When I was 19, I moved to England from the Isle of Man, and promptly discovered that the English celebrate the 31st October all wrong! They call it Halloween, not Hop Tu Naa, and people hollow out pumpkins and go trick or treating.
The Isle of Man does it the right way. Here’s why.
Hop Tu Naa
For one thing, the Manx call 31st October ‘Hop Tu Naa,’ which means, approximately, ‘This is the Night.’ Originally, it marked the night when the Celtic calendar year changed – New Year’s Eve, when the calendar year revolved around summer and winter. 31st October was the end of summer and the start of winter.
Don’t Use Pumpkins, You Turnips!
For lanterns, the English might have gone soft and use easy-to-carve pumpkins, but the Manx prefer to use turnips, called ‘moots,’ causing many injuries in the process! Pumpkins were unknown in Europe until the Americas were discovered, so the Manx simply kept the original tradition alive. Lanterns were an essential part of the festival because the cross over between the old year and the new was a dangerous time, when evil spirits could roam the land (and skies).
Trick or Treating V Hop Tu Naa
English people have enthusiastically imported the American custom of Trick or Treating, but when I was a child, we had no such easy route to our rewards on October 31st. Turning up at a house and saying Trick or Treat would have got us nothing! Instead, we had to sing ‘Jinny The Witch’:
- Jinny the Witch flew over the house
- To fetch the stick to lather the mouse
- Hop Tuu Naa, Hop Tu Naa
- My mother’s gone away
- And she won’t be back until the morning!
The song has many more lyrics, but those were the only ones we knew back in the day. Nowadays, Manx children actually learn the song as part of their cultural heritage, so any Manx child could probably go into much greater detail, but you get the idea.
The Rewards
For nearly cutting off our fingers carving out turnips rather than pumpkins, and for singing ourselves hoarse on cold autumn nights, we weren’t given chocolates or Haribos. Our rewards were much better, because we were given money. Often the spoils were enough to tide us over until Christmas.
Have Your Say
So as it turns out, Halloween and Hop Tu Naa share the same date, but commemorate two different things. Hop Tu Naa’s origin stems from the Celtic New Year. Halloween marks the start of All Hallow’s tide – the season when Christians remember the dead.
Now you know about the way the Manx celebrate 31st October, if you were a child, which would you prefer?
Further Reading
The Demon Dog of the Isle of Man
The Vampire Grave of the Isle of Man
Links
Culture Vannin has an excellent set of resources about Hop Tu Naa
BBC article about the difference between Hop Tu Naa and Halloween
Do Not Keep Silent
My forthcoming novel No Way To Live is partly set on the Isle of Man.
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