Spooktacular origins of the scariest holiday: Halloween
We all know and love the holiday Halloween but does anyone really know where it originally came from? Well this is the blog for you. We are going to be talking about the origins and some funny facts about Halloween as well as all the activities we all love to do.
Origins-
Whether you celebrate by carving pumpkins or trick or treating, you don’t think about how this lovely holiday came about. Well in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-WIN”), which was a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer so the people would dress up to ward off ghosts and be able to have a good rest of their year. In the eighth century the pope named Gregory the 3rd had designed November 1st as a time to honor saints. It was called All saints day and it was to be said that the day before All saints day was called All hallows eve which is what we know today as Halloween.
Carving Pumpkins-
This tradition was started in Ireland but instead of using pumpkins they used turnips. Supposedly the tradition started by a man named Stingy Jack. It was told that his spirit was banished from Hell and that when he finally passed that his spirit was also not allowed in Heaven so he ended up being forced to wander the Earth as a ghost for eternity and with this he was giving a lump of burning coal in a turnip to light his way. Eventually locals had begun to carve scary faces into their turnips to scare the evil spirits away from them.
Wearing scary/funny costumes-
The best part of Halloween is dressing up as something you are not. To many this is seen as the best thing in their life. Many people wish they could be something they are not but really how did we come to dressing up in costumes? Well to avoid being terrorized by all the evil spirits walking upon the Earth during Samhain they started to dress up in hopes for the spirits to leave them alone.
Trick-Or-Treating-
Everyone loves candy especially if they are free and people are just giving them out. However, did you know there were a lot of debates and theories around the origins of it? The first theory is suggested that during Samhain, Celtic people would leave food out to please the evil spirits roaming the Earth at night and it was caught on to the point were people would start dressing up and scaring people into giving them food and drinks. The second theory is the modern American Trick-Or-treating which stems from “belsniceling” where children would dress in a costume then call upon their neighbors to see if the adults could guess what they were dressed as and in one version the children were to be rewarded with food or other treats if they couldn’t identify them.
Candy Corn-
Unlike many different people I love the taste of Candy Corn. It is one of my favorite candies during the Halloween season. Candy corn wasn’t a widespread sensation until 1898. Candy corn was originally going to be called “Chicken Feed” with the slogan being “Something worth crowing for” haha get it because it was going to be called chicken feed… you know what never mind anyways back to the story it was just an autumnal candy because it was associated with the word corn and in which that word is associated with harvest time. It later became a Halloween-Specific that grew in popularity in the U.S during the 1950s.
The classic Black and Orange colors-
It traces back to Celtic Festivals of Samhain. For the Celts, Black represented the “Death” of summer leaving and the orange represented the harvest/autumn time for them. In a way that is really cute. Black being associated with death for summer is still a really good way to describe it and obviously orange still represents the fall time.
Conclusion-
Many people love Halloween, whether you are getting candy for the night or just dressing up and giving out candy, this holiday was an amazing thing that we still celebrate. Though we don’t do what the Somhain do anymore with cooking food and leaving them out, the idea of still having to give people presents/candy is a brilliant idea. This was Dj Beetle and the origins of the holiday named Halloween.
