Halloween History

Halloween is a special celebration, but just what is it really a celebration of? 

The word ‘Halloween’ actually comes from the Catholic Church.  It is a variation of All Hallows Eve.  November 1^st or ‘All Hollows Day’ (or ‘All Saints Day’), is a Catholic day in honor of saints.  However, in the 5^th Century BC in Ireland, summer ended on October 31.  This holiday is called Samhain (sow-in), the Celtic New Year.

One story says that, on that specific day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the previous year come back in search of bodies to posses for the next year.  It was believed to be their only hope for life after death.  The Celts believed all laws of space and time were lifted during this period, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living didn’t want to be possessed,  so on the night of October 31, villagers would put out the fires in their houses (to make them freezing cold so that spirits wouldn’t want to be in their homes).  Then they would dress up in ghoulish costumes and parade noisily throughout their neighborhoods being as destructive as they could in order to scare away spirits searching for bodies to possess.  

Most likely a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires wasn’t to discourage spirit possession, but so that all of the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a very common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning all through the night in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some stories tell of how the Celts would burn a human being at the stake that was thought to be already possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits.  Other accounts of Celtic history prove this story a myth.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized.  As faith in spirit ownership waned, the practice of dressing up like goblins, ghosts, and witches became more like ceremonies. 

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840’s.  It was brought by Irish immigrants fleeing their country’s potato famine.  At that time, the favorite pranks in New England were tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated with a ninth-century European custom that they called souling.  On November 2, (All Souls Day) early Christians would walk from village to village, house to house, begging for ‘’soul cakes,’’ made out of Squared off pieces of bread with currants.  The more soul cakes the beggars would receive the more prayers they would have to promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors.  At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a while after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could speed up  a soul’s passage to heaven.

The Jack-O-Lantern custom probably comes from Irish tales.  One tale tells of  a man named Jack, (hmm….I wonder if that’s where they got the Jack-O-Lantern from….) who was a famousjoker, tricked Satan into climbing up a tree.  Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree’s trunk, trapping the devil up in the tree.  Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him come down the tree. According to the story, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but was also denied entrance to Hell because he had tricked the devil.  Instead he was given a single stick from a fire to light his way through the cold darkness.  The stick was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

The Irish used turnips as their ‘’Jack’s Lanterns’’ originally.  But when they came to America they found that pumpkins worked much better than turnips.  So when the Jack-O-Lantern was brought to America, it became a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with burning sticks from the fires in their homes.

Some cultures may have adopted Halloween as their favorite ‘’holiday,’’ and the day itself didn’t grow out of evil practices, it grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of the Europeans.  Today, many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for their children.  After all, the day itself is only as evil as you  make it.