The Haunting History of Halloween

2,000 years ago on November 1st a group of tribes in modern day Ireland called the Celts celebrated the new year. This was the end of the sunny, harvesting days and the beginning of the cold, darkness of winter. This also marked the beginning of death due to frigid temperatures and lack of medical knowledge of the time period.The Celts believed that the day before the beginning of cold, dark, death was the day that the line between the world of the living and the world of the dead was nonexistent. Ghosts came down to say hey and spend the night with the humans . They celebrated this time by having Druids (Celtic Priests) light sacred bonfires and sacrificing crops and animals to celtic deities while wearing animal heads and pelts as costumes. They also thought this time gave Druids special powers to tell fortunes so they did that too. They were an eccentric bunch. This became known as Samhain (sow-in) which was celebrated every October 31st.

Rome eventually conquered Celtic lands, as they do, and through some cultural diffusion, Roman and Celtic holidays merged. Thus, the church declared November 1st as All Saints’ Day, which celebrated christian Martyrs and Saints and November 2nd became All Souls’ Day which was almost exactly like Samhain only now Christian-approved. All Saints’ Day in the middle english dialect was called Alholomesse, so All Saints’ Day was a.k.a All-hallows or All-hallowmas. The day before being All-Hallows Eve and eventually became known as Halloween!

Later on, immigrants from Ireland fled to America during the Irish Potato Famine bringing the tradition of Halloween! There were already some similar harvest celebrations and days for the dead in America, done against the advisement of the Protestants, but with the help of the European tradition of Halloween, trick-or-treating was invented. Over time Halloween became more of a social holiday, it was about getting together with neighbors and community, it was fun rather than ghostly appearances and religion. The tradition of fortune telling, however, was still common, young girls tried to see the name or face of their future husband by using yarn, apple pairings, or mirrors. Due to the baby boom in the 50s Halloween became a much more child centered holiday. Trick-or-treating was used again to stop neighborhood kids from playing tricks on you or vandalizing your property. Leading us to 2019 where Halloween is one of the biggest commercial Holidays

in America and the most creatively confusing days for teens across America.

So this Halloween, as you walk up to strangers’ doors and ask for candy disguised as someone else, remember how crazy people used to be.

Happy spooky season,

Zoe Boul