By Madeleine Blake

Each fall, as Halloween comes and goes, with its attendant ghouls, ghosts and scarecrows, I wonder how scarecrows fit with the spooky aspect of Halloween. A straw-man is not scary. Certainly, they are designed to scare birds in the spring, but how did they get to be associated with Halloween?

As an English transplant in Carroll County, it is my theory that scarecrows in the fall are a result of a cross-cultural mix-up. I believe that the making of scarecrows in the fall, may have come with early English settlers who would have been accustomed to making an effigy of a man named Guy Fawkes each November.

English children still make “Guys” in late October to be ready for Guy Fawkes Day on November 5. The commemoration is not politically-correct by modern standards, but since the events that started it are four hundred years old, it is a long-standing tradition, and has lost any political connotation it may have had.

During the 17th century, England was engulfed in political and religious turmoil. Around seventy years earlier King Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church when the pope would not recognize his divorce. He established the Church of England as the official and only religion. There was no concept of religious tolerance back then. In the intervening years the official religion switched back and forth between Protestantism and Catholicism as the succeeding queens and kings came and went, and being on the wrong side of the religious divide was considered treason.

When Elizabeth I died with no heir in 1603, her Scottish cousin, James, became King of England, which would have been far from popular politically. Apart from being a foreigner, James actively practiced the Protestant faith, even sponsoring a new translation of the Bible, which is still in use today. The situation was intolerable for a group of Catholic dissenters, who devised a plan to kill James by blowing up the Houses of Parliament while he was there to open the new session of parliament. The plot was set for November 5, 1605. Barrels of gunpowder were smuggled into the cellars beneath the parliament building, and one of the plotters, named Guy Fawkes, stayed with the gunpowder until the appointed detonation time. The plot was discovered and a number of the plotters and Guy were arrested. They were found guilty of treason, and put to death.

For some macabre reason, the anniversary of the foiling of the plot has come to be celebrated each year on November 5. In the evening each family may light a small bonfire, or some communities collect items for a large bonfire, on top of which sits an effigy of poor Guy, who has become the figurehead and scapegoat for the plot. This is also the night for fireworks (remember July 4 is just another day in England). People drink hot chocolate, eat baked potatoes and bangers (sausages) while they gather around the fire. The origins of the event are blurred by the smoke, as people enjoy time together before winter really sets in.

It is my belief that early English immigrants brought the annual November tradition of making “a Guy” to the New World, and over time their straw-stuffed Guys morphed into the un-named scarecrows seen today at Halloween.

Back to top