Halloween holiday Carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, and wearing scary costumes are some of the time-honored traditions

Halloween holiday

Carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, and wearing scary costumes are some of the time-honored traditions of Halloween. 

Yet, the Halloween holiday has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”), a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. 

In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor saints. 

Soon after, All Saints Day came to incorporate some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before All Saints Day was known as All Hallows Eve, and later, Halloween. Here is a look at the origins of some of the classic Halloween traditions we know today.

Seeing Ghosts

The festival of Samhain marked the transition to the new year at the end of the harvest and beginning of the winter. Celtic people believed that during the festival, spirits walked the Earth. Later on, Christian missionaries introduced All Souls’ Day on November 2, which perpetuated the idea of the living coming into contact with the dead around the same time of year. 

Trick-or-Treating 

There is much debate around the origins of trick-or-treating, but generally there are three theories. The first theory suggests that during Samhain, Celtic people would leave food out to appease the spirits traveling the Earth at night. 

Over time, people began to dress as these unearthly beings in exchange for similar offerings of food and drink. 

The second theory speculates that the candy boon stems from the Scottish practice of guising, which is a secular version of “souling.” During the Middle Ages, generally children and poor adults would collect food and money from local homes in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day. 

Guisers dropped the prayers in favor of non-religious practices with the inclusion of songs, jokes, and other “tricks.”

A third theory argues that modern American trick-or-treating stems from “belsnickeling,” a German-American Christmas tradition where children would dress in costume and then call on their neighbors to see if the adults could guess the identities of the disguised. 

In one version of the practice, the children were rewarded with food or other treats if no one could identify them.

Halloween is celebrated every year on October 31, it is considered another holiday like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. Parents, schools, the community decorate their homes, schools, streets with ghosts, scary cats, and pumpkins to celebrate this calling holiday. When you celebrate something you believe in it and its cause. Many people do not know or simply deny the true meaning and background of Halloween. 

Since Halloween originated with paganism, its customs are related to pagan beliefs. 

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica: Also called All Saints' Eve, All Saints' Day Eve. Just like on the Christian Holiday of Samhain All Saints Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various pagan traditions of northern Europe.

Even Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian holiday of All Saints' Day from May 13 (which itself had been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1.

In the 9th century, the Church measured the day as beginning at sunset, according to the Florentine calendar. 

Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holdidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. It has its roots in Christianity and paganism. In ancient Britain and Ireland, the Celtic festival of Samhain was observed on October 31, at the end of summer. 

The souls of the dead were to be checked into the houses on this day and the Festival acquired autumnal symbols of ghosts, witches, goblins, black cats, fairies and demons of all kinds were set to be roaming. It was time to celebrate and practice the supernatural powers that control the powers of nature.

 Furthermore, Halloween is considered to be the preferred season of marriage, luck, health and death. It was the only day on which the devil's help was invoked.

Halloween symbols, customs and practices have different influences historically. In early American history Halloween was not practiced. It was not an English, Protestant, or even Catholic practice. 

It was not observed until the 20th century. It was practiced in small Irish Catholic settlements until thousands of Irish men emigrated during the Great Potato Famine and brought their customs with them. 

Our modern Halloween is an Irish holiday of origin that dates back to the Celtic holiday. Ireland is the only place in the world where Halloween is a national holiday.

Coincidentally, the rise in popularity of Halloween in the United States coincides with the national spiritualist revival that began in 1848. Among the modern Halloween uses and customs, we observe the following: Jack-o'-lantern - The carved pumpkin may have its origins with witches using a skull with a candle in it to light the way to coven meetings. Among the Irish, it led to the popularization of Halloween in America - the legend of the Irish Jack explains Jack-o'-lantern. Legend says: It was a drunk named Jack who tricked the devil into climbing a tree for an apple, but then longed for a sign of the cross on the trunk to prevent the devil from coming down. Jack forced the devil not to swear to come after his soul - the devil agreed... Jack one day died and was rejected at the gates of heaven due to his drunken ways and selfishness. 

He was also rejected by the devil, who kept his promise.

Since Jack had no place to go, he was condemned to wander the earth. As he left hell, the devil threw a hot coal at him. He put the coal on a turnip he was eating and has since been roaming the earth with his Jack-o'-lantern looking for a place to rest. Eventually pumpkins replaced turnips, since it was easier to symbolize the devil's coal in a pumpkin.