Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast
The Wander Woman Podcast frequently charts in 'Travel and Places' in over 13 countries around the world and, on all of Apple Podcasts, has been ranked #1,345 out of 500,000+. It is the first travel podcast to take on a magazine style - rather than the format of an interview – and has been listened to and downloaded in more than 72 countries from the UK to Australia and beyond, by tens of thousands of people. It has been selected as “Best of” travel podcasts by The Telegraph, The Guardian and The i newspaper, Globetrender and Tech Times - to name a few. Every episode, award-winning broadcaster, travel writer, author and photographer Phoebe Smith offers a behind the scenes journey to a different destination which features interviews with locals, audio clips and vivid descriptions to make the listener feel like they are there too - without having to leave home. The main ‘destination’ story weaves together her passion for finding off-the-beaten track places, undertaking quirky and unusual activities, discovering wild spaces in unlikely mass market destinations, watching wildlife and meeting the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts. Additionally the Wander Woman Podcast’s regular features are: * Wander Woman talks to… a celebrity interview (past guests include Bill Bryson, Cerys Matthews, Ed Byrne and Levison Wood); * Best Travel Gear for a life on the road - a review of a key piece of kit; *Travel Hack of the Month - the hard-won advice to help you get more from your travels; *Top 10 in Travel - a round-up of the best walks, destinations or activities to inspire your wanderlust; *Hidden Hero - an interview with an unsung travel pioneer; *Wander Woman of the Month - the traveller whose name is lost in the history books. Wherever you find yourself - come wander with her…
Wander Woman: A Travel Podcast
Trick or Treat? A Journey to Ireland in search of Halloween's origins
Halloween – with the costumes, pumpkin carving and trick or treating – is believed by many people to be an import from the USA? But where did it really start?
Join adventurer Phoebe Smith as she journeys on a mission to locate the home of Halloween. Her research takes here to Ireland, where an ancient Celtic ceremonial fire location was discovered a few years ago that may be the ground zero for it all. Along the way she meet characters from Irish folklore - including a sun goddess Tlachtga, visits scared burial tombs older than the Egyptian pyramids, learns about barmbrack and the traditional foods of Samhain, indulges in a seaweed bath to remove any impurities from her body and discovers the age old techniques to ward off evil spirits with the organiser of the upcoming Púca Halloween Festival.
Whether you're drawn to the historical roots, the folkloric elements, good food, dressing up or simply the spirit of Halloween, this special episode promises to both enthrall and enlighten, painting a picture of a festival that is as vibrant today as it was millennia ago.
Come wander with me...
www.Phoebe-Smith.com; @PhoebeRSmith
On this special Halloween episode of the Wander Woman Podcast...
Speaker 2:After I died I was worshipped all around Ireland until that fellow St Patrick came along and I was all but forgotten. But I never went away, you know.
Speaker 1:I meet an ancient Celtic goddess, clochta, in the town of Athboy in County Meath, Ireland. The woman said to be the mother of Halloween.
Speaker 3:I also climb to the summit of a hill that's possibly the birthplace of the celebrations:
Speaker 5:"Rumours started to circulate that there was white witches Athboy holding ceremonies at Halloween.
Speaker 1:And I meet the organiser of the Puca Halloween Festival, who teaches me what I must do to avoid being taken into the Other world this October 31st.
Speaker 4:"If we dress up in nature and we come from the earth as they do, we've more of a chance to hide.
Speaker 1:You're listening to an extra bonus episode of the Wander Woman Podcast, an audio travel magazine. With me, adventurer Phoebe Smith, exploring off the beaten track destinations, responsible travel and the unsung heroes behind conservation efforts. Come wander with me. There's no denying it's autumn. All around us we see nature in a state of flux. The trees take on the ombre blush of red, orange and yellow leaves, while underfoot boots crunch on fallen conkers from horse chestnut trees. It's October and I'm in Ireland to try and unpick the origins of Halloween that are said to be rooted right here in County Meath. That's right, Ireland, not North America. I'm as surprised as you. Anyway, I'm walking up to the summit of the Hill of Ward and I'm here to meet a very special person.
Speaker 2:My name is Tlachtga and we are here on the spiritual Hill of Ward where I was buried over 3,000 years ago.
Speaker 1:That's right. I am on the trail of Halloween after all. It's only fitting that I meet with a dead woman. But this is not just any dead woman.
Speaker 2:I am the guardian of this very special place. I am a Celtic goddess, I'll have you know. After I died I was worshipped all around Ireland until that fellow St Patrick came along and it was all but forgotten. But I never went away. You know, I was always here, as this is my home. I was well regarded for a very long time. My father was an ancient Druid and that made me a very special daughter. My family were well regarded around here. We command respect. And after I died a fire was lit on my hill to honour me, known as the Hill of Ward, where its true name is Tlachtga, the actual birthplace of Halloween - that's you lovely folks know it. I've never heard of this term, I only know it as Samhain.
Speaker 1:You heard what she said. The hill is named after her, and the hill is where, in 2014, the archaeological remains of large ancient ceremonial fires were discovered, thought to have been from around 500 AD, and all medieval texts point towards a great fire festival - Samhain, literally meaning the end of summer. Samhain in the Celtic calendar sits halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, and so at that time of the year, something happens.
Speaker 5:We're entering in the dark time of the year.
Speaker 1:This is Dr Kelly Fitzgerald, head of the School of Irish Celtic Studies and Folklore at the University College Dublin.
Speaker 5:So the harvest has happened, you're exhausted, you've worked really hard and now is a time to kind of relax before you go into the darkness and have a bit of a party a bit of divilment, a bit of merriment, a bit of fun.
Speaker 1:At Samhain, traditionally a time written about in medieval texts but thought to have existed due to oral accounts being passed on through generations. Well beyond that, the pagans also believed that the veil between our world and the spirits of the other world was at its thinnest, and for the evening when the sun set on that first day, October 31st, spirits or fairies, many of them mischievous, would walk among us.
Speaker 4:If you were there as your regular self and we're both in hoodies- we definitely look like humans and we definitely look like nowadays Celts.
Speaker 1:This is Claire Morrissey, organiser of the Puca Halloween Festival that takes place in County Meath every October, the 31st till November 3rd, we've got an ability to be spotted by the spirits of the Other world.
Speaker 4:In this costume, you don't want to be spotted because you're going to be played with in one way or another. So if we dress up in nature and we come from the earth as they do, we've more of a chance to hide. So if we can hide from them and play with them and not be spotted, we won't be brought back to the other world with them.
Speaker 1:In case you haven't already made the connection, this is what we do today when we celebrate Halloween. We wear costumes, although the costumes worn at Puca are thankfully much less single-use plastic affairs and more leaves, twigs and straw as a nod to the costumes of old. Nowadays we don't wear them for safety, but to knock on the doors of neighbours asking for a trick or treat. Which brings us to another parallel with Samhain - the food. In the town of Trim, I met with food and culinary historian Regina Sexton to discuss the role of food in Samhain and modern day Halloween and learn about what would traditionally have been eaten during this time.
Speaker 1:So there is a savoury dish, usually that's based on potatoes, so it can be called colcannon, which is mashed potatoes mixed with cooked kale or cabbage. And the non-meat element comes in here to elevate that dish, to make it special, and that's loads of butter. So you get this lovely mashed potato dish with flecks of cabbage in it, with loads of butter. Halloween is often called Cali Night or c cundefined from you know, condensation of the word colcannon. So that's the big one. And then the sweet dish. It's a kind of a raised sweetened loaf called a barmbrack. And there's huge kind of debates in Ireland as to what barm means. It's either barm from the brewing process, which is a residue of brewing, and it's sort of a foamy condensation which will serve as a levelling agent for bread. So it's either a barm brack or it's a barn brack which is an anglicisation of the Irish word barine brack, a speckled soda bread.
Speaker 1:But the specialness of barn brack is not just the addition of sugar, treacle or fruit which would have been a luxury item in the past. It was also the additions of symbolic items folded into it by the baker which foretold your. :... A ring for marriage, a thimble for spinsterhood, a cloth for poverty. Then apples, which grew really well here in Ireland, were used for games apple bobbing such as what we still have today, as well as peeling the skin and throwing it over your shoulder to be shown the initial of your future lover. But beyond Regina that, regina said that food also was left out for the spirits ones ast,past p Past, which links back again to the trick or treating of today giving to those dressed as Other ther the other world.
Speaker 6:As Regina says: " has several different functions then, outside the feasting. But part of the feasting, that's not just consumption of nice foods and special foods, but also foods with function to connect communities to games and activities, but also, I suppose, more interestingly, to connect food and the body to the other world or to the cosmic realm.
Speaker 1:Speaking of the cosmic realm, I decided to join a haunted tour of Trim to see what spirits, past and present, linger in this place. The town sits on the mystic River Boyne, itself named after a goddess, with the skeletal ruins of the imposing Trim Castle on one side of its waters and the crumbling remains of St Mary's Abbey on the other side of the bank. I met with local woman Cynthia Simonet, who runs a Beyond the Veil walking tour during Puca. On it she wove yarns about a monk that walks the alleyways, the Culshe spirit dog who moves between this world and the other world.
Speaker 3:But then she said this: About 20-odd years ago, rumours started to circulate that there was white witches out in Athboy holding ceremonies at Halloween. And they're a ceremoniesnd ceremonies the procession. I loved it . see the small children with the little lanterns and the glass lanterns handmade with candles in them walk up the hill to Clacta Tlachtga They would perform a ceremony up there.
Speaker 1:What she was talking about was a resurgence of the celebration of Samhain, the like of which Tlachtga herself, or at least Fiona Dalton, the actress who played her on the Living History Tour I did in Athboy said happened thousands of years ago. People began to celebrate Halloween in this old-fashioned way in the original venue. Cynthia even mentioned the lanterns they carried. They were jack-o'-lanterns, but rather than carved from pumpkins, they were the traditional white turnips which we know the Celts used. I mean, come on, they look more like skulls, even though they are harder to carve, a practice which, when the Irish emigrated to America, they took with them, and it's evolved over time to become pumpkins. And it's not just something that started happening again. On Tlachtga, the next day I journeyed over to its sister hill, the Hill of Tara, with its network of earthworks links to the High Kings of Ireland and a burial mound, an ancient passage tomb called the Mound of Hostages, with author and tour guide Anthony Murphy, who showed me a Samhain link here that goes back more than 5,000 years.
Speaker 7:As the sun races down the horizon towards winter. In the morning time at Samhain, the sun rises in the east-southeast and shines in and illuminates this chamber.
Speaker 1:And despite Neolithic sites like this one, as well as nearby Newgrange and Knowth, both passage tombs and burial mounds, as well as much like this, one huge working stone calendar clocks that show the passing of time, not being officially linked to Samhain or Halloween. Their undeniable link with nature and death, marking time and changes in the light, parallels both of them and, by looking to the past to create the county's upcoming Puca Festival, they do seem to be taking the best bits out of both too. Their aim is to bring all people together, of all ages, which is not only good for business. The general manager of the Trimcastle Hotel happened to mention to me that...
Speaker 7:We definitely feel like massive injection of people commerce people, everything. So the whole town feels it it's good for the area.
Speaker 1:But it's also good for the environment, as Cynthia pointed out.
Speaker 3:They've decided to make it. You know all about sustainability, yeah, so no plastics, nothing like that. And suddenly you've got people making the most wonderful outfits with old bits of fur or sacking or whatever. Beautiful stuff, rather than going in and buying this commercialised rubbish.
Speaker 1:And, best of all, it's good for people too.
Speaker 4:Every single human being is going through a seasonal change. At that point, depending on where you are in the globe, whichever the season is, it's changing to, and I think there's a wealth of a gift from nature to us to come and spend time in it, thinking on it, and it's a couple of days, but my God, does it change your winter?
Speaker 1:Perhaps, with everything going on in the world, with the winter looming ahead, the dark nights drawing in, we could all use a little bit of Puca in our lives. I, for one, opted to celebrate it and mark my soon return from Ireland back home in a mindful, natural way, by indulging in a traditional seaweed bath at Bellinter House. And perhaps that's the best lesson to take from all this. In the words of Dr Fitzgerald: Traditions raditions are always dynamic. They're always changing. They are.
Speaker 5:I wouldn't want anyone to feel that they have to be tied to the past and that if you don't do it exactly as it was done in the past, it's totally inauthentic, because everything has to be for the community in which it is serving. So it's a wonderful way to draw on the past, feel connected to the past, but then be very much in the present, and the way you're doing this is really trying to say in the future this is what the world we want, this is what we want in our world . Some some very wise words coming straight from Ireland, the home of Halloween, and so much more.
Speaker 1:I, one, will be foraging for my costume this year, noticing the sunlight, the birdsong, the changing leaves and celebrating the months ahead. Happy Halloween, everyone. This has been a special Wander Woman Extra episode brought to you in association with Tourism Ireland. For more details about how you can get your Halloween on in the Emerald Isle, check out o outIreland. com com Isle. Check out Irelandcom For more inspiring stories from the road travel hacks, gear, chat and inspirational Wonder Women around the world.
Speaker 1:Do subscribe to the Wander Woman Travel Podcast so you never miss an episode, and please do leave a review. It means so very much. You can follow me on Instagram at @PhoebeRSmith com phoebe-smith. com,phoebe-smith. com phoebe-smith. . com. com, to get in Wander. This Wonder Woman Extra episode was written and me me, phoebe Smith. The producer is Nielson Daniel Nielsen. The logo was designed by Summerton John Somerton. Thanks to all the people I met on my journey in County Meath, both past and present, who were willing to talk to me. It's because of you that this podcast is able to happen at all.