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The tradition of HalloweenWhen we think of Halloween, we think of pumpkins, candy, tricks and treats and of course witches, with the witches costume being the most popular of all costumes when Halloween comes around. The number one place to be at Halloween is of course Salem, Mass in the U.S.A where the famous Salem witch trials took place, but you have to book early. We know that Halloween is all about trick or treating and carving pumpkins but how did all this start and what does Halloween symbolise? The ancient origins of Halloween Halloween actually dates back to the ancient festival of samhain, 2,000 years ago, the Celts lived in a small town called Ireland in the United Kingdom and New Year was celebrated on November 1st. summer ended and the harvest traditionally began on this day and it was the beginning of the cold, dark winter months. This was the time that the Celts associated with death and believed that the night before New Years Eve was when the boundary between those dead and living were crossed. On the night of Oct 31st, the Celts celebrated samhain, as they believed that this was the time the ghosts of the dead walked the earth. These spirits were said to help the Celtic priests predict the future so to mark this event they built huge bonfires where people gathered to sacrifice crops and small animals to the Celtic deities. During these celebrations, the people wore costumes usually consisting of animal skins and heads. By A.D 43, the Romans had conquered the majority of the Celtic territory and over the course of 400 years; they ruled the land of the Celts. When this happened, two major festivals of the Romans were combined with the samhain celebration, the first of the roman celebrations was called feralia which was a day in late October and the second was to honour the roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of this was the apple and this probably explains why we hold the tradition of bobbing the apple on Halloween. Today Halloween is celebrated in several countries around the world, some countries however celebrate it on different days in Mexico and Spain the day is called El Dia De Los Muertos which means all souls day and is celebrated on Nov 2nd. In Ireland where it all began, the celebration still takes place and bonfires are still lit as they were originally and children will get dressed up in costumes and go trick or treating. |
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