Halloween
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Did
you know?:
Our ancestors celebrated New Year on November 1st. They celebrated their New Year's Eve on October 31st. Samhain (pronounced 'sow-in') marked the end of the "season of the sun" (Summer) and the beginning of "the season of darkness and cold" ( Winter). |
The Facts
Neither
the word Halloween or the date 31 October are mentioned in any Anglo-Saxon text indicating that
it was just an ordinary day a thousand years ago.
From
the Medieval
period
(1066 - 1485) through to the 19th century, there is no evidence that 31 October
was anything else other than the eve of All Saints Day.
From
the 19th Century to the present
day, 31st October has increasingly acquired a
reputation as a night on which ghost, witches, and fairies, are especially
active.
All Saints Day - 1 November
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In
the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church made 1st November a church holiday
to honour all the saints. Although it was a joyous holiday it was also the
eve of All Souls Day, so in Medieval times it became customary to pray for
the dead on this date.
Another
name for All Saints Day is 'All Hallows' (hallow is an archaic English
word for 'saint'). The festival began on All Hallows Eve, the last night of
October.
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Where does the name Halloween originate from?
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Halloween comes
from All Hallow Even, the eve (night before) All Hallows day.
Therefore, Halloween is the eve of All Saints Day.
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What similarities are there between the Celts and
Halloween?
Evil spirits
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The
Celts believed that evil
spirits came with the long hours of winter darkness. They believed that on
that night the barriers between our world and the spirit world were at their
weakest and therefore spirits were most likely to be seen on earth.
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Bonfires
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The
Celts built bonfires to
frighten the spirits away, and feasted and danced around the fires. The fires
brought comfort to the souls in purgatory* and people prayed for them as they
held burning straw up high.
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(*Purgatory is a
place where souls are temporarily punished for venial sins. After they have
been punished enough, they are permitted to move on to heaven.)
The fires of
Halloween burned the strongest in Scotland and Ireland, where Celtic influence
was most pronounced, although they lingered on in some of the northern counties
of England until the early years of the last century.
Bonfire celebrations moved to 5th November
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In
England, the day of fires became 5th November (Bonfire
Night),
the anniversary of the Gunpowder
plot
of 1605, but its closeness to Halloween is more than a coincidence. Halloween
and Bonfire Night have a common origin they both originated from pagan times,
when the evil spirits
 of darkness had to
be driven away with noise and fire. |
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Halloween Customs
In
Lancashire, 'Lating' or 'Lighting the witches' was an important Halloween
 custom. People
would carry candles from eleven to midnight. If the candles burned steadily
the carriers were safe for the season, but if the witches blew them out, the
omen was bad indeed.
In
parts of the north of England Halloween was known as Nut-crack Night. Nuts
were put on the fire and, according to their behaviour in the flames,
forecast faithfulness in sweethearts and the success or failure of marriages.
Halloween
was also sometimes called Snap Apple Night, in England. A game called snap
apple was played where apples were suspended on a long piece of string.
Contestants had to try an bite the apple without using their hands. A
variation of the game was to fix an apple and a lighted candle at opposite
ends of a stick suspended horizontally and to swing the stick round. The
object was to catch the apple between the teeth whilst avoiding the candle.
Many
places in England combined Halloween with Mischief Night (celebrated
on 4 November), when boys played all kinds of practical jokes on their
neighbours. They changed shop signs, took gates off their hinges, whitewashed
doors, and tied door latches.
Another
tradition from which Halloween customs might have come from is a ninth
century European custom, souling. It was a Christian festival where
people would make house calls begging for soul cakes. It was believed that
even strangers could help a soul's journey to heaven by saying prayers, so,
in exchange for a cake they promised to pray for the donors' deceased
relatives.
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