Halloween, which is celebrated every year on October 31st, has become one of the most well-known holidays in the world, with costumes, carved pumpkins, and trick-or-treating. But behind the modern celebrations are a lot of old Celtic customs, Roman influences, and Christian holidays that have come together over thousands of years to make the Halloween we know today.
The Festival of Samhain Has Its Roots in Ancient Celtic Times
The ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which was held by the Celts who lived in what is now Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, is where Halloween got its start about 2,000 years ago. Samhain, pronounced "SAH-win" or "SOW-in," was a very important day in the Celtic calendar because it marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter.
Samhain, which was celebrated on November 1st and started on the evening of October 31st, was more than just a change of seasons. It happened about halfway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It was one of the four main Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh. This time of year marked the end of the harvest season and the start of winter for the ancient Celts. They thought of this time as a time of death, darkness, and the unknown.
The Celts thought that the line between the living and the dead became very thin during Samhain. This liminal time let spirits cross over into the world of the living, making the air thick with supernatural danger and possibility. Some Neolithic passage tombs in Great Britain and Ireland are even lined up with the sunrise on Samhain, which suggests that the festival may have been important before the Celtic era.
Samhain Customs and Ceremonies
The ancient Celts did a lot of different things during Samhain to protect themselves from evil spirits and honor their dead ancestors. People lit special bonfires that they thought would protect and clean them. People brought cattle down from summer pastures, killed animals for food in the winter, and threw the bones of these animals into communal fires. This may have led to the term "bonfire," which comes from "bone fire."
The wearing of costumes and masks was one of the most important parts of Samhain. To confuse wandering spirits and keep them from recognizing them, the Celts wore disguises, which were often made of animal skins and heads. This protective measure was an early version of what we now call Halloween costumes. Some researchers think that people painted their faces with woad, clay, and ash from ceremonial bonfires. Druids, on the other hand, wore animal hides and added bones, antlers, and horsehair to their clothes.
The Celts also left food and drink for the aos sí, which are spirits or fairies that most historians think are the remains of pagan gods. The purpose of these gifts was to calm these supernatural beings and make sure that people and animals would survive the harsh winter that was coming. Also, people believed that the souls of family members who had died would come back to their homes during Samhain, and places were set at the table to welcome them.
Divination was a big part of the Samhain celebrations, and nuts and apples were often used in the rituals. People thought that these practices could help them learn more about their future marriages, health, and other important parts of life.
Roman Influence and the Joining of Pomona
When the Romans took over Celtic lands in the 1st century CE, Roman festivals started to mix with Celtic traditions that were already there. Feralia, a day to remember the dead, and a festival to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees, gardens, and orchards, were two Roman holidays that had a big impact on what would become Halloween.
The apple was Pomona's symbol, and her October festival focused on fruit as a divine gift of love, fertility, and wealth. When Roman and Celtic Samhain traditions came together, apples became a part of Halloween celebrations. This mix led to customs like bobbing for apples, which started as a way for single young people to find out more about their future spouses. People thought that the first person to be able to bite into an apple that was floating in water or hanging from a string would be the next to get married.
Christian Change: All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day
The spread of Christianity through Celtic lands was the biggest change in how Halloween has changed over time. Pope Gregory III (731-741) dedicated an oratory in Old St. Peter's Basilica in the 8th century to the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors, of all the just made perfect who are at rest throughout the world." Some sources say this dedication happened on November 1st, which is now known as All Saints' Day.
Around the year 800 CE, churches in Gaelic Ireland and Anglo-Saxon Northumbria were celebrating all saints on November 1st. Irish missionaries and clerics at Charlemagne's court, like Alcuin of Northumbria, may have had a hand in setting this date. Alcuin of Northumbria suggested the November 1st feast to people all over Europe. In 835, Emperor Louis the Pious made All Saints' Day on November 1st a holy day of obligation throughout the Frankish Empire, "at the instance of Pope Gregory IV and with the assent of all the bishops."
All Hallows' Eve, which means "holy" or "saint" in Old English, is the night before All Saints' Day. As time went on, "All Hallows' Eve" became "Hallowe'en" and then "Halloween."
In the early 11th century, Abbot Odilo of Cluny set aside November 2nd as All Souls' Day, a day for prayer and remembering all faithful Christians who had died and were thought to be in purgatory. Allhallowtide was a three-day holiday that included October 31st (All Hallows' Eve), November 1st (All Saints' Day), and November 2nd (All Souls' Day). It was a time to remember the dead.
Medieval Traditions: Souling and Guising
In the Middle Ages, new customs began to appear that would directly affect how we celebrate Halloween today. During Allhallowtide, poor people, usually children, would go door to door collecting soul cakes-small round cakes with a cross on them-in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of their friends and family. This is how "souling" started. This tradition has been around since at least the 15th century and can be found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria, and Austria.
In Scotland and Ireland, a similar tradition called "guising" grew out of souling. Guisers dressed up and went from door to door, but instead of saying prayers, they sang songs, read poetry, told jokes, or did other "tricks" in exchange for food, wine, or money. People thought that the costumes worn during guising protected them from evil spirits by either making them look like one of them or making the spirits not know who they really were.
Souling and guising were common practices in the Middle Ages that are now thought to be the beginnings of modern trick-or-treating.
The Story of the Jack-O-Lantern
The jack-o-lantern is one of the most famous symbols of Halloween. It comes from Irish folklore. The story is about "Stingy Jack," a clever drunk who tricked the Devil over and over again. Jack tricked the Devil into turning into a coin to pay for drinks, and then he trapped him by putting the coin next to a silver cross. Jack later tricked the Devil into climbing a tree for an apple, then carved crosses on the trunk to keep him there.
The Devil promised Jack that he would never take his soul in exchange for his freedom. When Jack finally died, Heaven wouldn't let him in because of all the bad things he had done, but the Devil also turned him away from Hell because he had promised to do so. Instead, the Devil gave Jack a burning ember from Hell's fires to light his way as he walked around the world forever. Jack put the ember inside a carved-out turnip, which was the first jack-o-lantern.
People in Ireland and Scotland started carving scary faces into turnips, potatoes, and beets and putting them on windowsills and doorsteps to keep Stingy Jack's wandering spirit and other evil spirits away. Irish immigrants brought this tradition to America in the 1800s. They found that pumpkins, which are native to North America and are much bigger and easier to carve than turnips, made the best jack-o-lanterns.
Halloween Comes to the United States
European immigrants, especially Irish and Scottish settlers who came to North America in the 19th century, brought Halloween traditions with them. The Great Potato Famine of the 1840s caused a lot of Irish people to move to the United States, and they brought their Halloween traditions with them.
In the beginning, Halloween celebrations in the U.S. were small and often took the form of "play parties," which were public gatherings to celebrate the harvest where people would dress up, tell fortunes, share ghost stories, and play games. The holiday, on the other hand, stayed pretty local and different from place to place until the early 1900s.
It looks like the phrase "trick or treat" first came about in Canada and the northern US in the 1920s. Etymologist Barry Popik found that the word was first used in writing in 1917, and that it appeared in different forms in Canadian newspapers in the early 1920s. Kids would dress up and go door to door asking for treats, and if they didn't get any, they would imply that they would play tricks on them.
In the 1930s and 1940s, trick-or-treating became popular in the United States. World War II sugar rationing, which lasted from April 1942 to June 1947, stopped its growth. After the war, when sugar was easy to get again, candy companies started to actively market their Halloween goods.
The Rise of Halloween Today
Halloween in the United States changed in the 1950s. The baby boom after World War II and the quick growth of suburban neighborhoods where kids could easily walk from house to house both helped trick-or-treating grow quickly. Halloween became more popular thanks to national media coverage, with Halloween episodes on popular radio and TV shows.
Halloween was a big part of American culture by 1952. Walt Disney made a cartoon called "Trick or Treat" that showed kids going door-to-door asking for candy. In 1953, UNICEF started its first national campaign to get kids to raise money while trick-or-treating.
In the second half of the 20th century, Halloween quickly became a business. What used to be a small holiday with homemade costumes and treats turned into a big shopping event. The costume business grew quickly, and simple homemade costumes were replaced by mass-produced costumes of well-known characters. Candy companies made fun-size candy bars just for Halloween to make it easier and cheaper for families to go trick-or-treating.
Halloween is the second biggest commercial holiday in the US today. Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on candy, costumes, and decorations. According to the National Confectioners Association, Halloween candy sales alone bring in about $4.6 billion, or 12.5% of all candy sales for the year.
Today's Halloween Traditions
Halloween today has parts from all of its past influences. Carving jack-o-lanterns is an old way to keep bad spirits away, but now people use pumpkins instead of turnips. Dressing up in costumes is similar to how the Celts used to hide from wandering spirits. However, today's costumes can be scary, funny, or based on popular culture.
Trick-or-treating is like the medieval traditions of souling and guising, but instead of soul cakes, kids go door to door collecting candy. Bobbing for apples is a party game that keeps alive the Roman-Celtic way of telling the future. Halloween parties, haunted houses, and horror movie marathons are new ways to celebrate the ancient festival of the dead.
Celebrations Around the World
Halloween started in Celtic lands and took on its modern form in America. In the last few decades, the holiday has spread around the world. Halloween celebrations have spread to many countries, where they are often combined with local customs. Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Mexico is similar to Halloween in that it happens around the same time and honors the dead. Ireland is where Halloween began, and there are still traditional celebrations along with modern ones. Japan, Australia, and some parts of Europe have all gotten into Halloween to different degrees, usually by throwing costume parties and decorating their homes.
Conclusion
Halloween has changed a lot over the past two thousand years, going from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain to a worldwide holiday. The holiday has taken ideas from Celtic paganism, Roman festivals, Christian holidays, medieval customs, and American commercialization and made them its own. Each layer of influence has added to the rich, complex celebration we see today.
What started as a serious festival to mark the change of seasons and worlds has turned into a night of fun and games. Halloween still has echoes of its ancient roots, when people thought the veil between the living and the dead grew thin, spirits walked the Earth, and communities came together to face the coming darkness of winter.
Halloween still fascinates people all over the world, whether they celebrate it with big parties and decorations or by quietly thinking about those who have died. This shows that some traditions stay strong even after they have changed over the years.