Posted on 10/30/2009 10:34:37 AM PDT by markomalley
The Celts believed the dead walked the night during the Samhain festival. If they came calling at your door you had to give them gifts to avoid evil "tricks." That's the general gist of it. Quoting from Wiki, since it's the handiest source:
"The term "Samhain" derives from the name of a month in the ancient Celtic calendar, in particular the first three nights of this month, with the festival marking the end of the summer season and the end of the harvest. Samhain was also called the Féile Moingfhinne ie "Festival of Mongfind". According to Cormac's Glossary, Mongfind (mod.Irish spelling Mongfhionn) was a goddess the pagan Irish worshipped on Samhain. The Gaelic festival became associated with the Catholic All Souls' Day, and appears to have influenced the secular customs now connected with Halloween."
Americans can probably take the blame for commercializing the holiday -- it's much more commercial now than when I was younger. But we "borrowed" capitalism from the UK too.
I recall reading Heroditus and some such account, tried to find it on Google but couldn’t. I’ve read most of the greek classic. You might be right ...
Myth. October 31st isn’t even on the radar. The fall equinox is the biggie. All the pagan holidays are centered around astronomical phenomenon.
Keep telling yourself that. It has everything to do with the celtic occult, the jack-0-lantern, the candy, everything ... It was brought over by the irish, started mostly in New York and spread to the rest of the country.
Ding dong
Acorn calling...
I was with you until you got to beer. Americans have no standing to criticize any European nation on beer. Our ice cold, tasteless, weak, yellow barley soda is an abomination.
Halloween is one of the world's oldest holidays, dating back to pagan times. But it is celebrated today by more people in more countries than ever before. there's a simple reason: it is fun and it is good, clean, harmless fun for young and old alike! Also see Halloween around the world and see this page of current Halloween facts and statistics.
Since much of the history of Halloween wasn't written down for centuries; some of it is still sketchy and subject to debate. But the most plausible theory is that Halloween originated in the British Isles out of the Pagan Celtic celebration of Samhain. It goes back as far as 5 B.C. It was believed that spirits rose from the dead and mingled with the living on this day. The Celts left food at their doors to encourage good spirits and wore masks to scare off the bad ones. Some historians believe that the Romans who invaded England added a few of their own traditions to the celebration of Samhain; such as celebrating the end of the harvest and honoring the dead; others say that since the Romans never conquered the Celts (Ireland and Scotland) there was no mingling of cultures, and that the Celts celebrated the end of the harvest and honored their dead in this way, anyway!
Many centuries later, the Roman Catholic church, in an attempt to do away with pagan holidays, such as Halloween (and Christmas, which had been the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia) established November 1st as All Saint's Day (in French, la Toussaint), in celebration of all the saints who do not have their own holy day. This attempt to detract attention from the pagan celebration of Samhain didn't work. The celebrations on the eve of All Saint's Day continued to grow and change! During the massive Irish immigration into America in the 1840s, Halloween found its way to the United States, where it continued to flourish!
It is also believed that the Christian practice of celebrating the evening before a holiday, such as Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, etc. came from the Jewish traditions. Both groups now observe many holy days from sundown on one day until sundown on the following day.
The modern name, Halloween comes from "All Hallows' Evening," or in their slang "All Hallow's Even", the eve of All Hallows' Day. "Hallow" is an Old English word for "holy person," and All Hallows' Day is just another name for All Saints' Day, eventually, it became abbreviated to "Hallowe'en" and then "Halloween."
The Celts lived hundreds of years ago in what is now Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and northern France. The Celtic people, around 800 B.C., commonly kept sheep and cattle. When the weather got colder, the shepherds brought their animals down from the hills to closer pastures. Life changed dramatically between summer and winter for the Celts. In the winter months, everybody stayed inside or close to home, fixing things indoors, sewing, spending time together, and generally trying to avoid being outside where one froze to death, go sick, or otherwise was killed or eaten by something that was larger and hungry. The change of seasons from growing, plenty, and life to winter, dark, shortages and death was at the meaning behind the holiday.
The final harvest of the year was marked by a celebration called Samhain (pronounced sow-en) and was also the ancient Celtic New Year. Samhain, which translates to "end of summer," usually occurred around the end of October, when the weather started to get cold in Ireland and Scotland. (yes, I know it's not a big difference from "summer" there, but they apparently can tell the difference! :)
Celts believed that transitions, times when things change from one state to another, had magical properties. Samhain marked what was for them one of two of the biggest turning points of the year (Spring being the other) a change in the weather as well as a change in life. The Celts also believed this magical time created an opening to the dead. They believed the worlds of the dead and the living were closest at the time of Samhain, and that the spirits of the dead were freed to travel once more among the living, in part because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld.
People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to help them on their journey to the otherworld, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were afoot: ghosts, fairies, and demons! Many of the activities of the Samhain festival were related to these beliefs. Many of those practices then evolved into odern day Halloween traditions.
On October 31st after the crops were all harvested and put into storage for the winter ahead, the cooking fires in the homes would be extinguished. The Druids, the Celtic priests, would meet in the hilltop in the dark oak forest (oak trees for their size and strength and mistletoe for remaining green in the winter and having berries in the cold were considered sacred). The Druids would light new fires and offer sacrifices of crops and animals to thank the gods for the harvest and appease the gods of the coming winter.
The morning after, the Druid priests would give an hot ember from the fires to each family, who would then take them home to start new cooking fires. The fireplace and fire were a big deal to the Celts, as they kept the homes warm and free from evil spirits.
The festival lasted for 3 days. Many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals representing various gods of nature.
Societies and religions honored their martyrs for thousands of years. Catholics canonized saints after death. Saints are effectively "ranked" higher since they have special status (sainthood, holiness) bestowed upon them, saints are held in esteem as role models, and God may perform miracles on earth through them. Roman Catholics, and some other Christians, honor saints, and ask them for guidance in daily life.
Many saints have their own day to honor them. But with so many thousands of canonized saints, only a small percentage are recognized specifically. Pope Boniface IV officially established All Saints' Day in order to honor all the saints at one time.
All Saints' Day originally fell on May 13. In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory the First issued a now famous edict to his missionaries regarding the beliefs and customs of the peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than try to banish native peoples' customs and beliefs, the pope had his missionaries to incorporate them: if a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship. In 835 AD, Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1 to try to take over the pagan holiday. Officially, the Church chose this new date to mark the papal dedication of a church honoring the saints. Few historians accept that as the Catholic Church had a long-standing policy of incorporating non-Christian traditions into its holidays. For example, many historians believe, for example, that the church set Christmas on December 25 so that it would correspond with pagan winter solstice festivals (Shepherds don't "watch over their flock by night" in the winter, as the flock is inside or would die in the cold!).
In any case, when All Saints' Day moved to November 1, many of the pagan Samhain traditions were brought into the holy day's activities. This may have helped bring descendents of the ancient Celts into Christianity, but it created some problems for the church. Much of the Samhain traditions centered on the supernatural and spirit world, ideas that don't have much of a place in Christianity. Recognizing saints, who were by definition dead, covered a lot of the same ground, but the creepy and supernatural aspects like the dead spirits walking the earth again at midnight certainly wasn't part of Christianity. Young men were now instructed to go door to door begging for food for the town poor. Villagers were allowed to dress up in costume to represent a saint. Now, instead of dressing up to chase away evil spirits, and celebrating pagan beliefs, they were dressed up to honor the saints. Like anyone cared! :)
One legend has it that on one All Hallows Eve that a priest was walking by on a country road when on the hill he saw the bonfires burning. He saw people dancing around the fire in costumes with shafts and torches in their hands. With the moon as a backdrop to the fires the people appeared to be flying in the air. The man hurried to the village to tell that witches were flying and evil was afoot. Presumably, this is where the myth of witches on broomsticks flying on Halloween comes from.
There is a lesser known church holiday called All Soul's Day that came into being at the end of the 10th century. It was an occasion to recognize all Christian dead. .
All Souls' Day, observed on November 2, is celebrated with Catholic masses and festivities in honor of the dead. The living pray on behalf of Catholics who are in purgatory, the state in the afterlife between the land of the living and the otherworlds where souls are purified before proceeding to heaven. Souls in purgatory, who are members of the church just like living Christians, must suffer so that they can be purged of their sins. Through prayer and good works, living members of the church may help their departed friends and family.
It was on Halloween in 1517 that Martin Luther began to try to reform the Catholic Church. It ended in the formation of the Protestant Church, which didn't believe in saints (in the Roman Catholic sense of of specific individuals).
Without Saints, there would be no All Hallow's eve, no Halloween and no partying, so in Britain, when a a conspiracy to blow up the English Parliament and King James I in 1605 was foiled, this became a convemnient means to solve two issues at once. The celebrations that people were accustomed to just moved to November 5 and became Guy Fawkes Day. Guy Fawkes was not-too-bright accomplice who became the fall 'guy" (his name is also where we get the word "guy" from) in a Catholic plot to blow up the English Parliament, which at that time was Protestant. So, although technically, the celebration was to commemorate the failure of the plot, nonetheless, it was Halloween. Bonfires were lit across the country. People made lanterns from carved out turnips and children went begging for "a penny for the guy" (and they were to use the pennies to buy more wood for the bonfire upon which Guy Fawkes was to be burned alive. gruesome, huh? I knew you'd like that..
Realizing that it could not completely get rid of the supernatural aspects of the celebrations, the Catholic church began characterizing the spirits as evil forces associated with the devil. This is where much of the more malevolent Halloween imagery, such as evil witches and demons come from.
All Souls' Day has morphed and exists today, particularly in Latin America and Mexico, where All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are collectively observed as "Los Dias de los Muertos" (The Days of the Dead). First and foremost, the Days of the Dead is a time when families fondly remember the deceased, visit their graves and clean the gravesites and leave fresh flowers. But it is also a time marked by Mardi Gras-like festivities, including spectacular parades of skeletons and ghouls. In one tradition, a mock funeral procession with a live person inside a coffin is paraded through the streets.
In the Celtic times and up till the medieval ages, fairies (a.k.a., faeries) were also thought to run free on the Eve of Samhain. Faeries weren't necessarily evil, but not particularly they weren't good. They were mischevious. They liked rewarding good deeds and did not like to be crossed. On Samhain, faeries were thought to disguise themselves as beggars and go door to door asking for handouts. Those who gave them food were rewarded. Those who did not were subjected to some unpleasantness.
In medieval times, one popular All Souls' Day practice was to make "soul cakes," simple bread desserts with a currant topping. In a custom called "souling," children would go door-to-door begging for the cakes, much like modern trick-or-treaters. For every cake a child collected, he or she would have to say a prayer for the dead relatives of the person who gave the cake. These prayers would help the relatives find their way out of purgatory and into heaven. The children even sang a soul cake song along the lines of the modern "Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat, give me something good to eat."
As part of the Samhain celebration, Celts would bring home an ember from the communal bonfire at the end of the night. They carried these embers in hollowed-out turnips, creating a lantern resembling the modern day jack-o'-lantern. This carried on in Ireland and Scotland through the 18th century. A very popular character in Irish folk tales was Stingy Jack, a famous cheapskate who, on several occasions, avoided losing his soul to the devil by tricking him (often on All Hallows' Eve). Much like the American stories of the devil and . In one story, he convinced Satan to climb up a tree for some apples, and then cut crosses all around the trunk so the devil couldn't climb down. The devil promised to leave Jack alone forever, if he would only let him out of the tree.
When Jack eventually died, he was turned away from Heaven, due to his life of sin. But, in keeping with their agreement, the Devil wouldn't take Jack, either. He was cursed to travel forever as a spirit in limbo. As Jack left the gates of Hell, the Devil threw him a hot ember to light the way in the dark. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed-out turnip, and wandered off into the world. According to the Irish legend, you might see Jack's spirit on All Hallows' Eve, still carrying his turnip lantern through the darkness. Click here for a web page that has the complete Stingy Jack story!
Traditional jack-o'-lanterns, hollowed-out turnips with embers or candles inside, became a very popular Halloween decoration in Ireland and Scotland a few hundred years ago. Folk tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other spirits on Halloween, and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with the more plentiful pumpkins. As it turns out, pumpkins were easier to carve than turnips. People began to cut frightening faces and other elaborate designs into their jack-o'-lanterns.
All of this brings us to PUMPKINS which become Jack O'Lanterns, which you want to go pick and carve. So let's look at why!
If you are not from the British Isles, you won't believe where your hollowed out pumpkin comes from! In Ireland and Scotland hollowed-out turnips with embers or candles inside, became a very popular Halloween decoration a few hundred years ago. Baldrick would have met his dream! (Fans of "Blackadder" will recognize this!) Tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other malevolent spirits on Halloween, and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with pumpkins, which, native to the new world, were plentiful. It didn't hurt that they are a lot easier to carve than turnips. Have you ever tried to hollow out a turnip? People began to carve frightening faces and other designs into their jack-o'-lanterns.
Meanwhile, back in the new world, the settlers were all Protestant and Halloween was technically a Catholic holiday. The original colonists in this country found ANY celebration immoral, especially a Catholic one. In fact, celebrating Christmas in the Massachusetts colony was once illegal, punishable by banishment or death.
After the American Revolution, Halloween still never really caught on in America. Most of the country was farmland, and the people too far spread out to share different celebrations from Europe. Any chance to get together was looked forward to - barn raisings, quilting bees, taffy pulls. Eventually, a fall holiday called the Autumn Play Party developed. People would gather and tell ghost stories, dance and sing and feast and light bonfires. The children would stage a school pageant where they paraded in costumes.
The Autumn Play Parties lasted until the Industrial revolution. After that, the majority of Americans lived in cities and had no need for such get togethers. By the end of the Civil War, only Episcopalians and Catholics celebrated All Saints' Day and Halloween, and the two religions combined made up less than 5% of the population. Concerned about letting a part of their heritage fade away, the the two religions began an aggressive campaign to put those two holidays on all public calendars. In the late 1800's there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborhood "get-togethers," than about the supernatural. .At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate. The first year All Saints' Day and Halloween showed up on the calendars, the newspapers and magazines made a big deal about it. Suddenly, everyone knew about Halloween and began celebrating it by lighting bonfires and having masquerade parties. The first official citywide Halloween celebration in the United States, occurred in Anoka, Minn., in 1921. In the 1920's and 30's Halloween became a secular but community centered holiday which was celebrated with parades and town wide parties. By the 1950's vandalism had to be brought under control and by this time Halloween was more of a child's celebration. Treats were handed out in order to prevent tricks like lawn rolling at each home. Those traditions have made Halloween the country's second largest commercial holiday to the tune of more than $2 billion spent on candy each year.
Today, Halloween is once again being celebrated as an adult holiday or masquerade, like Mardi Gras. Men and women in every disguise imaginable are now participating in parades. Many parents decorate their homes and yards, dress in costume, hand out candy at their door or go with their children as they collect candy.
And despite its origins, today it has nothing to do with evil, devil worship, satanic forces, etc. It's just good clean fun!
Oh, he should just turn off the porch light and go watch the telly for the evening...
Wrong. The fall equinox has been replaced with that old American tradition of celebrating the end of day-light savings time!
Maybe we should send sweetest day to Britain next.
Well thankfully there is an ocean between our countries and Britain doesn't have to partake in America's Halloween fun.
Not worry- The muslims who are gaining control of Britian will outlaw the custom soon enough.
That;s OK. I’m sick of the Limeys pretending they won WW1 and WW2.
The poor brits just don’t know how to have fun. In their attempt to create a droll, secular workhouse they have instead been overrun by Muslims. I guess since they don’t like Halloween, they’re really going to hate jihad explosions in London.
I hate to say it but, we Americans ARE responsible for that. Starting in the last half of the nineteenth century, when advertising really took off. In the last forty years, it has become obscenely and cynically commercial.
Prior to the 1960s, if anyone put up Christmas lights before Thanksgiving, they were considered immature for not waiting until Advent. No one put up their Christmas tree until just a few days before Christmas day and they left them up until the 12th day (Epiphany) or at least until New Years Day. The Macy's (the department store) Thanksgiving Day Parade was the inauguration of the “Christmas shopping season”. As commercial as that was, these days quite a few stores have their Christmas displays up in mid-September!
And, when the merchants are through making their money off of Christmas, they take down all the decorations on Christmas day, and act as if Christmas is over! Many us have started to follow their lead and believe the season is over, when in fact it has just begun!
In contrast, in Germany still, there are no decorations, private or public, ANYWHERE until the first Sunday in Advent; then almost magically overnight, the towns are transformed into Christmastowns. While there is SOME advertising by retailers (mainly to let people know what wares they have and at what price); there are absolutely NO SALES or other promotions to buy, buy, buy. The Germans are not extravagant in their gift-giving; thoughtful, useful, and symbolic of the day, are the most common. The Christmas trees in homes usually go up on Christmas Eve, (often after the children have gone to bed), and they tell them in the morning that either the Christ Child or the Christmas Man brought it.
The Christmas season BEGINS on Christmas day and is 12 days long. At the end, again almost overnight, all the decorations of the season are gone.
I suspect Britain has been the first of the European countries to succumb to the obscene American version of the Holy Day.
Sending kids out to take candy from strangers has always seemed an odd custom to me.
I did try to commercialize my front door, but my ‘Schick Snack Spot’ never really took off...
One exception might be Russia. When I visited the Soviet Union in 1972, the only beer available was Moskovskaya, which made Hamm's, arguably America's worst-tasting beer, seem like draft Spatenbräu.
On All Hallows Eve the students behaved as College students do. It has calmned down during the intervening Centuries.
I dunno man, this whole "history" doesn't strike me as plausible. A Christian feast day that had been celebrated in Italy, Spain, France, and elsewhere was changed wholesale to accommodate a date sacred to....Celtic pagans?
Sed contra:
The feast of All Saints, on its current date, is traced to the foundation by Pope Gregory III (731–741) of an oratory in St. Peter's for 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", with the day moved to November 1.[3]Also, note this;This usually fell within a few weeks of the Celtic holiday of Samhain, which had a theme similar to that of Lemuria, but which was also a harvest festival. The Irish, whose holiday Samhain had been, did not celebrate All Hallows Day on this November 1 date, as extant historical documents attest that the celebration in Ireland took place in the spring: "...the Felire of Oengus and the Martyrology of Tallaght prove that the early medieval churches [in Ireland] celebrated the feast of All Saints on April 20."[4]
The Feast was observed annually on this date until the time of Bishop of Rome, Gregory III (d. 741) when its observance was shifted to Nov. 1, since on this date Gregory dedicated a chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter's to "All the Saints." It was Gregory IV (d. 844), who in 835 ordered the Feast of All Saints to be universally observed on Nov. 1This author is WAY off base. Gregory III changed the feast day to Nov. 1 in the mid-700s IN ROME to commemorate the dedication of the basilica. A hundred years later, Gregory IV extended this date to the universal church. The Irish martyrologies from the 8th-9th centuries show that the Irish were still keeping the OLD feast day in April while ROME was celebrating on Nov. 1.
Does it still sound like the date was changed to accommodate Irish pagans? I don't think so. Just another example of some doofus secular historian who knows jack about liturgical history making stuff up.
And don't even get me started on this guy's claims on the date of Christmas, which are even more completely off base.
Lol, now that’s some funny stuff. I’m very fond of Belgians myself, trappist ales in particular. I can’t stomach domestic mass market brews. You drink it ice cold so you can’t taste it.
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