Mortimer to Mickey

This time of year tends to remind me that once sacred or serious myths over time morph into children’s tales or entertainments. Long ago, far away—meaning pre-Internet—I once saw an article neatly illustrating this phenomenon by showing how cartoon figures, originally adult and in-your-face, become ever cuter, cuddlier, and lovable. Mickey Mouse was originally Mortimer Mouse, but got renamed, evidently, no sooner baptized, and Mortimer became Mickey’s rival. Thus also All-Hallows-Even, the evening before All Saints’ Day, becomes the trick-n-treating of Halloween. The festival has independent Celtic and Christian roots. In the former it is a festival strongly linked to spirits—and the carved turnip with a candle inside, put in the window, was intended to ward off the evil invisibles. In  the Christian the evening ahead of All Saints’ Day was a vigil. The day itself, November 1, dates to the mid-thirteenth (and the greatest of) centuries.