Date:         Thu, 13 Nov 1997 13:52:24 EST
From: Naught but Words <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      EXERCISE: A Quirky!

Racing between meetings, I was reading posters on the wall, and
happened to juxtapose two neighboring ones.  So, your advertisement,
poem, quick story, or whatever prosody fits your fingers, should be
somewhere around the title:

        Your Child's Future At Samhain

Samhain, according to the OED, is:

Samhain saun; sau.in, sa.win; , . Also Samain,
Samhainn. a. Ir. samhain (Sc. Gaelic samhuinn), OIr. samain. The first
day of November, celebrated by the ancient Celts as a festival marking
the beginning of winter and of the new year according to their
calendar; All Saints' Day or Hallowmass. Also attrib. Cf. Beltane. The
OIr. form samain is used only with reference to the ancient
Celts. `Samhain Eve' (quot. 1904) and `the night of Samhain'
(quot. 1910) are different renderings of Ir. oidhche Shamhna
`Hallowe'en'.

Satanism, witchcraft, and all that!

tink