XIII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2021

SUMMARY

The article deals with some British festivals. Special interest is devoted to customs and traditions of celebrating the holidays. The article covers the origin of the festivals.

Key words: to celebrate, to keep the tradition, cards and presents, customs legend, to prohibit.

British people celebrate some festivals like Christmas and Easter with the rest of Europe, but some are just British.

On the 5th of November in almost every town and village in England you can see fires burning, fireworks banging and rockets shooting across the skies in Guy Fawkes night. You will see small groups of boys and girls pushing an old pram or cart with a home-made figure inside that looks something like a scarecrow. The children will ask passers-by for a 'penny for the guy'. This has been the system every 5th of November since 1605, with the exception of the war years, when bonfires were, of course, prohibited.

In 1605, James I was on the throne. He was the nephew of Elizabeth and had been brought up in Scotland as a Protestant. James was a very unpopular man and was disliked by the Catholics. A number of Catholics determined to kill the king and his ministers by blowing up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder. They chose a soldier of fortune, Guy Fawkes, who promised to carry out the deed.

First the conspirators took a house near to the Houses of Parliament and began to dig a tunnel from the house to Parliament. They were not successful because of the thickness of the cellar walls. Then they got an opportunity to rent a cellar under the Houses of Parliament. Thomas Percy, one of the plotters said he wanted to store firewood there. He brought tremendous quantities of wood and under it hid barrels of gunpowder.

On the 5th of November Parliament was to be opened and the King, the Lords and the Commons would be present. One of the conspirators, however, Francis Tresham, warned one of his friends, a member of Parliament, who showed the letter to the King. James suspected gunpowder and guards were sent at once to examine the cellars of the Houses of Parliament. The names of the plotters were found out and they and Fawkes were all accused of treason and put to death.

The tradition has been kept up also on the State Opening of Parliament. On this occasion a group of men in flat black hats with red, white and blue rosettes, red coats and stiffly starched white collars round their necks, and lanterns, poles and axes in their hands, solemnly enter the Houses of Parliament and search the cellars. This is Her Majesty's bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard from the
Tower.

The origin of Bonfire Night has been forgotten by most people, but
for the boys and girls it is a day of great fun and merriment. The grown-ups are usually glad when the last bangs fade away and give way to peaceful night.

Pancake Day is the popular name for Shrove Tuesday, the day preceding the first day of Lent. In February in some towns there are pancake races. People throw pancakes in the air and race at the same time and of course they eat a lot of pancakes. In some pancake races people dress up in fancy dress costumes. The most famous pancake race takes place in a town called Olney, in the middle of England. People say that Olney has been celebrating pancake races since 1445.

Every February 14th, boys and girls, sweethearts and lovers, husbands and wives, friends and neighbours, and even the office staff will exchange greetings of affection, undying love or satirical comment. The modern way in which this is done is through the sending of Valentine cards on this day, as a token of love to a person of the opposite sex, unsigned of course.

Young men and women in the last century spent hours fashioning a home-made card and some of these can still be seen in the museums of Britain today.

The first Valentine of all was a bishop, a Christian martyr, who before he was put to death by the Romans sent a note of friendship to his jailer's blind daughter. The Christian Church took for his saint's day February 14th, the date of an old pagan festival where young Roman maidens threw decorated love missives into an urn to be drawn out by their boyfriends.

The manufacturers have fully taken advantage of the occasion to pour out their wares. Cards and presents of all descriptions and prices are on the market.

So in the 20th century, when there are no longer any bars to communication between the sexes, the love missives of an older and slower time still pour through the letterboxes. The jokes and sighs provoked by the Valentine cards continue, but most people have long forgotten the brave bishop who was the first to sign himself «Your Valentine».

Few holidays tell us as much of the past as Halloween. Its origins date back hundreds of years to the Druid festival of Samhain, Lord of the Dead and Prince of Darkness, who, according to Celtic belief, gathered up the souls of all those who had died during the year to present them to Druid Heaven on October 31.

The Sun god shared the holiday and received thanks for the year's harvest.

The Druid New Year began on November 1 marking the beginning of winter and the reign of the Lord of Death. The Druids called upon supernatural forces to placate the evil spirits, and it is from that tradition that modern Halloween gets the paraphernalia of ghosts, goblins, witches, skeletons, cats, masks and bonfires. The custom of telling ghost stories on Halloween also comes from the Druids. To honor the Sun god and to frighten away evil spirits, they would light huge bonfires atop high hills and as they sat grouped around watching the bright flames, they would relate eerie happenings they had experienced. As Christianity replaced the pagan religions, the church set aside November 1st to honor all saints (all-hallows) and called it All Hallows' Day. The evening before October 31st, became All Hallows' Even - later shortened to Halloween.

Halloween customs today, although gay and frolicsome rather than sombre, follow many of these ancient practices. When children wear ghost costumes, false faces, or witches's hats, bob for apples, eat corn candy, or carry jack-o-lanterns they are carrying on an accumulation of ancient traditions whose significance has long since disappeared. The jack-o-lantern, most typical of Halloween symbols, began with the Irish. According to legend a man named Jack, who was kept out of Heaven because he was stingy and expelled from Hell for playing tricks on the Devil, was condemned to walk the earth forever carrying a lantern to light his way.

Some of the Halloween customs brought by the colonists have remained as they were but others have been altered to fit new ways of living, Pumpkins, for instance, make much better jack-o-lanterns than turnips. Larger and already partially hollow, the big orange pumpkins seem to smile even before the upturned slit and rounded eyes are carved out. A candle burning inside makes the merry face visible from far away on a dark night and the pulp makes a delicious pumpkin-pie. With all its practical attributes, the pumpkin has not been able to resist the-bewitching influence of the holiday. An old legend says that at midnight on Halloween all pumpkins leave their vines and do a spritely dance across the fields. While some youngsters are out playing pranks, others are gathered for a party where they are enjoying a taffy pulling contest, bobbing for apples, popping corn, roasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories or playing games which feature spooks and "haunts". Those who begin the evening by going out for mischief-making probably end up at someone's party. And the party-goers very possibly think of some pranks to play on the way home.

Literature

1.About Britain.com Электронный ресурс – Режим доступа: https://about-britain.com/index.htm

2. Sharman,E.Across Cultures / E. Sharman.-London : Longman : Pearson Education Limited, 2004 – 160p. ISBN 0582-81797-8.

3. V.A. Levashova Britain today: life and institutions: учебн. Пособие по страноведению для вузов/ В.А. Левашова- 2-е изд, испр. и доп.- М.: Высш. шк., 2007.-240с. - ISBN 978-5-06-0056-48-8

4. Countries and their cultures Электронный ресурс – Режим доступа: http://www.everyculture.com/No-Sa/Russia.html.