Short Halloween History

Halloween. It all began nearly 2,000 years ago, with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived around what is now Ireland and the UK, celebrated the New Year on November 1st (crops die, days get shorter, etc., etc.), and believed that on the night before, the real world and the spirit world would meet.

These visits from the ghosts of the dead could be dangerous, of course, so the Celts and Druids wore animal costumes for protection.

After the rise of Christianity, the night before the autumn festival became known as All-hallows Eve. The American celebration emerged from the combination of many different immigrant traditions.

Some 36 million American children go trick-or-treating every Halloween, but most probably dont know that the practice was once called going a-souling. In England, families would give poor citizens soul cakes in return for a promise to pray for the souls of dead relatives. Safe to say: the soul cake tasted nothing like Candy Corn.

Carving pumpkins, on the other hand, comes from an Irish legend. Stingy Jack, the story goes, trapped the devil in a tree and carved a cross into the trunk. The devil took revenge by making Jack forever wander the Earth at night. The Irish carved turnips, but Americans made the jack-o-lantern out of something more readily available: pumpkins.