Why Halloween is One of the Most Important Holidays - A Call to Courage & Chivalry

And why it is needed

“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

This is one of C.S. Lewis’ best quotes. It is a work of art, and one of the finest ways of describing the importance of not only Mythic fiction and faerie-stories but also that of Horror. Because you see, Horror is not simply meant to frighten but to inspire, as it is the modern day Brothers Grimm Fairy-Story genre, this can be seen in the movie The Devil Rides Out where death and evil are conquered and good triumphs.

What is more is that this is why it is so important for us to cling to traditions such as Halloween. It teaches children that there is Darkness, yes but that there’s nothing to be afraid of. I am aware of many on Substack who claim to be Christian and say all it does is spread Darkness. No, no that is what they seek to do, they are the ones who are Wolves disguised as Sheep, as Christ would put it.

In order to combat the shadows and ensure Light triumphs one must after all go forth, and face it. Darkness must be combatted, and what Halloween does is bring families together, and teach the value of facing down fear and even making a mockery of it. Why should we make a mockery of sorts of wickedness and darkness? Because it prays on the notion, and encourages the notion of good being banal. It also seeks to kill joy and Halloween brings children joy, for this reason alone we need to preserve the holiday and we need to use it to get kids to laugh in the face of wickedness, sneering at the evil in the world so that they realize it is no great thing at all.

What is more is that by telling them scary stories, showing them the worst of the world and how heroes might conquer fear and evil, it teaches children how to face down demons and dragons.

And C.S. Lewis understood this and the nature of fear and evil pretty damn well. He had seen after all the trenches of WWI, which had tested many a men’s souls and broken more than a few million as the rulers of Europe threw away all reason and sense and broke more than one dynasty and nation in their mad drive to war with each other.

The senselessness of the killing and of the war, was one that Lewis would have well known better than most of his contemporaries, only Tolkien might have better understood it. What made things worse was the aftermath of the war as Germany was broken up, and succumbed to the madness of the Weimar Republic (which had the same stupid policies that we’re currently dealing with). And then there was the wastefulness and madness of war that returned once more, this time in the 40s and that was to shatter the British Empire. Leaving Britain, little more than a curiosity in the Anglo-Saxon Empire that shifted its capital and focus further westwards to Washington DC.

All of this was well known to the brilliant men who composed the Inklings, each of them more than aware of what they were fighting against. And what was it that they warred with? Modernity itself.

Modernity is something that has crept up and taken the world by storm with such ideas as industrialization, liberalism and more. In its wake tradition, songs and music and poetry and literature have been levelled and left a grey gooey mass that fails to really inspire. Foreseeing the need for songs and tales of courage and goodness, the Inklings took pen to paper and sought to through art change the world and preserve something of the old England.

The travesty of modern art that is currently infecting not only the whole of the ‘Anglosphere’ but the rest of the American Empire, such as France, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia, East-Europe, parts of Asia are well known and well documented (for a blow by blow of each week’s morass of cultural decay check out

Alliance Authors Newsletter

). What is not well documented are the efforts by some to turn back the tide, to resist what is happening and what was done previously.

The reason that we need tales and stories of courage and heroic knights is to inspire in us the same chivalry and goodness that was once so natural to our people. Who has not heard the tale of St-George? How he fought against a dragon to save a princess? Who has not heard the story of Luke Skywalker in our more modern period and not longed to be him or like him as he overcame the Emperor? Or what of Frodo’s struggle to destroy the Ring?

These things are important, and they are how a society passes down its teachings and values. Myths and Legends form who we are as a people, they are philosophy given form and they are a window to a few centimetres of the Truth.

This is why we need events for children to practice dragon-slaying, they need to dress up like knights, heroes and great figures in order to combat the wickedness of the world. It’s practice for the real thing.

To suppress this natural instinct on their part is not as some might claim to do ‘Christ’s work’ but rather to drive children from him, and who should wish that but Satan?

On a more secular level, for those who care little for theological matters, let me ask you; which would you wish your child grow into? A joykill with little courage? The choice is either for him to become a Samwise or a Grima Wormtongue? I think the choice apparent.

Few are the bosses, few are those in charge in any organization or any group that are of a heroic or kindly bent. Most bosses have little in the way of compassion for you, or appreciation and there’s a great deal of evil people who claw their way to the top.

Ruthlessness, selfishness and greed are what the material world rewards, with little in the way of appreciation or gratitude in much of the world for hard work and goodness. Does this mean we should discourage virtue? To the contrary, we must encourage it at every chance after all, it is the only way to slowly yet effectively change the world. We cannot change it on a macro level without changing it on the micro level.

And make no mistake there are places where goodness and virtue are rewarded; Japan for one thing, along with small pockets in France, Ireland and Finland for one thing. Mostly in the rural countryside can this be seen and it is there that one may find older stories, older novels a people who preserve the old wisdoms.

What one must recall is that literature and fiction are really philosophy given form and shape that is almost tangible. Really, it is paraboles and therefore they hold fragments of the Truth, and they are great method by which we might sharpen our minds, toughen our hearts and enflame our spirits. This sort of mindset has been verbalized in such a manner by the likes

The Black Knight

and

Thérèse Judeana

both of them wise and clever, and quicker to happen upon this idea than I myself have been.

They unite better than any other form of teaching and ideas, so that all can agree upon what constitutes a good tale, a good faerie story; we all agree that the Lord of the Rings and Silmarillion are good, even as we agree that Rings of Power is hot-trash. The reason for this is that one communicates itself well and easily, and has a good philosophy to it whereas the latter does not.

Childen will meet evil over the course of their lives, and for this reason they must be equipped even if in spiritual and mental a manner on how to best thwart evil. They must learn to sharpen their minds and spirits as said into blades, so that they might one day ride into spiritual and cultural combat, blades held high and a war-song upon their lips.

Brave Knights and Heroic Courage ought to be praised, yet we live in an age of fear, and of weakness. Shunting Halloween, shunting away horror, tales of Mythic Fiction is a shunting away of goodness, it is an attempt to teach and ingrain in your children the same fear and weakness you as an adult live with. Truly good parents, truly moving and beautiful mentors understand this.

I would add that girls must hear of the bravery, patience and devotion of princesses that they might know the virtues and impressive strength of the feminine. So that they could endure in all humility all that the world might throw at them. And let us make no mistake, just as evil seeks to weaken men into cowards, it wishes to make gluttons and prostitutes of young girls. Girls are naturally sweet, kind and virtuous we all know this, but they do need to learn how dark and wicked the world is. Boys are naturally brave, curious and prone to good humour, and they ought to be encouraged.

To discourage bravery, and heroism in our youths is an active attempt to dismantle their future, and to darken it. It is an attempt to spiritually leave less than what we currently have, and let us make no mistake much has been taken that our fathers had or worked hard for.

Tales of heroic knights and bravery are common in the ancient world, and the Medieval also, across all languages. They are the stuff all children deep down love with all their hearts and souls. There is a reason King Arthur is beloved, same as Roland, Gauvain and for lovers of Mythic Fiction; Conan, Aragorn and Theoden resonate with children and people the world over.

Should we supress their tales? No. Just as we should not suppress movies such as Brides of Dracula, Friday the 13th Part 6, or the rest of the Hammer Horror movies. Why should we not? Because those movies were made and written in the heroic mould. Cushing’s Helsing combats with Dracula and other Vampires though he knows it might prove futile, it is not the struggle against an already beaten enemy that inspires but that against a nigh on unbeatable one. Tommy Jarvis’ attempt to defeat Jason is moving and magnificent not because Jason is more vulnerable but because he is invulnerable while Jarvis is a mere man, same goes for other Horror tales.

Now those Horror movies where the monster wins are of little value if they are not followed up immediately by a sequel where he loses, I will agree. But to throw the baby out with the bathwater seems ridiculous to me. It is not by suppressing adversity that victory is achieved but by overcoming it.

Now this is not to say that a 4 year old should see something like Terminator or T2, such a thing would be too much for them. Certain movies with horror elements, must be put off, and it is for the individual parent to decide these things. If some things must be waited for as far as stories go, until they reach approximately 10 or so, or 12 years of age that is fine. My only point is that at about that age your duty as a parent becomes more about protecting them from real monsters not imagined ones, even as you must begin to prepare them to face down the spiritual and material ones that lie in wait for them when they turn 18 years of age.

Good judgement is key to parenting, it is also key in deciding what stories ought to be shown. Good stories such as Redwall, Tolkien’s tales, Hour of the Dragon/Conan, and old Chivalric epics from around the world must be shown and shared. Bad ones such as Rings of Power, or whatever is on tv these days or in the past few years can be thrown aside as they have little good that they might inspire in children.

But for the sake of your child, do not punish them by denying them Halloween. Halloween is about being courageous, and being rewarded for it.

Because to banish fear, to banish tales of knights in both the horror and mythic mould you are not making children’s lives brighter but darker as the good professor would put it. And to do such a thing is not only to fail as a parent but as an individual. Because if we cannot guarantee better lives for our children, we may as well equip them better than we ourselves were with better tales and good epics that involve heroes our kids can look up, slaying demons and dragons and overcoming vice and doubt.