When it comes to Halloween, what’s not to love? The chilly weather, the scary movies, the pumpkins and bottomless bowls of Kit Kats and Reeses. But most of all, the traditions are what make the season so exciting, from carving Jack-O-Lanterns, dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating.
But, how did the best holiday of the year come to be? It’s kind of an odd one, with no apparent reason for celebration except to stuff our faces with M&Ms and party all night. The true origins of Halloween are much deeper than cheap costumes and ghost stories.
Over 2,000 years ago, the ancient Celtic Pagans observed the death of summer and beginning of harvest season with a festival called “Samhain”, pronounced sah-win. This was seen as the time where the veils between our world and the spirit world were thinnest, and ghosts, fairies and other spirits were most likely to be seen in the human world. They lit huge bonfires to either ward off or guide spirits entering our realm, and tried to tell the future to make use of the magical and prophetical time.
This is the original Halloween — a Pagan ritual festival.
These ancient people are responsible for many of our seemingly weird traditions. They believed that dressing up in scary masks would confuse evil spirits trying to possess them and carved faces into turnips to ward off these spirits. Sound familiar?
So how did a fire festival celebrating the coming of winter turn into the most commercialized holiday on the calendar year?
In order to convert the Pagans to Christianity, the church moved “All Saints Day” or “All Hallowed Day”, a celebration of dead saints, from a date in the spring to the day of Samhain. They adopted some of the traditions from Samhain and these two holidays fused together. The night before was regarded as “All Hallows Eve” and now, “Halloween”.
The holiday quickly spread across Europe and picked up other traditions. For example, Jack-O-Lanterns got their name from a ghost named Stingy Jack who roamed Ireland. Legend has it, he convinced the devil to not send him to hell, but wasn’t allowed into heaven, so he was stuck in our world roaming the streets in search of a human to possess.
However, the origins of trick or treating are debated to this day. One theory being that it was the Celtics who left offerings of food out for the dead roaming around on Samhain, and eventually people began to dress up as these spirits in exchange for these same offerings.
Another theory involves the practice of “souling” — spooky name, right? In the middle ages, poor people and children would collect food and money from local homes in return for prayers for the dead on the Christian’s “All Souls Day” which took place on Nov. 2. The Scottish took this practice and turned it into “guising,” dropping the prayers in favor of non-religious practices like songs, jokes and other “tricks”, according to “The Origins of Halloween Traditions” by Heather Thomas.
Eerie bats and black cats aren’t new either. Bonfires during Samhain attracted bugs, which attracted bats and became symbols of the festival. Medieval folklore in Europe expanded the spookiness of bats by coining them as harbingers of bad luck and even death. Cats were seen as bad luck due to connections to witches, often accused of being their “familiars”. This is where the black-cat-crossing-your-path superstition stems from.
What are traditions if we don’t know where they come from, anyway? They may seem like little things we do without much meaning, but the true spirits of Halloween are revealed once we uncover the lost significance of the holiday. Halloween is more than a big party or an excuse to wear a funky outfit you’d never wear in real life. The next time you carve a pumpkin with your family, buy a Halloween costume or even decorate your house with spooky animals, give a nod to the ones who coined these traditions — their ghosts might thank you.
These cute little guys got a bad rap in the middle ages, as did toads, crows, and owls for allegedly being witches “familiars”, a demon supposedly attending and obeying a witch, often said to assume the form of an animal.
Eeeeeeek! Bats might creep you out, but they are vital to the environment as they can eat thousands of bugs a night, saving the agriculture industry 53 billion dollars a year in pesticides. Thanks, Bats!
Americans spend 3.6 billion dollars on costumes each year! In 2021, the most popular costume was a Witch, followed by a rabbit and a dinosaur.