History of Halloween
Halloween is a traditional celebration held on October 31st. Today, Halloween is an excuse for Halloween theme costume parties, and entertainment with horror films, haunted houses and other activities around the popular themes of ghosts, witches, Dracula, werewolves and the supernatural. Children love to dress up in halloween costumes and go from door-to-door in their neighborhood following the old tradition of trick-or-treating, collecting sweets and gifts, sometimes money.
Originally a Celtic festival, Halloween arrived in North America when Irish, Welsh, and Scottish immigrants whose ancestors had celebrated Halloween continued the tradition in America. From there, Halloween has spread into most Western countries where English is spoken, including Western Europe. This is partly due to Halloween’s synthesis into American pop culture.
Originally Halloween was a pagan festival, around the idea of linking the living with the dead, when contact became possible between the spirits and the physical world, and magical things were more likely to happen. Like most pagan festivals, long ago it was absorbed into the festivals of the expanding Christian church, and became associated with All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day, which eventually fell on November 1 under the Gregorian calendar.
A vigil for the festival was held on All Hallows Evening on October 31. In the vernacular of the times, All Hallows Evening became Hallowe’en and later the Halloween we know today.
Ireland is where traditional Halloween celebrations have remained the strongest. There, children would traditionally dress as supernatural creatures, getting stores of nuts, fruit, and sweets from neighbors that would be used in the celebrations. Each town celebrated the end of summer by getting together and setting a large bonfire in order to protect them all from evil spirits.
These were used for playing traditional games like eating an apple on a string or bobbing for apples and other gifts in a basin of water, without using your hands. Salt might be sprinkled on the visiting children to ward off evil spirits. Carving turnips as ghoulish faces to hold candles became a popular part of the festival, which has been adapted to carving pumpkins in America.
There is no exact explanation of how the trickery of trick-or-treating arose, but it did so in North America. Children in Ireland often did mischievous things during Halloween that would later be blamed on the bad spirits. It seems that this tradition was merged with that of collecting treats.
Usually the mischief consisted of playing some minor or witty tricks on some adults - often the less popular ones - things like moving or hiding everyday items during Halloween night.
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