The Halloween Story

As we all know, Halloween is every kids favorite holiday. Little kids get an excuse to dress up and  get massive amounts of candy, and big kids get an excuse to dress up and consume massive amounts of alcohol. But before everyone gets all excited and dressed up, lets take a look at how this version of “Halloween” came about in the first place.

Although Halloween is thought to have many influences, there are two main contributors to the origin and development of Halloween. The first is the Celtic religion. Halloween’s origins were thought to have been linked to a Roman feast or Roman festival of the dead, but experts have said that it is more closely related to Celtic backgrounds. This Celtic festival called “Samhain” which means summer’s end, which was celebrated from Octover 31st- November 1st.

On this day it was thought that a door to the “other-world” was opened long enough for spirits of the dead to get through. The people would have feasts and festivals for these fairies and spirits, but not all spirits were good ones. They thought that evil spirits were also let through the door and to stay safe, people would dress up differently; hence the origination of the costumes.  For Samhain, not only was there a feast, but there was also a huge bonfire and a festival. During the 19th century, a man would take children door-to-door to ask for offerings of food, fuel or even money so that the town would have good spirits. This is a possible reason why we have trick-or-treating. The idea of jack-o-lanterns is a 19th century invention that originated with the Irish. They used to make turnip lanterns with faces carved in them. In Irish mythology, many stories are set to begin on Samhain,  which explains why we have all of these fictional Halloween stories.

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