How Halloween Started

First is the history of Halloween all according to a 2017 article from LiveScience by Benjamin Radford. Around 2,000 years ago in the United Kingdom Ireland, and the northern part of France the people called the Celts started this holiday. They called it Samhain back then instead of Halloween. November 1st marked their new year which resulted in them celebrating on October 31st. The New Year brought wintertime which to them meant death. On the night before winter which was October 31st, they believe that the spirits of the Dead came back. They wore costumes, put on bonfires, burned crops and sacrificed animals. When the Romans

Purpose: To inform the audience of how Halloween started and transformed to what it is now.

The fear of Halloween can stem from a dislike or fear of the holiday's history. The root word of samhainophobia is Samhain, which is a Celtic word meaning summer’s end. They celebrated Samhain with huge bonfires where crops and animals were sacrificed. The Celts believed that on Samhain the veil between the land of the living and dead was thin, which allowed for ghost, spirits, and the devil himself to pass through to the land of the living. It was also believed the Druids-the Celts priest-could predict the future on Samhain. The Celts wore costumes both as disguises and for performing the sacrifices at the bonfires. Eventually Rome conquered the

Halloween is believed to come from Celtic rituals. The Celts lived over 2000 years ago, and were found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France. The Celts celebrated

As a child I wanted every holiday to be like Halloween so I could collect massive amounts of sweet candy. All of the children in the neighborhood would walk house to house in a large group to prevent being kidnapped. After trick-or-treating, my friends and I would trade with each other until we each had all of our favorite candy. But as I grow older I tend to see how much the holiday has changed through the amount of candy, parties, and costumes.

La dia de los Muertos dates back to as early as the maya and aztec days, nearly 3,000 years ago. “The Aztecs didn’t fear death. They believed the way a person died determines their type of afterlife.” (Sarah Massey) Families place alters in their homes with favorite foods of the deceased people, sugar skulls with their name on it, special possessions of the loved ones, and Pan de Muerto (bread of the dead). On the altar are four special elements, water, wind, fire, and earth. Candles represent fire, food represents the earth. Halloween dates back to the celt days, about 2,000 years ago. They lived in what now is known as Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. They gathered on October 31st to celebrate the end of the harvest season. The celts believed that spirits roamed the earth on this night. Celts out food out for the spirits, this was the first form of trick or treating. Some dressed up as the dead to scare away the spirits. They carved turnips and put candles in them to make lanterns. This tradition continued when the immigrants came to America, but pumpkins were easier to find so they carved pumpkins. They swapped scary stories and had a big feast. Roman Catholics began to celebrate All Hallows’ day on November 1st, October 31st became All Hallows’ Eve, later shortened to

Several activities take place in the evening, but the most antipated one by far is going trick-or treating. Both children and adults dress up in costumes and walk from door to door collecting candy from their friends and neighbors. This ritual is from Samhain, an ancient Celtic gala that marked the end of the harvest season and the start of a new year. The Celts thought that the spirits left their world to interact with the living and so wore disgues and made food offerings to try to appease them. Bobbing for apples is another modern-day Halloween custom that has Celtic roots. Apples were the fruit of death. The Celts believed that the departed had to undergo two trials before they could make it to heaven. “The water ordeal is the familiar bobbing for apples, while the fire ordeal involves trying to take a bite out of an apple attached to a hanging stick which also bears a lit candle” (Kondratiev, par. 12). Playing this game attuned the dead to the needs of the living over the course of the following

The Celtic people would have huge bonfire celebrations in which they dressed up in costumes and wore masks to mimic and appease the spirits.”

Football practice ended early the day before halloween, it was a typical sunny day in

Halloween is not only one of the most popular holidays, but is also one of the oldest, and can be dated back to about 2,000 years ago. It is also known to have started

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on October 31st, or All Hallows Eve. It is a night of candy and fun for us, but started as a Scottish-Irish festival “[...] or two major gods—a sun god and a god of the dead (called Samhain), whose festival was held on November 1, the beginning of the Celtic New Year” (Bacon). The day after Halloween became “[...] a feast in honor of all the saints (All Hallows) was fixed on November 1, and in the 11th century November 2 was specified as All

Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on the 31st of October across the globe. The holiday originated ancient Celtic. Celts lived 2000 years ago in the areas which are now Ireland, Northern France, and the United Kingdom. They had a similar celebration called Samhain. Samhain was celebrated on the 1st of November rather than the 31st of October. Throughout the centuries Halloween traditions have changed drastically. To see what a difference Halloween is now to back in time we must examine what traditions and celebrations were done, secondly how we celebrate the famously known holiday and finally what people have against the celebrations and traditions to this day.

Let’s start off with the way each holiday emphasizes spirits. Halloween originated from the Celtic festival known as Samhain. During this festival, people made bonfires

The extremely ritualistic and superstitious ancient holiday is widely accepted to have originated in Ireland “about 2,000 years ago”. The Celtics celebrated Samhain or Halloween. They deemed it as the eve before the new year: November 1st. The Celtics believed that the world of

Furthermore, there are many traditional rituals and superstitions associated with Halloween. Since the ancient Celts thought the nonliving roamed the earth, they created costumes out of animal pelts to ward off evil spirits. Fortunetelling and the utilization of large bonfires for sacrifices and purification were also early customs. After the Christianization of the holiday to commemorate saints and martyrs, the same festivities, bonfires, and guising remained, but October 31st was renamed All-Hallows Eve. This inevitably turned into Halloween. Similar to European traditions, America’s Halloween has also evolved throughout the years. Halloween’s recognition was originally restricted in colonial America due to its non-Christian beliefs and practices, and it was practiced at a more local level. According to an online source, “The first celebrations included ‘play parties,’ public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead and tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing” (“History of Halloween”). Festivities were akin to European traditions, but also included ghost stories and pranking. Beginning in the twentieth century, Halloween