It was with some equanimity that I entered the familiar automatically opening door of my local supermarket on 31 October, only to be shocked out of my complacence by coming face to face with three witches. They were wearing pointy black hats, black cloaks and black boots and their faces were marked with black cabbalistic signs.
Recovering quickly I said, 'So foul and fair a day I have not seen.'
The one who seemed to be the leader looked at me with withering disdain and was obviously on the verge of casting a spell to transform me into a frog. The other two giggled.
I considered offering them some eye of newt but thought better of it and left them to continue their traversing of the aisles, probably looking for broomsticks.
These occult manifestations were of course occasioned by the school girls' observance of Halloween or, as they probably would not call it, All Hallows Eve — the day before All Saints Day. It has a complex provenance in which Christian, pagan, Celtic and darker influences are mixed.
Religious and irreligious observances at Halloween were balanced by practical matters. In earlier days in the northern hemisphere 1 November was the beginning of winter, the 'dark' half of the year.
The general sense of one phase ending and a new one starting was often marked by bonfires and rituals. In England, bonfire night, loosely observed for centuries, became official after the Gunpowder Plot and the annual commemoration on 5 November of the foiling of Guy Fawkes and his cohorts.
In Australia the infrequently observed idea of a 'bonfire night' was given a rationale it couldn't otherwise have had in the southern hemisphere with the increasing popularity of the adopted Guy Fawkes night. This in turn has disappeared because of the risk of bushfires — and that brings us back to my supermarket on 31 October.
What significance can Halloween, the apparent replacement for Guy Fawkes, have for Australians about to embark on their hot summer?
It has become almost totally disjoined from its religious connections and the lineaments of the observance. Trick or treat, jack-o'-lanterns, sorcery, ghosts, vampires and other wanderers in the nether world are entirely imported from America, which imported them from Europe as recently as the 19th century.
In the BBC News Magazine this week, Tom de Castella worries whether Halloween is replacing the traditional and indigenous bonfire night. Halloween, he reports, 'is now viewed by many chains