MIZZY NIGHT

There is an unfortunate tradition here in the UK tonight called Mischief Night.

Unlike Halloween, which I have a instinctive like of, Mizzy Night, as it's called round here, is a lame excuse for nocturnal unpleasantness and anti-social antics.

 Many windows will be egged this evening and no doubt worse. Moonbase is on High Alert and our Moon Ranger fleet stand at the ready to disperse any yolk-fingered bands of urchins.

Now I have no recollection of Mischief Night whatsoever back in the Sixties and early Seventies when I was kid. I first came across the idea in the Brandon Lee movie The Crow when gangs rampaged the  streets of LA. It was called Hell Night and was the night before Halloween.

Mischief Night is the night before Bonfire or Bommy Night here in the UK and as such can trace a heritage of mayhem right back to arch-anarchist himself, Mr. G. Fawkes. Despite this tradition I really dislike the idea of calenderised yobbery akin to The Purge.

I would like to propose that we ditch Mischief Night in favour of a rekindling here in the UK of the European-Scandinavian festival of Walpurgis Night. Usually the last night in April it was traditionally a time of witchcraft and festivity. Oddly enough, Walpurgis or Walpurga was an English saint no less!

What do readers think of Mischief or Hell Night?

mischief night

Tonight in Yorkshire its Mischief Night or Mizzy Night. Its the night before Bonfire Night and another  'festival' that has grown in popularity among the young.

Unlike Halloween, which still has sweets and candy at its darkling heart, Mischief Night has no such honeyed intentions. It is purely malevolent and a pain in the backside.

The main form of mischief is what's known as egging i.e. throwing eggs against houses' windows. Less kind souls upgrade the ammo to stones and even bricks.

Yes it's like The Purge light tonight but luckily not everyone is in the eggers' sights.

The fact that youths are doing this reminds me of more pagan times when the Lord of Misrule orchestrated the trouncing of the adult world for a day. There is even a whiff of something much older too, the wild abandon of Saturnalia perhaps.

Even the movies have picked up on it. In the Crow Fun Boy and the gang causes mayhem on Devil's Night and there is even a film entitled Mischief Night set in Leeds up the road from 2006.

I would be interested to know if you have this unpleasant 'tradition' in your neck of the woods.