THE ORIGIN OF HALLOWEEN BY: SASHA SLAUGHTER

Well hello there blog peepers and weirdo creepers! Thanks for stopping by and wasting some of your time with Dead End Horror. We certainly do appreciate it. And since Zane and I are continuing our Halloween theme all month long, today I'll actually be talking a little about the origin of Halloween. Sure you love Halloween...the candy, the costumes, the atmosphere. But do you really know how it came about? No? Well let me educate you!

Halloween is an annual holiday observed on October 31. It commonly includes activities such as trick or treating, parties, carving pumpkins, visiting haunted attractions and horror movies, among many other things. But do you actually know the origin of Halloween? How it got started, who started it? No? Well I'm going to tell you all that and more! It has been noted that Halloween may have possibly been linked to the Celtic festival Samhain. The name of the festival was historically kept by the Gaels and Celts in the British Isles and is is derived from Old Irish and means "Summer's End". Although, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English folklore it is said that "Samhain was a time for festive gatherings and Irish, Welsh and Scottish folklore use it as a setting for supernatural encounters, but there is no evidence that it was connected with the pre-dead in Christian times, or that pagan religious ceremonies were held". It is said that in Irish myths that the Samhain were written in the 10th and 11th centuries by Christian Monks, and this was around 200 years after the Catholic church inaugurated All Saints Day.

The word Halloween were first used in the 16th century and represents a Scottish variant of the fuller All Hallows-Even, which is the night before All Hallows Day. The development of the symbols and artifacts of Halloween slowly formed over time. For instance, carving jack-o'-lanterns comes from the souling custom of carving turnips into lanterns as a way of remembering the souls in purgatory. The turnip was traditionally used in in Ireland and Scotland during Halloween, but the immigrants to North America used their native pumpkin. The American tradition of pumpkin carving was first recorded in 1837 and was originally associated with harvest time in general, and didn't become specifically associated with Halloween until the late 19th century.

The imagery of Halloween has been derived from many sources over the years. This includes national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (Such as the novels Frankenstein and Dracula) and classic horror films such as Frankenstein and The Mummy. Most Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, or mythical monsters. Black and orange are most often the holiday's traditional colors. Among the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from the Scottish Poet John Mayne in 1780, who often made notes of pranks played during Halloween, as well as the supernatural associated with "Bogies" (Ghosts), which influenced Robert Burns' Halloween 1785. The elements of Fall, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows are also prevalent. Most homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween time.

Ruth Edna Kelly, an American historian, wrote the fist lengthy book of the history of the holiday in the US. The book was called Hallowe'en (1919) and references the act of souling. In her book Kelly speaks of customs that had arrived across the Atlantic. While the first reference to "guising" in North America appears in 1911, another reference to the ritual appears at an unknown place in 1915 and later a third reference in Chicago in 1920.

Trick or treating is a main tradition during Halloween. Children (and some adults) go from house to house, asking for treats such as candy, usually with the question "Trick or treat?". The word trick refers to a mostly idle threat to do harmful mischief to a home owners property if no treat is given. In some parts of Scotland children go "guising" which means the child performs some sort of trick, such as telling a ghost story or singing a song to get their treat. The actual practice of dressing up in costumes and going door to door originated in the Middle Ages. Trick or treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, in which the poor on Hallowmas (November 1st) would receive food in exchange for prayers for the dead on All Soul's Day (November 2nd). The practice of Guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Ontario reported children "guising" around the neighborhood.

Halloween costumes are usually modeled after supernatural figures such as monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time the costume selection extended into popular characters of fiction and celebrities, among many others. Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was popular in Scotland at Halloween by the late 19th century. Costuming become popular for Halloween in the US in the early 20th century, just as often for adults as children. The first mass produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930's when trick or treating started becoming more common in the United States.

There are several games and activities that are common tradition during Halloween. One common game is bobbing for apples, and a variant of bobbing for apples in which a person kneels on a chair, holding a fork between their teeth as they try to drop the fork into an apple. Other games played during Halloween are forms of divination. A traditional form of Scottish divining one's future spouse was to peel an apple into one long strip and toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel was believed to land in the shape of the letter of one's future spouse. Unmarried woman were told to sit in a dark room and look into a mirror and the face of their future spouse would appear. If they were destined to die before they married a skull would appear in the mirror. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late 19th century to the early 20th century.

The telling of ghost stories and watching horror films are the most common things done during Halloween. Episodes of television series and Halloween themed specials are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while most horror related movies are released before the holiday as to take advantage of the atmosphere. Another popular part of Halloween is the visiting of haunted attractions. They are designed to thrill and scare the patrons that enter. Most of these are seasonal attractions, closing shortly after the Halloween holiday is over. The origins of these pay to be scared venues is unknown, but it is generally accepted that they were first commonly used by the Junior Chamber International for fundraising. They include haunted houses, hay rides, mazes and other scary form of entertainment. The level of sophistication of haunted attractions has risen over the years due to industry growing and the more technically advanced special effects, which can often be compared to that of a Hollywood movie. Haunted attractions in the US alone are said to generate an estimated $300-500 billion a year and draw 400,000 customers.

Because Halloween happens during the annual apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America) caramel apples, or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling apples in a sticky sugar syrup, followed by sometimes rolling them in nuts. At one time candy apples were commonly given to children during Halloween, but the widespread practice rapidly declined when there were rumors of individuals embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples. There is actual evidence of this happening, they are rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Many parents believed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the social media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween candy in order to see if any of it had been tampered with. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning cases involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.

Halloween is not celebrated in all regions of the world, and among those that do celebrate, the traditions and importance of the celebration vary significantly. In Scotland and Ireland traditional Halloween customs include children "guising", and holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include bonfires and firework displays. Mass immigration popularized Halloween for North America in the 19th century, and celebration in the US and Canada had an impact on how the event is observed in other nations. The larger North American influence, mostly in iconic and commerical elements has extended as far as South America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and parts of East Asia.

The religious perspectives of Halloween vary. The Christian attitude toward Halloween is diverse. In the Angelican Church, some of the dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions of All Saint's Day, while some Protestants celebrate the holiday as a Reformation Day, a day to remember Protestant Reformation. Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said "If English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils one night a year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in it".In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween. Similarly, many Protestant church view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up and get candy for free.

Many Christians give no negative significance to Halloween, treating is a Holiday that is devoted to imaginary spooks and handing out candy. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children. In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween is viewed as having a Christian connection, and Halloween celebrations are common in Catholic schools throughout North America and Ireland. Some Christians do feel concerned about Halloween and reject the holiday because they feel it celebrates paganism, the occult, and other practices and cultural phenomena that they believe are incompatible with their beliefs. A response from some fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches in recent years have been the use of "Hell House" themed pamphlets created by Jack T. Chick in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism. And some Christians consider Halloween incompatible with their faith, believing it to have originated as a pagan "Festival of the Dead". Some Celtic NeoPagans consider Halloween to be a holy time of year.

 
WOW!! Who would have thought? I didn't even know half of this stuff, but you learn something new everyday! I know the article is long, but you can thank me, because I just crammed your tiny pea brains full of useful information! You're welcome! And as far as the parents out there that think Halloween is evil and terrible, SHUT UP! It's just a day for kids *and adults* to dress up and have fun and eat so much candy they wanna die. That's all. Relax huh??? Just learning all of this new stuff made me love Halloween that much more! Hope you enjoyed the info and thanks for stopping by Dead End Horror. And while you're here, don't forget to see what Zane's up to!