Bram Brack or Soul Cake is a traditional Hallowe'en food from Ireland and the British Isles. During the Medieval era, children would go from house to house singing songs and asking for Soul Cakes. For each cake gathered, they would then say a prayer for a deceased loved one from the family who gave the cake. These prayers were meant to help lost souls or those in purgatory into Heaven. Many historians believe this may have been the beginning of our modern day trick'or'treaters. Ancient Celtic traditions would couple this with the Samhain bonfire. Children would collect a piece of wood for the communal bonfire from each house, along with any treats. After the bonfire was lit, people would douse the fires in their hearths at home to be relit with an ember from the sacred Samhain fire. It is believed that this was meant to symbolize the Spark of Life found in all living things that connects us all, as well as our connection to our ancestors long passed and our children not yet born. The Samhain embers were carried home in carved "lanterns" that were made, apparently, from turnips, which is believed to be the first jack'o'lantern. Rev. Mother Georgia Cobb Among Filianists, it is customary for each maid to throw a stick into the bonfire sending with it some fault or negative trait that she wishes to cast away from herself. The custom of extinguishing the hearth fire and re-lighting it from a sacred flame, however, belongs among Filyani to the Day of Herthe - the hearth-fire festival - which falls on the secular new year's eve (the Filianic New Year is of course on Culverine 1st/March 21st). Samhain actually means "Summer's End" - though "Summer" here means the bright half of the year, rather than the season of Summer.