A Haunting History of Halloween

Halloween is such a widely celebrated and festive holiday it is sometimes forgotten that it did not have it's origins in the United States. Halloween isn't native to the U.S... its origins comes to us from across the pond from Ireland. All Hallows Eve comes from an ancient culture of people, who lived in Ireland 2000 years ago, know as the Celts. November 1 was the Celtic New Year. The New Year was a time for the Harvest and signaled the end of the summer and the beginning of winter. It was the night before the New Year that the Celts observed and paid their respects to the god Samhain (pronounced, Sow-in). Samhain means summers end in Celtic. October 31 was the eve of the last day and marked when the boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead could be breached, and the ghost of the dead could once again walk the land of the living, to the Celts it was also known as the season of life meets the Season of Death...

Druid priest would try to foretell whether their communities would be safe through the winter months, common villagers built huge bonfires and donned the head and skins of animals to disguise themselves in hopes of fooling the spirits.

When the Romans came to power in the now United Kingdom, the Catholic Church knowing that they could not stop or discourage the ghoulish, macabre, pagan traditions of the Celts, they established All Hallows Day or All Saints Day., with the hoped to in time dilute the Holiday, the natives accepted the Holliday but never let go of the old rituals. Soon after the date of Samhain became All Hallows Eve and morphed in to what we know today as Halloween.
In The mid nineteenth century a potato famine created an exodus, and over a million starving and impoverished Irish came to America for a better life, with them they brought their superstitions and folklore.

Behind they left the large bonfires and replaced them with the Jack 0 Lantern. The costumes of animal skins became the costumes of malevolent spirits and monsters that we all eagerly wear now. Trick or treating is thought to come from a custom called souling, when villagers went from home to home praying for the souls of each family's deceased in return for small cakes. By the beginning of the twentieth century Halloween was firmly cemented as one of America's favorite Holidays.