3. UK News

Scottish festival bans 'American' Hallowe'en

   A pumpkin, yesterday
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   A Scottish Hallowe'en festival is banning "consumerist" pumpkins in favour of turnips.

   The spooky celebration, at Scone Palace, Perthshire, is being organised by Scottish firm Herald Events as a riposte to the Americanisation of the traditional autumn festival, based on the ancient Celtic ritual of Samhain and co-opted by the Church.

   Speaking to the BBC, Jock Ferguson from the company said: "We will be having none of that pumpkin or trick-or-treat rubbish.
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       12 Apr 2008

   Instead of Jack O'Lanterns and trick-or-treating, which organisers condemned as representative of "American big business and rampant consumerism", the festival will offer traditional Scottish activities such as "dooking for apples" and turnip-carving.

   In "De'il Tak the Hindmost", children will be lead around the grounds of the Scone Palace by the ghost of a Jacobite soldier, Dougal Murray, telling of the dark history of the old building.