Boo! Did I scare ya? Welcome to spooky season y’all. It’s officially almost Halloween. A day filled with vampires, ghosts, and goblins. Of course, you can’t forget about that one neighbor with full size candy bars waiting at their door or the Halloween parties we had at school growing up. The good ole days you can say. For college, Halloween looks a bit different. It mainly consists of cute costumes, lots of parties, Halloween movie marathons (I suggest the classics like Halloween, Hocus Pocus, and Ghostbusters), and the occasional drunk trick or treater. Halloween is meant for fun and games, but how many of us know the true story behind this creepy, yet exciting holiday? Well, I am here to give you the run down. So, grab that bag of candy you definitely didn’t need from the Halloween department at Target and prepare yourself for the origin behind Halloween.
Time to take a trip back in time. A long time ago there was an ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. This was a Pagan holiday that celebrated the coming harvest. You might be wondering how this in is anyway connected to Halloween. Well, Halloween is set in harvest time so that is one reason. Also, during the festival, they would wear scary costumes to ward off any potential spirits and ghosts that try to interrupt said harvest. Large bonfires would be lit to cast away ghosts too. Now, we don’t need to commit arson anymore. Please, we don’t need places burning down on Halloween night. Costumes; however, are perfectly fine and encouraged because of this Celtic Festival. We are not technically warding off ghosts anymore unless you are the ghostbusters (that is cool if you are), but this celebration made for a fun tradition we get to do every Halloween night.
Halloween wasn’t always called Halloween. It went through a few other names first. Pope Gregory lll designated All Saints Day as a holiday on November 1st. It incorporated many of the same activities as the festival, but it was meant to celebrate saints. So, in result of that, All Hallows Eve was created for the night before to include the Celtic festivities still. This later became known as the holiday we know and love, Halloween. Now, I just threw a lot of information at you, but what to take away from this is that the idea of Halloween originated from the Celtic festival. The pope helped it to become a successful holiday; however, the idea of All Saints Day was taken from the Celtic people. We must give credit where credit is due, so we have them to thank for spooky season.
Halloween originated in England, but slowly was introduced to America. The two countries merged their ideas to create a fun and scary holiday filled with dancing, trick or treating, scary stories, and more. However, it took a while for Halloween to spread all throughout America. We have the Irish to thank for that because they helped to popularize this familiar holiday. We also have the Irish to thank for pumpkin carving. As a child, I loved carving pumpkins. I still do as a college freshman, but every time I do it, I realize how bad I am at it. But hey, it is still fun. The Irish thought so also. They started out carving turnips instead of pumpkins. This was because an old Irish legend that said this man was given a turnip filled with coal to light his way through the world as a ghost. It is an interesting legend and there is no concrete evidence behind it, but that’s where the idea of carving jack o lanterns came from. Just in this time they utilized the frightening faces on turnips to scare away any lingering ghosts. Now, we know it best on a plump orange pumpkin.
There are many theories on how trick or treating came about. Are any of them true? I couldn’t tell you, but basically, they all say trick or treating originated from when kids and adults went to their neighbors asking for food and money. The Celtics say they would leave food for the spirits. The pope would want people to collect food and money from their neighbors in exchange for prayers for the dead-on November 1st, and lastly, a German theory says they wore costumes and trick or treated so adults could guess the kids’ real identities. If they guessed right, they would get treats. There are many more theories and I could write pages upon pages about them, but that will get boring so quick so remember trick or treating spawns from neighbors just wanting food and money from each other. Almost sounds like how college kids are. If you have a college trick or treater, give them something. We are broke and food is food.
Lastly, we are going to talk about one of my favorite things: black cats. Personally, I am not superstitious when it comes to black cats. There is the legend that if a black cat walks by you, bad luck is upon you. I would like to see some actual evidence on that to truly believe it, but the point is, this bad juju came from the Middle Ages. People thought the cats were spawn from the devil himself. Ok I can see how that would freak them out. Others have seen black cats as like an evil sidekick to witches. This is portrayed in so many movies and shows. So yeah, I can see why people see black cats as a cursed animal. Funny thing is I think I would still want to own one. Perfect for the spooky season.
There are so many components to Halloween I haven’t even touched on. Like I said we could sit here all day and talk about it which I know we don’t have time for. But Halloween is such a fun holiday for kids and adults alike and I think it is important to understand the origin behind it. Especially since it is coming soon…so be safe this scary night and have the best fright of your life. Halloween only comes once a year so enjoy the fear while it is here and as always reach for the stars!
Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween