tradition dating back to 1877. As someone who had personally tried, and failed, to carve a mangelwurzel into the shape of a lantern (it’s like trying to hollow out a block of wood with a spoon), I feel qualified to tell the story.
Punkie Night is held on the last Thursday in October in the small Somerset village of Chiselborough. The tradition supposedly began when the men of the nearby village of Hinton St. George had become drunk at the Chiselborough fair, and not returned home. Their wives (concerned, or possibly annoyed) went looking for them at night, by the light of what would now be called jack-o’-lanterns but were then called ‘punkies’. These scooped-out mangelwurzels, each with a candle inside, shielded a fragile flame from the autumn gale. The intoxicated husbands saw the glow of the lanterns, and, mistaking them for the spirits of unbaptised children or will-o’-the-wisps, fled in fear from their approaching spouses.
Although the custom was first recorded in the 19th Century, Punkie Night may have much deeper roots: there is a similar Irish celebration called Púca Night, ‘púca’ meaning fairies or sprites. Given the similarity in name and the otherworldly connections, it is possible that both traditions stem from the same Celtic folklore. This seems less far-fetched when we take into account that ‘púca’, albeit with slight spelling variations, also exists in both the Welsh and Cornish languages. Together, these are the last bastions of Celtic language in southern Britain, with Somerset geographically and, at an earlier time, linguistically, placed between the two.
Equally, this is not an accidental fusion of mythical sprites with ghoulish spirits, as ‘sprite’ and ‘spirit’ themselves share a root. Traditionally, ghosts and fairies were not clearly delineated concepts: in Irish mythology, if a child died, they were believed to have been taken by the fairies. This gives more clarity to the assumption that the lanterns’ lights were children’s spirits in the Punkie Night tale. As such, it can legitimately be seen how a ‘púca’ and a ‘punkie’ might be considered in the same terms, given the cultural context.
In Púca Night, Punkie Night, and Halloween, there is a shared theme of children in costume going to their neighbour’s doors to ask for something; in the case of Púca Night and Halloween, sweet treats; in the case of Punkie Night, a candle for their punkies. The children would traditionally sing something similar to:
“It’s Punkie Night tonight,
It’s Punkie Night tonight,
Give us a candle, give us a light,
It’s Punkie Night tonight.”
Alternative or additional variations have been documented, including:
“Give us a candle, give us a light,
If you don’t, you’ll get a fright.”
This strongly resembles the familiar concept of ‘trick-or-treating’: in other words, asking for something and threatening consequences if the request is refused.
A similar association is the carving of faces or other images into punkies, relating to another Celtic festival, Samhain. Considered to be Halloween’s pagan predecessor, Samhain involved carving turnip lanterns in the likeness of hideous faces, which were carried outside or placed about the home. These were intended as a deterrent to the potentially malevolent spirits which were thought to pass between the Otherworld and our world as winter approached, when the barrier between worlds was thinned. Beliefs around the use of lanterns in both Samhain and Punkie Night could have been formed in conjunction with the need for light in the evenings as the sun begins to set earlier in autumn, as well as the amusement provided by carving an image that seems to glow when lit from behind.
Investigating the origins of Punkie Night, a regional celebration, provides a route to exploring the entangled relationships between autumn festivals in Britain and Ireland on a larger scale, picking apart their Celtic origins. This allows us to consider the role of such customs, perhaps based on myth, in the lives of real people and their communities, providing entertainment on increasingly cold and dark nights.
Written by Kate Maybury
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