All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) and Samhain

All Hallows' Eve is a celebration observed in a number of countries on the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. Samhain is a Gaelic, Pagan, and Wiccan festival marking the end of the harvest season and a celebration of the dead and ancestors.

Why is it important?

All Hallows' Eve begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.

The day also coincides with Reformation Day, a Protestant Christian religious holiday celebrated alongside All Hallows' Eve (Halloween) during the triduum of Allhallowtide in remembrance of the onset of the Reformation (the split of the Western Church into Protestantism and what is now the Roman Catholic Church).

Ancient origins

Samhein

The tradition of Halloween originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.

Blurred boundaries between the living and the dead

This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

The Druids

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort during the long, dark winter.

Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes.

source: History.com

Did you know?

The practice of trick-or-treating originates in the Celtic custom of giving token bits of the harvest to spirits wandering outside of houses on the evening of Samhain, to placate them and prevent them from doing destructive things to the harvest or to homes.

The Roman Empire

By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhai.

Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead.

Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples (bobbing heads in water while attempting to bite into apples) that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites.

Why Halloween?

Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallow's Day

The Church mixed the traditions involving Celtic spirits and Catholic saints. In the 800s, the Church designated November 1 as All Saints' Day.

All Saints' Day (All Hallows' Day) is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honor of all the saints of the church, whether they are known or unknown.

It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints' Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

The night before the saints were venerated

The ancient Celts believed that all sorts of threatening spirits were out and about on Samhain, and the early medieval Christian church believed in saints—Christians who were remarkable for their devout religious beliefs and lives. But saints also had a supernatural side, such as their involvement in miraculous occurrences.

Jack O' Lantern

One of the rituals adopted from the Celts was pumpkin carving, which held religious significance.

The jack-o-lantern custom consists of placing fire—which imitates the good magic of the sun—inside a hollowed out vegetable, representing the harvest. It was done in hopes that the good magic will help to preserve the harvested food through the dark half of the year, until the next growing season could replenish the community's food stocks.

Later, in Ireland and Scotland, people developed the custom of using similarly-carved vegetable lanterns to scare off the mythical character of Stingy Jack, who wandered the Earth because the devil wouldn't let him into hell.