RURAL villages that mark Halloween with funny old-fashioned ceremonies always kill someone at the end, it has emerged.

Despite small communities expressing anger at being portrayed as creepy pagan backwaters with arcane local conventions, experts say this reputation is fully deserved.

Folklorist Tom Logan said: “When you read about a village in Cornwall where they roll a burning tree stump down the street while all the children sing a song about somebody called ‘Puckle Jack’, it seems like eccentric traditional entertainment.

“But they do tend to gloss over the most vital part, which is the ritual murder.”

Logan highlighted the small Somerset town of Norton Cranwell, where everyone swaps special cakes and there is a procession down the high street involving ‘will ‘o’ the wisp’ lanterns with an old drunkard dressed as the ‘Green Man’.

He said: “It all sounds like brilliant fun, tourists flock from around the world and make TikTok videos about it.

“But when all the visitors have left they go up to a moor, have a big orgy and then chop somebody’s head off.”