As the spooky holiday is coming up, we have decided to look into how the yearly festival has become a well-known worldwide holiday.
How it started:
The festival dates back to 2000 years ago, from the Celtic festival of Samhain, who at the time mainly lived in the areas of Ireland, France and the UK.
The festival was known as the festival of fire, which was celebrated over the evening of the 31st of October into early hours of the 1st of November. The festival also carried in the notion of casting in the new out with the old. This day marked the end of the summer and the harvest season and the beginning of the cold, dark winter approaching. This certain time of year was also associated with human death.
During Samhain, the celts would light bonfires and wear constumes to ward off ghosts.
Later on in the 8th century, Pope Gregory the 3rd designated the 1st of November as the time of honouring all saints. This was called All Saints day, this day involved some traditions from Samhain.
The evening before hand, (the 31st of October) was known as All Hallows Eve. Overtime this evolved into Halloween.
Trick or Treating
Trick or Treating evolved during the middle ages whilst celebrating All Saint's Day and All Souls Day. In England and Ireland, poor people would visit wealthier families houses, to receive pastries called soul cakes, this was in exchange of a promise to pray for the souls of the families dead relatives. This was also known as "souling".
This practice was later on taken up by children, who would go from door to door asking homeowner's for food and money, this later on evolved into trick or treating which we are familiar with today.
