You are a very interesting guy.

The one with the paper was crazy when the flames turned the head into a torch. It glared at us...

Every year we hear about the Guy Fawke's celebrations that my wife's family are attending. This is a little way for us to share in that.

We make the apple heads for Halloween, to put in children's candy sacks, feels and looks creepy when you pull them out (we put candy in too). Then we make wicker men out of the left over ones.

Stew (the pet rabbit) even got to eat one of the heads this year.

Cool.  But After watching the old movie The Wicker Man, I think they are also very, very creepy.  I guess that's the point...I wish I'd thought of this with our dozens of wee pumpkins, though.  My sons had an enormous pumpkin plant that just decided to grow from a smashed pumpkin in their yard. The harvest was immense.

Hey! Interesting "intriguing", or interesting "creepy"?

I have always thought it an odd thing to become a tradition.

Burning things makes a lot of sense from an instinctual/sacrificial point of view. It is a very permanent way of disposing of something (making a good sacrifice). Fire is also very important to humans, both dangerous and life giving. I think fire has been around long enough to have established itself in our instinct.

Yeah.  I was referring to the action of saving the monarch's life.  It's odd to me that that reason inspired so many years of celebration. 

It was law for a couple of hundred years, and (having asked around) not everyone is celebrating the failure... there is always talk about someone trying.