Every year around this time I once more fight the good fight and publish the origin of one of my favorite holidays, Halloween. It is not now, nor has it ever been a "religious" observance of witch craft, black magic or demon/devil worship. I still love Halloween and just wish I were young enough to go trick or treating again.
For my fellow, misinformed Christians out there, lighten up and read the following.
Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on thenight of October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghosttours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses", carvingJack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories and watching horror movies. Irishimmigrants carried versions of the tradition to North Americain the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in thelate twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of theWestern world, most commonly in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada,Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, New Zealand, and occasionally in parts of Australia.In Sweden theAll Saints' official holiday takes place on the first Saturday of November.
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festivalknown as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain).The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season inGaelic culture, and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year".Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stockof supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaelsbelieved that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between thealive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the livingby causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals wouldfrequently involve bonfires, into which bones of slaughtered livestock werethrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt tomimic the evil spirits or placate them.
History of name
The term Halloween is shortened from All Hallows' Even (both"even" and "eve" are abbreviations of "evening",but "Halloween" gets its "n" from "even") as itis the eve of "All Hallows' Day", which is now also known as AllSaints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern EuropeanPagan traditions, until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christianfeast of All Saints' Day from May 13 (whichhad itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) toNovember 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting atsunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day isnow considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at thattime, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionallycelebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fastingas well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell ona Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st.The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican IIcalendar.
Symbols
The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one ofHalloween's most prominent symbols in America,and is commonly called a jack-o'-lantern. Originating in Europe,these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that thehead was the most powerful part of the body containing the spirit and theknowledge, the Celts used the "head" of the vegetable to frighten offany superstitions, The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irishlegend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He trickedthe devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the treetrunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to foreverwander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of ahollowed turnip. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America, where pumpkins were readily available and much larger,making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrateHalloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it ontheir home's doorstep after dark. In Americathe tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famineperiod of Irish immigration. The carved pumpkin was originally associated withharvest time in general in Americaand did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late19th century.
The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamationof the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from Americanfilmmakers and graphic artists, and a rather commercialized take on the darkand mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, magic, or mythicalmonsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, owls, crows,vultures, pumpkin-men, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies,skeletons, and demons.
Particularly in America,symbolism is inspired by classic horror films, which contain fictional figureslike Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy. Elements of the autumn season, suchas pumpkins and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated withthese types of symbols around Halloween.
Have BOOOOOOOOOOOOOlicious Halloween!!!!!!!!!
BLESSINGS TO ONE AND ALL,GLO
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