[Jim Hayes]

Halloween- its origins

The word "Halloween," comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Souls Day"), is a Catholic day of observance. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic, Pre-Christian Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

On that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.

References: Charles Panati, Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things,

[Quincy Lehr]

Happy Samhain, Jim.

On a side note, Samhain was also the name of a rock band that evolved into Danzig. They were okay, but not a touch on Glenn Danzig's previous band, the Misfits.

Quincy

[Julie Steiner]

The word "Halloween," comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Souls Day"), is a Catholic day of...

Shouldn't that be November 1, "All Hallows Day" (or "All Saints Day")?

All Saints Day is November 1 and is a holy day of obligation--i.e., if you're Catholic ya gotta to Mass (unless your local diocese moves the observation of the feast to the nearest Sunday, in which case the readings at Mass are those of the feast instead of the ones for that Sunday).

All Souls Day is November 2, as mentioned in a later paragraph, and is not a holy day of obligation, although many parishes do hold special Masses for the repose of the souls of loved ones who have died, in addition to or as part of the usual daily Mass.

Cheers,

Julie Stoner

[Jim Hayes]

Thanks Quincy my I return the good wishes.

Indeed Julie, my apologies, I was concentrating overly on recording Halloween's Celtic origins and inadvertiently reorganised the calendar as a consequence.

[Janet Kenny]

All Souls equals the Italian "Ogni Santi" when we made the mistake of taking a train to Tivoli from Rome. Standing room only. People were flocking to the family graves. Rome is so built on that all the cemetaries were in the hills nearby.

Jim, that's great information. Many thanks.
Janet

[Hugh McMillan]

The apple was the symbol of the eternal soul in many cultures. The Romans used to begin their meals with an egg and end with an apple; ab ovum usque ad malam, from the egg to the apple, to symbolise the journey from birth to death.

The tale of Adam and Eve and the apple was a Christian perversion of the story of Hera and Zeus and the Garden of the Hesperides, except being Christians they felt they had to reduce the female role to one of subservience and treachery (Eve)rather than powerand mysticism (Hera)

[Quincy Lehr]

Ummm... Hugh,

There are versions of the Garden of Eden story going back to Sumerian times (though obviously not in a Judaic or Christian context that far back). Besides which, the current version of Genesis dates from roughly 440 BC--a little early for significant Greco-Roman influence and way too early for Christians to have had a hand in the Adam and Eve story.

Quincy

[Hugh McMillan]

Didn't Christian art borrow the classical images of Hera in the Hesperides to portray their own slant on the story? Misogyny predates but heavily influences early Christianity, surely.

[Quincy Lehr]

Hugh--

You may well be right about portrayals in early Christian art--where it would be unsurprising that pagan motifs, including the "blocking" of scenes, would creep in. But the actual story in Genesis is far older than Christianity--and indeed there was some debate as to whether or not to include it (or indeed any of the Old Testament) in the Christian Bible. Certainly, the Gnostic version of creation is a far different story than the Genesis story, seeing the Creation far more negatively.*

Quincy

*Note: this is gleaned from a passing interest in early Christianity, discussions with Biblical scholars, and the like. It is not in any way based on that lame-brained, turgid piece of crap The Da Vinci Code--a book that reveals itself to be perfectly awful in the first several paragraphs. The film (which I actually made it through, in part by maintaining a silent, derisive running commentary) was also dreadful. My God, what a piece of shit.