No new puzzle today, Aila is taking the day off for every Goth’s favourite holiday – Halloween!

Now, Latvia doesn’t strictly speaking celebrate Halloween, but there are a number of Latvian pagan traditions that do mimic this holiday – most notably the practice of “Ä·ekatas”. Now, in Latvian tradition, this going around to people’s homes dressed in costume was not a one-night-a-year event – they were more akin to the British practice of “mumming” than modern-day Halloween. The period when people would go out for “Ä·ekatas” seems to vary, but traditionally from mid-autumn, through the winter, until early spring.

For more information, check out these two blogs – Crossing the Baltic and Hello Latvia – for their descriptions of this tradition in English.