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ALEXANDER and THINGS Magic SHOP HALLOWEEN PAGE |
                     
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Halloween's Beginnings, Maybe
Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. About 2000 years ago the Celts of what is now, Ireland, the U.K. and northern France, celebrated a festival for the New Year on November 1st. This marked the end of summer and it's harvests, and the beginning of winter, a time associated with death both in crops and human life. In their belief, the night before the New Year began or Eve, was a specific celebration of Samhain, when Ghosts of the dead, returned to the earth. These ghosts not only caused trouble and mischief but they damaged the remaining crops. These other worldly spirits and their presents on the earth made it easier however, for the Druids or Celtic Priests, to make predictions about the coming year and other matters of the future. These predictions were extremely important to the Celts who were dependant on nature for their very lives. The predictions thus gave them comfort during the long cold winters.
For the Samhain event, the
Druids built sacred fires, bonfires, where the Celts came to offer
sacrifices of crops and animals to the Celtic Gods and Goddesses. Here at the celebration, Celts would wear costumes, usually made from animal parts and would attempt to tell each other's fortunes. After they left the celebration and returned to their homes, the home fire (usually the hearth) was relit since it had been extinguished earlier in the evening so as to aide the concentration of the bonfires. Now the home fires would help protect them threw the winter. By 43 AD, the Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic lands. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled over the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-Hallowmas (from Middle English Alhollowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in 1000 AD, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', Samhain and All Souls', were called Hallowmas. As the Holiday Evolved As Europeans came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. But because the Protestant belief system that characterized the early colonies and states, the celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited. The celebrations became more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, they became a distinctly American version of the celebration of Halloween began. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance and sing much like did the Celts. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country. In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick or treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get together, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft. But this failed accept for the practice of parties. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century. By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular holiday, but community centered holiday, with parades and town wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties, the baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick or treating was also revived. Trick or treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday next to Christmas. Halloween Superstitions
There are superstitions about almost anything but around Halloween time, there are more than usual. Superstitions can be based on truth, half truths or just plain non-truths. Below are a few of those superstitions. See if you can figure out which ones are which. Here's a few general Halloween superstitions:
• Going in for dumb supper, meaning that nobody will talk while having
supper, encourages the spirits to come to the table. • There is the old saying that "black cats are bad luck" and never let one cross your path but immediately turn around and find an alternate route. It was once believed that black cats were the devil, or consumed by evil spirits. • People used to believe that Satan was a nut gatherer. Nuts were also used as magic charms on the day of Halloween festival. • If you put your clothes on inside out as well as outside walk backwards on Halloween night. At midnight you will see a witch in the sky. People used to believe witches were the devil, or that they were consumed by evil. • There is also an old saying "if the flame on your candle goes out on a Halloween celebration; it gives you the meaning that you are with a ghost". • If you ring a bell on Halloween it will frighten evil spirits away. • Many people used to consider that owls would dive down to eat the souls of the dying on Halloween. They used to think if you pulled your pockets out, and left them hanging, they'd be safe. • It has been said if a bat flies into your house on Halloween, it is a sign that ghosts or spirits are very near, and maybe they are in your home and let the bat in. • People used to believe that if bats are out early on Halloween, and they fly around playfully, then good weather is to come. • If a bat flies around your house three times on Halloween, death is very soon to come • To ward off evil spirits on Halloween, you can bury all the animal bones in your front yard, or even put a picture of an animal very close to your doorway. • People used to believe you could walk around your house three times backwards before sunset on Halloween, and that would take care of all evil. • It could be the spirit of a dead loved one watching you if you watch a spider on Halloween. History Of The Jack-O'Lantern
Pumpkin carving
is a popular part of modern America's Halloween celebration. Come
October, pumpkins can be found everywhere in the country from doorsteps
to dinner tables. Despite the widespread carving that goes on in this
country every autumn, few Americans really know why or when the jack o'lantern
tradition began. Or, for that matter, whether the pumpkin is a fruit or
a vegetable.
People have been making jack-o'lanterns at Halloween for centuries. The practice originated from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed "Stingy Jack." According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn't want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree's bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years. Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavory figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as "Jack of the Lantern," and then, simply "Jack-O'Lantern." In Ireland and Scotland, people began to make their own versions of Jack's lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits. In England, large beets are used. Immigrants from these countries brought the jack o'lantern tradition with them when they came to the United States. They soon found that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, make perfect jack-o'lanterns
© Copyright 2006-2008 P. Alexander. All rights reserved.
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The
first was Feralia. It was a day in late October when the Romans
traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second, was a
day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of
Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into
Samhain is probably where the traditional "bobbing for apples"
comes from today on Halloween.
