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- Volume XXXVII: Halloween
Volume XXXVII: Halloween
With our 37th edition falling on Halloween, it felt like the perfect excuse to unearth a few spooky origins that may be better left buried — and wish a happy trick-or-treating to all.
I. Skeletons in the Closet 💀
If you’ve got a sensitive stomach, this one’s not for you.
It traces back to 19th-century Britain, where doctors and anatomy schools were in short supply of cadavers. By law, only the bodies of executed criminals could be dissected…but that wasn’t nearly enough to meet demand.
Enter “resurrection men” — grave robbers who dug up remains and sold them to medical schools at a premium. To avoid calling attention to this illegal act, physicians kept the skeletons hidden away for study in their closets.
After the Anatomy Act of 1832, it became legal for doctors to acquire deceased bodies for research. But by then, the phrase had taken on the meaning we know today: secrets that are better kept behind closed doors.
II. Witch Hunt 🧙♀️
Between the 1400-1700s, tens of thousands of women were accused of witchcraft across Europe and colonial America.
The Salem trials of 1692 made it infamous: neighbors turning on each other, desperate to blame someone for the plagues and failed crops.
By the 1920s, “witch hunt” became shorthand for public persecution without proof. For my history buffs out there think McCarthy’s Red Scare or, for the less well read, you might use it to describe modern day cancel culture.
III. Witching Hour 🕛
The “witching hour” comes from 16th and 17th-century folklore, when midnight to 3 a.m. was believed to be the peak time for witches, spirits, and demons to roam. The most dangerous, unpredictable, and mysterious hours of the night.
Today, it’s the time that separates good decisions from bad.
Like your college roommate grinding video games until 3 a.m. before an 8 a.m. exam… or a soon-to-be Hall of Famer Adrian Peterson hearing keys jingle at bar close after eight vodka sodas.
When the witching hour hits, choices get risky, and consequences can be severe.