Trick or Treat?

As a young child I can vividly remember the excitment that built up to October 31st, back then the day simply meant that I would be able to dress up as a witch in my cloak and hat and go out with my mum asking the neighbours for sweets and other treats. We would cut out silouhettes of bats, witches and monsters to hang in the window and the highlight of the day would be carving a pumpkin to create a spooky face. As a child I had a fascination with anything macabre such as the tales of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Frankenstein, ghosts and vampires, and so Halloween was a well loved day.

As I grew older I stopped going trick or treating but instead still took great joy in halloween, I would proudly dress the windows of the shop I worked in for the annual halloween competition that was ran by the company. I would dress up with my colleagues and we would celebrate when we won each year. My fascination for macabre stories grew and grew and I soon took my passion for the paranormal one step further when I formed the Twelfth Hour Team.

Since then my beliefs and opinions have changed so much with regards to ghosts and ghoulies, yet I still have a deep love for Halloween, It has become a very commercial event with shops having halloween stock on the shelves as soon as August, but for those out there who share a passion for the macabre, Halloween will always have a place in our hearts.”

 

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death.

Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday.

The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.

The tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.

The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money.

The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes.

To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.

The Halloween celebrations of today have a whole different feel about them. All hallows eve is an extremely commericalised day, just like any other festive celebration such as Easter or Christmas. Shops tend to start selling halloween stock such as specially designed sweets and costumes as early as August.

Halloween celebrations are no longer restricted solely to Pagans or people of certain religions, everyone tends to get involved with the fun of the day. So the next time you put on your witches hat or wear a pair of plastic vampire fangs remember that the celebrations you are taking part in first came aroud because of superstitions about the “world on the dead” coming closer to the “world of the living.”

 

Written by Hayley Stevens