Halloween. The time of year when Savvy Aunties may dress their nieces and nephews in cute or scary costumes and take them trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.  Today, Halloween is an evening of fun and festivities, though very few Aunties know that Halloween was once actually very scary.

At one time, Halloween was referred to as All Hallows Eve, though it’s original name was Samhain (pronounced SOW-en).  It originated in the traditions of the Celtic people who were located in and around the what is now the United Kingdom. The Celts believed that the veil between this world and the afterlife was thinnest around this time of year and that the spirits, or ghosts, of friends and relatives would return to the land of the living and inhabit the bodies of animals, especially black cats. Black cats and ghosts are still popular Halloween images today.

To appease the spirits, people would go from house to house collecting food from the recent harvest, which is the origin of the tradition of trick-or-treating. When they were collecting food, the people would also collect firewood for their bonfire celebrations of the night.  At the end of the evening, they would take the embers from the flames and place them in gourds to carry them home to their own hearths.  This is the beginning of the tradition of modern day Jack-o’-lanterns.

When the Celts were walking the embers back to their homes, they feared the spirits that had returned to the living world, so they would carve masks into scary faces and wear various disguises to try to scare away the bad spirits, something Aunties’ nieces and nephews still do today. Witches are a much more recent Halloween tradition that stems from contemporary Wiccan practitioners (modern witches) who still celebrate the original Samhain traditions even today.

So, Aunties, this year when you are attending Halloween festivities with your princesses, firefighters, and Charlie Brown ghosts, remember that the first person to take a bite out of the apple when bobbing for apples will be the next to marry, and that that unlucky cat crossing your path may just be the dearly departed!


Published: October 12, 2011