Halloween – where did it all begin?

Halloween is celebrated around the world, but what is it really about? 

Here in the UK Halloween usually takes the form of small children, accompanied by patient parents, hurtling from house to house in their neighbourhood, knocking on doors and uttering a spine-chilling demand: “trick or treat!” In an effort to save our homes from the imps’ wicked tricks, we happily hand over mountains of sugar and send them on their way. Homes open for the trick or treat parade usually display a pumpkin carved into a scary face, with the more creative homeowners delivering some spectacular examples of the carver’s art.

However, do you know where the traditions of Halloween come from? Why do we carve a pumpkin, or back in the day a swede or turnip, into a scary face lit by a candle inside? Why do packs of children roam the streets demanding sugary treats?

The starting point for Halloween goes back millennia, to the days of the Celts who, in the centuries before the Romans swept across Europe, lived across the places we now call Britain, Ireland and northern France. As for most of humankind, the Pre-Christian Celtic year was determined by the growing seasons, and the end of summer and the harvest also meant the arrival of the dark, cold days of winter. This change was marked by a powerful pagan festival – Samhain. The festival symbolises the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead – the time of new life and growth making way for the time of decay and death. The festival of Samhain was all about asking for protection against the oncoming hard times and surviving the winter.

It was believed by the Celts that on Samhain, which we have now fixed on October 31, ghosts of the dead would revisit the mortal world and, to ward off evil spirits or ghosts with evil intent, large bonfires were lit in each village. Celtic priests would go from house to house, lighting the hearth fires, using brands from the Samhain bonfire, to help protect the people and keep them safe through the long winter ahead.

The Romans, despite being the invaders of large swathes of Europe and North Africa, were very good at assimilating local traditions and gods into their own calendars and prayers, mixing the various celebrations with their own, to create new traditions. When they arrived in AD43, rather than stop the Samhain festivals, they simply wrapped it into their own calendar of events, or let the locals just get on with it.

After 400 years of rule, the Romans gradually withdrew, leaving opportunity for Saxon and Viking invaders – and the arrival of a new religion, Christianity. The early Christians, battling centuries, if not millennia, of belief in older gods and the traditions and festivals that went with them were pretty good at taking a pre-existing festival and bolting it onto or into a Christian celebration. Hence eggs at Easter, for example. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory moved the feast of All Saints Day (or All Hallows’ Day) to 1 November, probably in an effort to remind good Christians that pagan practices such as Samhain bonfires were a no-no in the eyes of the Church. Instead, the two became linked, with the evening of Samhain morphing into All Hallows Eve, then Hallow Eve, later Hallowe’en and now of course Halloween.

Why do we carve pumpkins on Halloween?

Some of us here still remember the days when our parents carved turnips or swedes with scary faces, which were then lit by a candle and carried on a loop of string along the trick or treat trail, or left by the front door. Now of course we have the much easier to carve pumpkin, brought to us by our American cousins. This carving of vegetables is an ancient tradition, dating back to Samhain, when villagers would carve scary faces into turnips and place them near doorways to frighten away the evil spirits abroad that night. Carving scary faces to keep evil spirits away isn’t limited to Hallween, of course, Europe’s churches and cathedrals are laden with carved stone gargoyles, designed for the same purpose.

Why do we say trick or treat on Halloween?

It’s not entirely clear where this tradition comes from, but it’s likely that it’s something that has grown and developed over time till it barely resembles where it started.

One theory is that households would leave small offerings of food and drink outside their homes to appease the spirits wandering about on Samhain, who when well fed were less likely to play evil tricks. 

In the 15th century, a Christian tradition grew of sharing ‘soul-cakes’ on Halloween and All Hallows Day, when people would visit houses and take soul-cakes, in return for praying for their souls. As time went on, this changed to people begging for soul-cakes by singing outside houses. By the 19th century, there are reports of “parties of children, dressed up in fantastic costume [who] went round to the farmhouses and cottages, singing a song, and begging for cakes (spoken of as “soal-cakes”), apples, money, or anything that the goodwives would give them.”

The expression ‘Trick or Treat’ is very much a 20th century innovation, however, and in fact started in the USA, where Halloween is an event that far exceeds our own celebrations of the date – so far…

Eddie – Friday 29th September 2023. (Image used from JP & Brimelow team).