The whole world knows when Halloween is around is the corner, but not everybody remembers the origins of this ghoulish holiday. Why do we celebrate Halloween? And why does it have such a gruesome theme?
1. Halloween is actually spelled Hallowe’en, from the Scottish “All Hallows’ Evening”, the eve of All Hallows’ Day. The 31st of October also happens to be All Saints Evening, as the 1st of November was the day declared by Pope Gregory III, in the 8th Century, to honor Catholic martyrs and saints. Halloween is most commonly linked to the festival of Samhain (summer’s end) kept by Gaels and Celts in the United Kingdom. Many Halloween traditions come from the Scottish, but in actual fact... No one knows exactly where Halloween came from!
2. The famous Jack-o’-Lantern pumpkin figure that has become the literal face of Halloween… was originally a turnip. At the end of the harvest-time, possibly at Sumhain, the Irish and Scottish used to carve out faces into turnips. This was called ‘souling’, because they did this in remembrance of the dead souls believed to be languishing in purgatory. Much later, immigrants to North America practiced souling with pumpkins, because they were easier to find than turnips. They are also much larger, and were therefore both easier to carve, and better for symbolism. And thus souling on pumpkins stuck! It only became linked to Halloween in the 19th Century. This general association with the dead maybe why Halloween is a holiday about death.
3. The Halloween practice of Trick-or- Treating comes from the Scottish tradition of Guising, in which children disguised themselves on holidays, and went door-to-door asking for cakes, coins and fruit. In return, they would offer a prayer, a song or poem to earn their gifts. It wasn’t unusual then, just as it isn’t now, that pranksters also made it a point to get busy on this day! Guising is still practiced in some parts of Scotland.
4. Candy of Toffee Apples are a popular Halloween treat, because the holiday was traditionally celebrated just after the apple harvest. Of course, they’re delicious too!
5. Halloween is not an international holiday, though it observed sporadically the world over, as simply a fun activity for children. It is usually treated as a secular holiday, with no religious significance whatsoever.
6. Many of the Halloween traditions are similar to Christmas traditions. Trick-or-Treaters, for example, become your door-to-door carol singers.
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