Wednesday 11 April 2012 A Brief History Of Halloween

Halloween originated in ancient Celtic times from a festival called Samhain which the Celts celebrated to see off the end of the harvest season. The pagans would typically slaughter livestock for storage over winter and would take inventory of supplies like wood, fruit and vegetables. The belief was that on the 31st of October the boundary between the living and the dead dissapeared and the deceased had free reign to comit ill doings like damaging crops or causing sickness and illness. Traditional Halloween festivals would involve everyone dressing up in costume and donning Halloween masks to mimic the bad spirits. They would then throw the bones of recently slaughtered cattle onto lit bonfires.

The word Halloween is taken from the phrase "All hallow even", or the eve of All Hallows' Day also referred to as All Saints' Day. Traditionally a Celtic pagan festival, it wasn't until Pope Gregory the Third and King Gregory IV decided to move the Christian feast of All Saints' Day to November 1st (it was originally May 13th).

Halloween Masks

Traditionally masks were worn when famine or drought happened. The belief was that the demons and evil spirits of the deceased realm were present at Halloween and that wearing hideous masks in their likeness would frighten them off. Though many of the other Celtic and Pagan traditions of Halloween declined, Christians and others still felt unease at this time of year and the tradition of wearing the Halloween mask is still alive to this day.

Witches and Broomsticks

Witches are a well known icon of Halloween. The Saxon word wica, which means wise one, gave origin to the idea of Witches. On the Sabbath witches would set out and travel and while most witches rode on horseback, those who travelled by foot commonly carried a pole or broomstick to carry their belongings and to vault over streams.

Jack O Lanterns

Children in Ireland would carve out turnips and potatos and place a small candle in them them for the Halloween festival. This was in memory of Jack, a shadey villain who was so evil that both God and the Devil rejected and damned him to walk the earth endlessly looking for a place to rest.

By: Sean Bluestone

Sean Bluestone is fascinated by the use of masks in history and culture and writes more on the subject at www.my-masks.com