October 31st is the last day on the Celtic calendar, it was a pagan holiday for honouring the dead. Sometimes referred to as All Hallows Eve it dates back some 2000 years.
All Hallows Eve is the evening before All Saints Day, the day that Christians used to convert pagans, celebrated on November 1st.
November 1st is also the day that the Catholic Church honours All Saints.It was widely believed by Druids, a Celtic culture in Ireland, Britain and Northern Europe, that the souls of the dead roamed the streets at night, and since all were not thought to be friendly spirits, they left gifts and treats out to appease the evil ones so as to ensure a plentiful harvest the following year.
Hence we have Trick or Treat at Halloween.
No matter how old you are, the 31st of October is always the day. to look forward to every year to celebrate Halloween. Halloween means children running around in costumes, and friends and family all getting together and a chance talk with their neighbours. When else do you have an excuse to eat all the sweets you want and to wear whatever outrageous costume you want? But Halloween wasn’t always like it is today. In fact, Halloween dates back thousands of years to an ancient Celtic festival called Samhain.
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in what we know as the present day United Kingdom, Ireland and northern France, celebrated Samhain as the new year on November 1,because it was at this time of the year that was the end of summer and the harvest period and the start of the winter, which in this region of the world is a cold and dark time. They associated the winter season with death and it was widely believed that on the night before the festival of Samhain the difference between the living and the dead was distorted.
The night of October 31 was when ghosts of the dead where believed to return to earth causing trouble and damaging the food stored after the harvest. Druids the Celtic priests thought it was the best time to make predictions about the future during this period, the prophecies made by the Druids were an important source of comfort for the long, dark winter months ahead.
The Celts observed the event by sacrificing animals in bonfires built by the Druids,to appease the Gods, and when the celebration was over, they lit their hearth fires from the sacred bonfire for protection during the Winter months.
When the Romans conquered the territory occupied by the Celts and ruled over it for 400 years, over the course of time, some Roman festivals were combined with Samhain. One was a day in late October when the Romans celebrated the passing of the dead, and was called Feralia,. The second honoured the Roman Goddess of fruit and trees, Pomona, her symbol the apple and was incorporated into the celebration of Samhain. This could possibly explains the modern day tradition of bobbing for apples, played on Halloween.
About the year 800, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 as All Saint’s Day, a time to honour saints and martyrs. It is believed that the pope was trying to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a Christian holiday. The festival was also known as All-hallows or All-Hallowmas, the Middle English for All Saints' Day. Soon, the night before it came to be called All-hallows Eve and then eventually, Halloween. About the year 1000, the Christian church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day for to honouring the dead, and it was celebrated like Samhain, with bonfires, parades and costumes like angels, saints and devils. The three celebrations became known as Hallowmas.
Halloween customs eventually spread to America as European immigrants came to America. It was in the second half of the 1800s that Halloween was popularized nationally, mainly by Irish immigrants fleeing their country’s potato famine. Neighbours would share stories of their deceased, tell fortunes, dance and sing, in colonial Halloween, the celebrations featured ghost stories and mischief, but Halloween had not reached the entire country.
Americans began to wear costumes and go from door-to-door asking for food or money, a practice now known as trick-or-treating. At this time, young women believed they could prophesy their future husband’s appearance by doing tricks with yarn and mirrors. By the late 1800s, Americans tried to make Halloween more about community than about ghosts, tricks and witchcraft, by having parties for adults and children, and as a result, the holiday has lost most of its superstitious and religious ties.
In the 20s and 30s, Halloween became entirely community-centred with whole towns having parades and parties. Vandals also began to use Halloween celebrations as an excuse to cause trouble, then that started to decline in the 1950s and Halloween began to focus on the young. Trick-or-treating was started up again as a way to celebrate Halloween and a new American tradition was born, to become the country's second largest commercial holiday. It is said that today Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween.
The common tradition of dressing up in Halloween Costumes
Another tradition that has come from the Celts – is the making of lanterns by hollowing out Pumpkins, only they used turnips instead of pumpkins. The story has it that a notorious drunk and practical joker named Jack, tricked the devil into climbing into a tree. He then trapped the devil in the highest branches of the tree by carving an image of a cross into the trunk, Jack promised to let him down if the devil never tempted him again, the devil said that he would never tempt Jack again. Legend says that when Jack died he was not allowed into heaven because of his evil past. Jack was also not allowed into hell because of the trick he played on the devil. Instead, Jack got from the devil a single ember so he could light his way through the cold, dark winter. To keep the ember lit for longer Jack placed the light into a hallowed-out turnip. Nowadays pumpkins are used as they are a lot more plentiful, making the pumpkin the official Jack-o-lantern.
Halloween
This is one of the oldest holiday festivals and second only to Christmas in popularity. Millions celebrate the Halloween each year without knowing any of its origins. Some view Halloween as a time for friends and family, while others still see it as superstitious in nature, with its ties to the souls of the dead returning to cause mischief and mayhem. Some religions even regard it as an unholy holiday. But whatever your viewpoint, you can't deny the story of Halloween is a fascinating one.
