h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The idea of a bonfire celebration around the 5th of November goes back to the mists of time. It's actually linked to a pagan festival and was merely annexed for the purposes of celebrating the death of Guy Fawkes.

Hmmm. That sounds familiar....

It is somewhat unreliably reported that on a bright sunny day, before the mists of time obscured things, in early November, a dragon was spotted useing its firery breath to start a bonfire.

This apocalyptic bonfire raged out of control for 40 days and forty nights....

As Thomas Hardy put it:

"Festival fires to Thor and Woden had followed on the same ground and duly had their day. Indeed, it is pretty well known that such blazes as this the heathmen were now enjoying are rather the lineal descendants from jumbled Druidical rites and Saxon ceremonies than the invention of popular feeling about Gunpowder Plot."

(The Return of the Native.)

Since I made that post (well, it was 8 years ago), I've learned that it's just coincidence that there were bonfire festivals around the time we now celebrate Bonfire / Guy Fawkes Night. The opening of Parliament was postponed twice. We could have been celebrating in February or October if it had opened on time, and neither month has any association with bonfires.

Well, Guy Fawkes Night would be marked in February or October, yes - but not necessarily by having a "Bonfire Night".

The 'common people' lit bonfires on 5th November 1605 after they heard a plot had been foiled. They didn't know who'd been trying to do what, but they knew the King's life had been saved so they lit bonfires to celebrate. The bonfires would have been lit no matter what the month.

It's a lot harder to light a bonfire in February than it is in October or November. There is a shortage of dry kindling, apart from anything else.

It may well be harder to light a bonfire in February, but the fact is that the bonfires were a spontaneous act, unrelated to Samhain or any other pagan festival. If the people hadn't been able to start bonfires, I'm sure they'd have found some other way to celebrate.

"If the people hadn't been able to start bonfires, I'm sure they'd have found some other way to celebrate."

Which was what I said in post 6.

Actually, it wasn't. You just said that bonfires would have been hard to light. I took that as a denial of 'bonfires have nothing to do with pagan festivals', rather than simply an objection to the idea of bonfires in February.

One thing I've learned on forums and message boards: If you don't say a thing explicitly, you didn't say it. I've had people misinterpreting things I've written because I thought I'd implied something, but they didn't get it. I apologise for misinterpreting / missing the point / looking thick.