The Story of Halloween
Posted on 29. Dec, 2008 by The Crypt Keeper in Books, History, Info, Multimedia
I have seen and read many different history of Halloween articles and books, but I think that this one is one the best! The following is a section taken out of the Halloween Program Sourcebook
The Story of Halloween
To understand where our modern celebration of Halloween originated, it is necessary to go back in time to the Celts. These were the people who lived in the British Isles, France, and other parts of northern and western Europe three thousand years ago. They worshiped the sun, the moon, and other forces of nature. Their white-robed priests were called Druids.
November 1 was the first day of the Celtic new year, and it was considered an auspicious day on which to begin a journey or fight a battle. From sundown on October 31 through sunset on November 2, the Celts observed a festival named after Samhain (pronounced SAH-wen), the Lord of the Dead. Of the four major festivals of the Celtic year - which included Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1), and Lughnasa (August 1) - Samhain was the most important. It was during this time of the year that the Lord of the Dead opened up the gates of the underworld, and the spirits of the dead were free to roam the earth and visit their former homes and families. It was also on Samhain that the souls of those who had died during the year just ending would assemble and travel together to the land of the dead.
The Celts had mixed feeling about the spirits of the dead who wandered the earth at Samhain. On the one hand, they wanted to keep them happy; so they built bonfires to light their way and prepared special foods as offerings. But they were also terrified of them, so they disguised themselves as whatever they thought these wandering spirits might look like, in hope that they might blend in with the ghostly crowd. Some scholars say that the Samhain bonfires were designed to scare off any evil spirits that might have escaped from the underworld when the gates were opened.
In addition to being a time when the barriers between this world and next were dissolved, Samhain also served an important seasonal purpose. November 1 was the day by which all the crops had to be harvested and the best of the farm animals brought into their winter shelters. The others were slaughtered for meat, and there was usually a great feast dedicated to the Lord of the Dead. Winter came early to most of northern Europe, and it was important to get the crops stored and the livestock into the barn or shed where it could be hand-fed during the cold, snowy months ahead.
Celtic householders extinguished their hearth-fires on the night of October 31 and then gathered in a circle while the Druid priests solemnly quenched the sacred altar fire and lit a new one by rubbing two pieces of oak together. The head of each family took some of the live embers from this fire home and used them to kindle a new fire on the hearth, which had to be kept burning until the next year’s festival. Fire that had been blessed in this way was considered protection against evil spirits and danger throughout the year. Sparks from the altar fire were also used to light the huge bonfires that had been built especially for this festival in the surrounding hilltops.
It isn’t difficult to see how the modern celebrations of Halloween emerged from some of these ancient Celtic rites. But the Romans who lived in Great Britain during the first century A.D. observed their own autumn festival, dedicated to the harvest goddess Pomona, at this same time of year. When the Romans conquered Great Britain in the first century A.D., they brought many of their harvest festival customs with them. The most popular involved nuts and apples, which were sacred to Pomona. It is believed that many of our modern-day Halloween games, including bobbing for apples, can be traced back to Pomona’s festival.
Although ancient Celtic and Roman customs merged to a large degree, there was one pagan practice that the Romans wouldn’t tolerate: the sacrifice of human victims to the Lord of the Dead. Usually these victims were criminals, confined in cages made out of wicker and thatch to resemble giants or huge animals. The cages were then set on fire by the Druid priests, and the victims were roasted alive. The Romans outlawed such sacrifices, although the practice re-appeared in medieval times, when black cats were put into wicker cages and burned alive on Halloween.
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