A little history of Halloween

1. HALLOWEEN
THE HISTORY OF A CELEBRATION

2. The Celts
The Celts were a member of an early Indo-European people who from the second
millennium BCE to the first century BCE spread over much of Europe, including
the British Isles.

3. The Celts in the British Isles
● They arrived in Britain around 450 BCE from central Europe.
● At the time of the Roman invasions of the isles in 51 BCE and 43 EC, they
had already occupied the territory.
● They were also called Britons and spoke Brittonic.
● They were organized into tribes and lived in hillforts or fortified groups of
towns.

4. Celtic beliefs, practices and institutions
● The Celts believed in life after death: they buried food,
weapons and ornaments with the dead.
● The Celtic culture and religion were dominated by the
Druids, the Bards and the Filidh.
● They practiced human sacrifices.
● They celebrated two main festivals along the year: Beltine
(1st May) and Samhain (1st November).

5. SAMHAIN
● It marked the Celtic new year.
● The ghosts of the dead watched the Earth.
● The villagers lit bonfires to drive the dead back to the spirit world and keep
them away from the living.
● The Catholic Church decided to celebrate a festival dedicated to its saints on
November 1st (All Saints’ Day) to minimize and substitute the Celtic
celebration, which indeed finally happened.
● All Saints’ Day was also called “Hallowmass” and the previous day was All
Hallows’ Eve, which became HALLOWEEN.

6. GUISING: the origin of dressing up in costumes.
● The Celts used to wear costumes on Samhain to conceal their personality.
● This would make communication with the spirit world easier.
● It would also allow them to ward off evil spirits.
● Wearing animal heads and skin would give them the strength of those
animals, so that they could scare off the evil spirits or keep away from being
recognized.

7. Jack O’lantern
● The legend of “Stingy Jack”, on how he tricked the Devil and could not either
be allowed into Hell or Heaven and how he had to wander around the Earth
with a piece of burning coal inside a carved turnip.
● Originally, people in Britain carved scary faces into turnips and placed them
near doorways or windows in order to frighten away Jack or other roaming
evil spirits.
● Immigrants from the British Isles in America soon discovered that pumpkins
were more easily carved than the original turnips, so they started to use them
to make their jack o’lanterns.

8. SOULING: the origin of ‘trick or treat’.
● Different waves of immigrants from the British Isles, especially from Ireland,
brought the Halloween customs into North America during the second half of
the 19th century.
● One of these customs was “souling”, for which children and poor adults
dressed up in costumes and went around door to door begging for food or
money in exchange for songs or prayers, often said on behalf of the dead.
● ‘Trick or treat’ seems to have derived from this tradition of “souling”.

9. Playing tricks on neighbours.
● Of course, pranksters were masked not to be recognized.
● By the beginning of the 1930’s, the originally harmless tricks grew into
outright vandalism:
“Give us candy or we’ll trash your house”
● Store keepers and neighbours gave treats or bribes to stop the tricks and
children were encouraged to travel door to door for treats as an alternative to
trouble-making.
● Finally, by the end of the 1930’s, “trick-or-treat” became a holiday greeting.

10. Modern Halloween
● It is a full of fun festivity.
● Children are involved in several activities: preparing their Halloween costume,
trick-or-treating, telling scary stories, bobbing for apples….