A few thousand years ago, some ancient, Irish Celt got the wild idea that the dead wandered around the earth on Oct. 31, the night before the Celtic New Year.
Whoever came up with this idea passed it along to his fellow Celts, and pretty soon, the whole tribe decided that New Year’s eve, the boundary between the living world and the world of the dead became sorta blurred.
They even coined a name for this little shindig, they called it Samhain — pronounced “sou-wen” — which meant, literally, “summer’s end.”
But Samhain, it seems, had its good and bad points.
On the plus side, the Druids — the Celtic priests — said they could make better predictions about the future if the dead guys were roaming around.
On the bad side, the ghosts of the dead didn’t always behave; they’d scare people, cause trouble and damage crops.
Yes, it does sound like Congress.
How we got the name
Anyway, as part of the celebration, the Druids built big bonfires and sacrificed some crops and several unlucky animals to their gods to make the gods, and the dead guys who were hanging out with them, happy.
They also dressed in costumes — animal heads and skins — tried to tell each other’s fortunes and even danced a little, too.
The bonfire — which they believed was sacred — kept the spirits in check and everything rocked along just fine until the Romans showed up a few years later.
By A.D. 43, the Romans had thumped the Celts pretty good and for the next 400 years the Romans were in charge. Of course, if you’re making the rules you get to plan the community social events and pretty soon two Roman festivals merged with Samhain.
It seems those in Rome also had a day to commemorate the passing of the dead, called Feralia. They added it, and another day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, to Samhain and the fall party continued.
At least until the Christians got there.
By the 800s, Christianity had spread into ancient Ireland and, in the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV came up with the plan to honor all the church’s saints and martyrs.
This, he cleverly named All Saints’ Day, and set the celebration for Nov. 1, the same time as Samhain.
Many religious scholars believe Boniface was attempting to replace the pagans’ party with a church sanctioned holiday. Whatever the reason, the celebration became known as Allhallows or All-hallowmas (which, in Middle English, meant All Saint’s Day)
Because they enjoyed All Saints Day so much, church officials added another day, Nov. 2, to honor the dead: All Souls Day.
Given the course of several hundred years and a few different dialects, All-hallowmas was eventually corrupted into Halloween.
Fast forward to Great Britain.
The Jack O’Lantern
The story — which could have come from anywhere, but many say England — was simple: Jack was a bad guy.
A scoundrel, Jack was too greedy to get into Heaven and he’d played too many tricks on the Devil to be allowed in Hell.
No his last name wasn’t Abramoff.
Still, Jack was a bad lot with no place to go and because of this, he was required to roam the earth with a lantern until Judgment Day.
His lantern evolved into a pumpkin and the pumpkin grew a face and the modern day Jack O’Lantern has occupied porches for decades.
Trick or Treat
If you were one of the fire-dancing, ghost fearing, hey-the-dead-are-back-for-the-evening-type, ancient Irish dudes, you probably went to more than one party for Muck Olla, the Irish sun god.
At this party, you’d form a parade and go beg for food — today we all them political receptions.
Anyway, the parade leader would be dressed in a white robe with an animal-head mask, again, the sun god thing.
Over the centuries, the parade would eventually merge with the English tradition of going “a-souling.”
To do this, you had to be English and be willing to go door-to-door where you promised to pray for the souls of the neighbor’s dead in exchange for a pastry, called a “soul cake.”
The soul cake morphed into candy and, today, instead of praying for the souls of the dead, parents, instead, pray their kids won’t eat all the sweet stuff before bedtime.
Those $*(%! Puritans
You’d think that after more than a 1,000 years of pagan parties, bonfires and ghosts roaming around, that people would get used to Halloween. Sit back, relax and enjoy the goat sacrifice.
Not so.
During the 18th century the Halloween celebration took it on the chin. And most of the country’s pumpkins ended up in pie and not as Jack O’Lanterns.
Due to the Puritans’ strict religious beliefs — and the fact they were busy hunting for witches to hang — Halloween was rarely, if at all celebrated.
Then, in the 1820s, things changed again.
Today’s Halloween
A massive influx of Irish and Scottish immigrants — who brought their beliefs and customs — pumped new life into Halloween and the modern celebration as we know it took off.
Complete with costumes, parties, candy and Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s version of the Monster Mash, today’s Halloween has all the fun but little of the belief.
Sure, come tonight you may see a ghost or two wandering the earth.
But rest assured it’ll be the neighborhood kid trying to scarf all the candy he can before bedtime.
Whoever came up with this idea passed it along to his fellow Celts, and pretty soon, the whole tribe decided that New Year’s eve, the boundary between the living world and the world of the dead became sorta blurred.
They even coined a name for this little shindig, they called it Samhain — pronounced “sou-wen” — which meant, literally, “summer’s end.”
But Samhain, it seems, had its good and bad points.
On the plus side, the Druids — the Celtic priests — said they could make better predictions about the future if the dead guys were roaming around.
On the bad side, the ghosts of the dead didn’t always behave; they’d scare people, cause trouble and damage crops.
Yes, it does sound like Congress.
How we got the name
Anyway, as part of the celebration, the Druids built big bonfires and sacrificed some crops and several unlucky animals to their gods to make the gods, and the dead guys who were hanging out with them, happy.
They also dressed in costumes — animal heads and skins — tried to tell each other’s fortunes and even danced a little, too.
The bonfire — which they believed was sacred — kept the spirits in check and everything rocked along just fine until the Romans showed up a few years later.
By A.D. 43, the Romans had thumped the Celts pretty good and for the next 400 years the Romans were in charge. Of course, if you’re making the rules you get to plan the community social events and pretty soon two Roman festivals merged with Samhain.
It seems those in Rome also had a day to commemorate the passing of the dead, called Feralia. They added it, and another day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees, to Samhain and the fall party continued.
At least until the Christians got there.
By the 800s, Christianity had spread into ancient Ireland and, in the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV came up with the plan to honor all the church’s saints and martyrs.
This, he cleverly named All Saints’ Day, and set the celebration for Nov. 1, the same time as Samhain.
Many religious scholars believe Boniface was attempting to replace the pagans’ party with a church sanctioned holiday. Whatever the reason, the celebration became known as Allhallows or All-hallowmas (which, in Middle English, meant All Saint’s Day)
Because they enjoyed All Saints Day so much, church officials added another day, Nov. 2, to honor the dead: All Souls Day.
Given the course of several hundred years and a few different dialects, All-hallowmas was eventually corrupted into Halloween.
Fast forward to Great Britain.
The Jack O’Lantern
The story — which could have come from anywhere, but many say England — was simple: Jack was a bad guy.
A scoundrel, Jack was too greedy to get into Heaven and he’d played too many tricks on the Devil to be allowed in Hell.
No his last name wasn’t Abramoff.
Still, Jack was a bad lot with no place to go and because of this, he was required to roam the earth with a lantern until Judgment Day.
His lantern evolved into a pumpkin and the pumpkin grew a face and the modern day Jack O’Lantern has occupied porches for decades.
Trick or Treat
If you were one of the fire-dancing, ghost fearing, hey-the-dead-are-back-for-the-evening-type, ancient Irish dudes, you probably went to more than one party for Muck Olla, the Irish sun god.
At this party, you’d form a parade and go beg for food — today we all them political receptions.
Anyway, the parade leader would be dressed in a white robe with an animal-head mask, again, the sun god thing.
Over the centuries, the parade would eventually merge with the English tradition of going “a-souling.”
To do this, you had to be English and be willing to go door-to-door where you promised to pray for the souls of the neighbor’s dead in exchange for a pastry, called a “soul cake.”
The soul cake morphed into candy and, today, instead of praying for the souls of the dead, parents, instead, pray their kids won’t eat all the sweet stuff before bedtime.
Those $*(%! Puritans
You’d think that after more than a 1,000 years of pagan parties, bonfires and ghosts roaming around, that people would get used to Halloween. Sit back, relax and enjoy the goat sacrifice.
Not so.
During the 18th century the Halloween celebration took it on the chin. And most of the country’s pumpkins ended up in pie and not as Jack O’Lanterns.
Due to the Puritans’ strict religious beliefs — and the fact they were busy hunting for witches to hang — Halloween was rarely, if at all celebrated.
Then, in the 1820s, things changed again.
Today’s Halloween
A massive influx of Irish and Scottish immigrants — who brought their beliefs and customs — pumped new life into Halloween and the modern celebration as we know it took off.
Complete with costumes, parties, candy and Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s version of the Monster Mash, today’s Halloween has all the fun but little of the belief.
Sure, come tonight you may see a ghost or two wandering the earth.
But rest assured it’ll be the neighborhood kid trying to scarf all the candy he can before bedtime.
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