From Samhain to sweets: Halloween’s haunted history

Halloween has carried a lighthearted tradition of dressing up as monsters, pop culture icons and even politicians while going door to door trick-or-treating for some sweet treats. This has been the typical practice in the United States for roughly 80 years. However, on theme with the holiday itself, there is a more sinister and macabre origin to Halloween.

Tracing back to the beginning of what would become Halloween can be ambiguous. There are many influences from many different places that through time, became the celebration of horror that we know today.

The earliest influences for Halloween began over 2000 years ago. Ancient Celts celebrated the festival Samhain (pronounced “sow-win”) in what is now modern-day Ireland, Scotland and Wales. This pagan holiday was celebrated from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1 and ushered in the “dark half” of the year.

**The fire festival Samhain is still celebrated every year in modern-day Ireland.** ISTOCK

Celebrants believed that during Samhain the threshold between the physical world and spiritual world would blur and allow for supernatural occurrences. To the ancient Celts, Samhain was the most significant of the four quarterly “fire festivals”, taking place at the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice.

There were also certain types of monsters that have familiarities with monsters that occupy our current zeitgeist. Creatures like headless horsemen or ghost women dressed in white were popular specters of the time.

The tradition of dressing up may also be influenced from Samhain. Participants would often dress as animals or monsters so they would not be kidnapped by fairies, also known as Sidhs.

The iconic Jack-o-lantern also appeared in the Samhain celebrations during the Middle Ages, although they were originally made from turnips. Trick-or-treating also came from the Samhain practice of mumming, where people would dress up and go door to door singing songs to the dead and accepting cakes as payment.

**The modern-day Jack-o’-lantern originated from the tradition of carving turnips.** UNSPLASH

After the Middle Ages, as Christianity became more widespread throughout the pagan world, Samhain began to take a different form.

In the fifth century, Pope Boniface moved the celebration to May 13 and made it a day to celebrate saints and martyrs.

This continued for a few hundred years until the ninth century when Pope Gregory moved the celebration back to its original time. However, now Nov. 1 was declared All Saints’ Day, and Nov. 2 was declared All Souls’ Day.

Neither attempt to remove the pagan aspect of the holiday worked completely. Oct. 31 became known as All Hallows’ Eve, later shortened to Halloween. It retained a lot of the original pagan aspects of the holiday and took a more lighthearted spin when Irish immigrants came to America in the 19^th century.

Post World War II, Halloween slowly transformed into the creepy, fun and candy-packed holiday we know and love. This Halloween, be sure to put on a convincing costume, avoid being kidnapped by fairies and remember that history is an amalgamation of culture and influences.