A brief history of HALLOWE'EN

The Celts inhabited what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France about 2,000 years ago and because their lives revolved around agriculture, they considered the end of the year to be the end of the harvest season.

On what is now 31 October every year, they celebrated New Year's Eve with a festival called "Samhain" (pronounced 'sow-en') which was named after The Lord of the Dead or The Lord of Darkness. The Celtic Priests (Druids) presided over this important festival, during which they built huge bonfires around which the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices. Because winter was associated with human death, the Celts believed that all laws of space and time were suspended at this time and the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead blurred, allowing ghosts of the dead to return to earth to intermingle with the living on the night that marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter.

It was believed that the spirits of those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year because it was their only hope for the afterlife. Because people did not want to be possessed, on the night of 31 October they would extinguish the fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable and they would leave food on their doorsteps to prevent hungry spirits from entering the house. They would dress up in frightening costumes made of animal heads and skins or as ghosts, witches and goblins so wandering spirits would not recognize them as being weak and defenseless humans, and they would parade around being as noisy as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess. These were the first "trick-or-treaters."

After the celebration was over, they would relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning at Usinach.

The Celts believed the presence of these ghosts made it easier for the Druids to make predictions about the future ... predictions which were a source of comfort and direction during the long, dark, frightening winters.

Eventually the Celts were conquered by the Romans and around 43AD Samhain was combined with two Roman festivals: Feralia, a day in late October commemorating the passing of the dead and a festival in honor of Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees whose symbol is the apple. (Probably the origin of apple "bobbing".)

With the spread of Christianity in the seventh century AD, Pope Boniface IV designated 1 November as All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs and this replaced the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday celebrated on All Hallow's Day. (Also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day). The eve of All Hallow's Day became "Hallowe'en."

Over time the belief in spirit possession waned and the celebration became more ritualized and the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts and witches took on a more ceremonial role. The custom of Halloween arrived in the Americas in the 1840s with Irish migrants fleeing the potato famine.

The favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates, but the custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On All Souls' Day (2 November), Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes" made of square pieces of bread with currants. And the more they received, the more prayers they would say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. It was believed that the dead waited in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer could speed a soul's passage to heaven.

Jack-o-Lantern: According to an Irish folk-tale, a notorious drunkard and trickster nicknamed "Stingy Jack" invited the Devil to have a drink, but he didn't want to pay for his drink, so the Devil turned himself into a coin to buy their drinks. But once the Devil turned himself into the coin, Jack decided to put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, on the condition that he would not bother Jack for a year and that, if Jack died, he would not claim his soul. The following year, Jack again tricked the Devil, getting him to climb into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. Jack carved a cross into the tree bark, thus trapping the devil until he promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. When Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, and because he had tricked the devil, who kept his word not to claim his soul, he was also denied access to Hell.

The way back was windy and dark, so Jack asked for some light.
The Devil threw a burning coal at him straight from the fires of Hell. To light his way, Jack put it in a turnip he was eating to keep it from blowing out in the wind and to keep it glowing longer. Jack has been doomed to wander in darkness with his lantern until "Judgment Day."

The Irish began to refer to this symbol of a damned soul as
"Jack of the Lantern," and then simply as "Jack O'Lantern."

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally and people in Ireland and Scotland began to make their Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them in windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets were used.

The Irish Potato Famine (1845-50) prompted over 700,000 to leave Ireland, and when these migrants reached the Americas, they saw that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips, so the Jack-O-Lantern is a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

Halloween has grown out of rituals
celebrating the New Year and Medieval European prayer rituals.

The day itself is only as "evil" as one cares to make it.