“Halloween – The day of ‘trick or treat’!”

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Halloween Day is commended at the evening of October 31st of each year.It is started with the Ancient Celtic Festival of Samhain. On this night, individuals get dressed as witches, ghosts, vampires and other frightening characters.

They light up candles and blazes outside their homes and design their home with frequenting lights.

Agnostic accept that on this Eve, the dead individuals visit the Earth. In spite, the fact that for Christians it is the eve of All Saints. It starts from October 31 and finishes on November 2, with three days of festivity.

It covers: All Hallows Eve Or Halloween which is on October 31, All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2.

Halloween Day Origin

Halloween Day is originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Samhain was the first and most significant of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic schedule and was praised on 31 October – 1 November in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.

The names have been utilized by students of history to allude to Celtic Halloween traditions up until the nineteenth century, are as yet the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.

At that time, Central Europe (known as Celts) celebrated their New Year on November 1. They believed that on the night before the new year, the dead returned to earth, and the boundary between the worlds of living and the dead became blurred.

The last day of the year i.e. 31st October, it was mark as the end of summer and the start of winter, dark nights and it was believed that, that time of the year was related to the death of the people.

Aos Sí

Samhain denoted the part of the arrangement season and start of winter or the ‘darker half’ of the year. Like Beltane/ Calan Mai, it was a time, when the limit between this world and the other-world diminished. This implied the Aos Sí for example the ‘spirits’ or ‘fairies’, who could all the more effectively come into this world and were especially dynamic.

Celts believed that the souls of dead people damaged their crops. And, in addition they believed that their presence made easier for the priests, to see or make prediction about future. To celebrate this event the priest used to build bonfires. And the whole city used to come to that place to join them.

The people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices. The Celts used to get dressed during the celebrations. They wore costumes of animal heads and skin and get dressed fully to celebrate the night with the Celtic priests.

At Samhain, it was accepted that the Aos Sí should have been satisfied to guarantee that the individuals and their animals endure the winter.
Contributions of sustenance and drink, or parts of the harvests, were left outside for the Aos Sí.

The spirits of the dead were likewise said to return to their homes looking for neighborliness. Spots were set during supper and by the flame to invite them.

The conviction that the spirits of the dead profit home for one night of the year and must be mollified appears to have old starting points and is found in numerous societies all through the world. In nineteenth century Ireland, «candles would be lit and petitions officially offered for the spirits of the dead.

From Europe to America

And, this tradition of getting dressed and lighting bonfires are still carried out.

Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and interest ponies were a piece of other yearly celebrations. In any case, in the Celtic-talking districts they were particularly proper to a night whereupon other worldly creatures were said to be abroad. They were said to be that they could be imitated or averted by human wanderers.

From in any event the eighteenth century, ‘imitating harmful spirits’ prompted playing tricks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. These pranksters were used to roam in the nights imitating those spirits which were thought to visit their. Generally, pranksters utilized burrowed out turnips frequently cut with twisted faces as lamps.

By the individuals who made them, the lamps were differently said to speak to the spirits, or were utilized to avoid bad spirits. The twentieth century they spread to different pieces of England and turned out to be commonly known as jack-o’- lamps.

Major feasts of that time like Christmas, Easter and Pentecost had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows’.

The feast of All Hallows’, on its current date in the Western Church. And, it may be traced to Pope Gregory III’s founding of an oratory in St Peter’s for the relics “of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors”.

In 835, All Hallows’ Day was officially switched to 1 November, the same date as Samhain, at the behest of Pope Gregory IV. They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of ‘dying’ in nature. And, on All Hallows’ Eve, Christians in some parts of the world visit cemeteries to pray and place flowers and candles on the graves of their loved ones.

The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Flanders, Germany and Austria. Some Christians continue to observe this custom at Halloween today. Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a part of Christianity  of an earlier pagan custom.

While souling, Christians would carry with them “lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips”. It has been suggested that the carved jack-o’-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead. These were known as “soul lights”.

Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed “that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival” known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration.

Apparently, Halloween Day was celebrated only in European countries. But, till the end of the second half of nineteenth century, the Americans also adopted this festival. They too started getting dressed as goblins, princesses, pirates and many more. And, then approaching every house for money or food, which eventually became “Trick or Treat”.

At the turn of the century Halloween Day got changed into a holiday. Which was moreover for people to have a get together and party, other than just of holding on to these old belief. People started throwing parties on this day, playing games and enjoying the eves till the start of twentieth century.