The Origins of Halloween

One of the promises I made as I entered into retirement was to be more observant of what is going-on in my natural world.  Another promise was learning something new on a regular basis. 

Recently Jill and I attended a lecture on Irish history and culture and this exposed us both to the rich story of the Celts who dominated much of what is now Europe and the British Isles.  Tribal and warlike the Celts had no written language and as a consequence there is no complete record of their way of life.  What we do know is that the Romans displaced them and following that the barbarians displaced the Romans.  The Celts survived all of this on what is now the island of Ireland.  Enter St. Patrick.  With the arrival of Christianity the written word arrived and Irish monks kept detailed and illuminated records of what had previously been a pagan life.  

Alas, with the arrival of another warlike culture from the north, Ireland finally succumbed to Viking rule.  Brian Boru - the high king of Ireland - eventually drove the Norsemen from his homeland and returned Ireland to the Irish.  Whew!  All of this is a meaningful explanation for my own DNA results.  But I digress. 

I’ve also learned that the origins of Halloween date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (sow-in) of more than 2000 years ago when the Celts had achieved the apex of their dominance over Europe.  This holiday marked the end of summer, beginning of the harvest and the start of winter.  This was a time that the Celts marked their New Year and its association with human death. 

On the night of October 31 the Celts celebrated Samhain when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.  True to these Celtic roots Halloween has historically been recognized as a time when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world.  People thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized some individuals would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. 

Things have become rather tame since those good-old-days with Halloween becoming an American tradition that accounts for about $6 billion dollars in annual spending – second only to Christmas. 

Raising a toast to candy corn and all things spooky.