The Origins of Halloween by Eileen O'Finlan

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In my new historical novel, The Folklorist, main character, Charlotte Lajoie, puts together an exhibit on the history and evolution of Halloween for the New England Folklife Museum where she works. To accurately describe the exhibit, I had to do research on the subject. For this I relied heavily on a wonderful book by Halloween expert Lisa Morton called Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween.

I could not possibly relate all I learned in one blog post, so I will just offer an overview of the origins of the Halloween. 

As many people know, the holiday we celebrate on October 31st had its beginnings in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which means "summer's end." A Druid religious holiday, it was a three-day festival celebrating the reaping of an abundant harvest and the belief that souls journeyed to the other world, which they called Tir na tSamhraidh (Land of Summer) at this time. They believed that the veil between this world and that one was very thin at Samhain, allowing the dead to return to the living, and creatures called sidh (fairies) to cross to our side. On Samhain, a gathering was held that featured feasting, sports, repayment of debts, and legal trials, followed in some cases, by executions. Story-telling featured prominently at the festival, most stories having an eerie, supernatural element to them. Fortune-telling was also a favored element of Samhain.

Interestingly, by the 7th century, when the Celtic lands were Christianized, Samhain didn't totally disappear. It was transformed, yet it remained a religious holiday. By the 8th century, Pope Gregory III moved the feast of All Saints to November 1st, and 100 years later Pope Gregory IV declared it a universal Church holiday. Because "hallow" comes from the Old English word "halga", meaning holy, the night before All Saints Day became All Hallows' Eve, eventually morphing into Hallowe'en and finally Halloween.

Like Samhain, it was a three-day celebration consisting of All Hallows' Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. Though the Church purposely supplanted Samhain with these three days, the Celts were unwilling to entirely give up their ancient roots. They celebrated with traditional foods reminiscent of those used for the ancient festival and retained the mix of joyful celebration and somber contemplation of death.

By 1350 the Black Death had killed 60% of Europe's population. Popular culture changed along with this calamity bringing about a morbid fascination and obsession with death. The invention of the printing press allowed for the dissemination of artwork. Especially popular was an image known as the Danse Macabre which featured skeletons and Grim Reapers. These images soon became incorporated into the All Hallows' Eve festival especially since the belief that the dead cross over at this time had not left the Celtic lands. 

With the tens of thousands of women executed for witchcraft in the 1480s,  another Halloween icon arose - the witch. Suspected witches were often accused of causing or spreading the Plague and were believed to have a close association and sometimes a sexual relationship with devil. They soon became incorporated into the holiday as well. The traditional  image of the witch with a broom, cauldron, and cat, all symbols of female housekeeping, began to appear at this time.

It was in the mid-19th century that Halloween finally made its way to America along with Irish and Scottish immigrants.  As the newly emerging middle-class tried to imitate the British, they became fascinated with Queen Victoria's 1869 Halloween visit to Balmoral Castle in Scotland reported on in American newspapers. If the queen could celebrate Halloween, so could they!

By the early 20th century, Halloween was becoming established in America, though it was still very much an adult affair. That's not to say kids had no part in it. Children's Halloween parties became popular by the by the 1920s. On the downside, teen boys became so enamored of Halloween pranks that they grew in intensity and became so out of control that by the 1930s Halloween was nearly outlawed.

Civic organizations saved the day by offering parties, parades, costuming, carnivals, and contests to supplant the pranking. Handbooks, popular from 1915 to 1950 were written with instructions on how to celebrate the holiday. In the 1930s, neighbors pooled resources to create "house-to-house parties" in which groups of kids were taken from one house to the next, each house hosting a different theme - the precursor to trick-or-treating.

 

Finally, Halloween in America as we know it today came into its own shortly after World War II with the development of suburban neighborhoods and the ability to safely trick-or-treat for candy.

So, as you celebrate Halloween this year, remember you are taking part in a holiday with a long, varied, and fascinating history!