October is one of the most anticipated months of the year. It is full of magic and all things eerie, smells of spice and roasted chestnuts and illuminated by the tender, fading autumnal light and Jack O’Lanterns.
October is wrapped up in that special aura of warm, earthy colours and a cuddly checkered plaids. This month can be spotted regularly hanging out with crisp misty mornings and steamy cups of tea, as they are its best mates.
Undoubtedly, this much beloved month of autumn, owes a great deal of its popularity to the widely celebrated All Hallows’ Evening aka Halloween, observed on October 31st. It is the time of the year in the Western World, dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints, hallows,martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
Its Gaelic roots are traced back to the pre-Christian times of paganism. The typical decorating, costume parties and activities, that mark the holiday are by default all spooky and sinister.
Spooky has Germanic origin
The word spooky is an adjective from the root spook which has the meaning of a “ghost, apparition, spectre” and is of Germanic origin.
According to the records, the word spook was first used in print in the English language in 1801, in the American newspaper Massachusetts Spy: ”By mine dunder I fly so swift as any spook.”
Spook was used by William Edmondstoune Aytoun and Theodore Martin in the translation of the acclaimed German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poem The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, 1797. The translated poem was part of the compendium Poems and Ballads by Goethe and was published in 1859.
“Broom, avaunt thee!
To thy nook there!
Lie, thou spook, there!
Only answer,
When for mine own ends I want thee,
I, the master necromancer!”
The story is a classic one about an apprentice, who in the absence of his master, uses magic although he is not yet fully trained to control it, as classic and as spooky as could get!
There is another meaning of the word spook used in the American slang, and attested from 1942, where it stands for a spy, a secret agent – someone, who is hard to be seen.
1975, The Times – ”The Central Intelligence Agency spooks are the most spooky spooks.”
The adjective spooky, itself, first appeared in print in 1854, in the July issue of the Wide West magazine: “After threading many dark passages, the guide, having unlocked all sorts of ‘spooky’ looking iron doors,..ushered us before the tomb. “
