Sketch and story by Tom Godin,
November 2, 2001

I am not really immune to Halloween but I am certainly not one to dress up or go to parties associated with the celebration. It all seems a bit too commercial now. In my childhood days, thousands of years ago, the main players of Halloween were the witch, the owl and the bat. Sure, there were also spiders, headstones, and the occasional haunted house and crescent moon, but basically it was the first three. Nowadays it’s mutants, Hollywood characters, and super heroes.

All that aside, I do like the time in witch Halloween occurs. I like the mist of late fall that shrouds fields and the way that smoke from low burning fires lays a grey veil across barren autumnal landscapes. I like the stirring of night winds that starts a branch scratching ominously at the window. I like the way the full moon rides into the sky against the skeletal twigs of trees that have lost their leaves.

With Halloween in the air, I set out recently into the countryside to see if I could find any of the scary creatures of the days of old. I didn’t expect to see a witch but at Halloween anything could happen.

The first living icon of the spooky time I came upon was down by the creek. It wasn’t a crepuscular occurrence. It was early morning, October 25, the temperature, at least on my thermometer, standing at minus 8 Celsius.

From in front of me a bird flew up. It hurried to the top of a thirty foot spruce tree. There it stopped. I quickly unpacked the binoculars and gazed at this round spectre.

It sat like a fluffed up ball, almost totally round. At first even the tail wasn’t obvious. Then I got the image clearly. It was a Northern Pygmy Owl. I tried to let the shudders of horror associated with seeing an Owl in the week of Halloween course through my body but all I could feel was the numbness in my toes caused by the low gum boots and thin socks I was wearing.

The little Owl may not have been a terror to me but the Pygmy Owl is one of the fiercest flying predators for its size. It will tackle and kill a bird as large as an Evening Grosbeak, though both birds are essential the same size.

Through the binoculars I could see its intense yellow eyes staring at me.

Having fully drunk the eeriness of the little owl on this cold October morn, I left the Pygmy Owl to do his haunting along the creek.

But wait, the Halloween scariness isn’t over. While out on a late afternoon walk with the dogs on October 26 I saw a most incongruous sight.

We were coming up a trail through some tall fir trees. It was four thirty in the afternoon, before the time change, with ample daylight. Suddenly I saw a fluttering up ahead. I stopped in my tracks. Was it a large moth? No, it was a bat. Now we’ve already had some nights of temperatures dropping to minus 10 so seeing a bat seemed very odd.

I stood staring at it for a moment. It was obviously flying toward us. At first I thought it was novel. Perhaps this warm afternoon couched in between a series of cold days made the bat a bit peckish. Perhaps it had come out for a midday snack, somewhat like we do when we feel hungry in the middle of the night.

Then, realizing it was the week of Halloween all thoughts of bats turned into horror stories. I didn’t have long hair for it to get tangled in but I suddenly recalled a newspaper story I had read about bats and rabies. Surely a bat coming out in the middle of the day was a sign of erratic behaviour the article described. (Actually, in summer, in bright daylight I have seen bats come out, and take a flying drink of water from a pond.) But let’s not be reasonable, it is near Halloween after all.

The bat continued to fly toward us.

Bat! I screamed to the dogs. Run for your lives! It’s got the hydrophobee! This is my word, a kind of ‘hill slang’ to describe the condition of rabies.

Quickly I led the pack of dogs down a side trail waving my hat around over my head. I kept turning around as I ran to see if the bat was following us, its fangs dripping gore. I couldn’t be sure but soon we were safely out of the woods.

I didn’t see a witch though. But I did once when I was about ten years old. I should tell of that time now because it is bird related and it is the week of Halloween.

I was on a walk with my brother in the bush far from our cabin. I went alone down a side trail and see if any birds were on a pond below the little dam. It was a grey overcast day in autumn. As I stood on the banks of the pond a witch flew into view! She was riding on a broom and effortlessly glided over the pond about 100 feet from where I stood. I could clearly see the broom and make out her profile sitting on it. Her dress moved slightly in the wind. Fear shot through me! I turned in my tracks and ran back to where my brother was. Breathlessly I told him of the witch. My brother is very intelligent and even at that age neither of us were willing to accept things that weren’t based on scientific fact. He had to see for himself. I followed behind him, willing to look again, just for the sake of science.

When we got to the pond all we saw was a Great Blue Heron standing on a beaver house.

I bet that’s your witch my brother said. The Heron was probably coming in to land with its wings set when you saw it. The wings would look like the witch. The legs and toes hanging out the back would look just like the bristles of the broom and the pointy beak would be the front of the broom.

I knew instantly that he was right. Halloween was the time of magic. A heron had become a witch or a witch had become a heron.

As I recalled this incident I remembered that I had recently seen a Heron down by the creek, so in effect I had my Halloween hat trick. I had seen an owl, a bat, and a witch. It was an old time Halloween after all!