Halloween is usually celebrated with trick-or-treating activities, costume parties, jack-o’-lanterns, apple bobbing, bonfires, playing pranks, visiting haunted houses, telling scary stories and watching horror movies. It is observed on October 31st and called ‘Halloween’ because it is a Scottish variant of ‘All-Hallows-Even’ – the night before ‘All Hallows Day’ (All Saints Day).

Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of souling, when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls’ Day (November 2).

The ancient origins of Halloween actually started two thousand years ago with the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) that celebrated the new year in an area we now call Ireland, United Kingdom and Northern France. Their new year commenced on November 1st. Summer had now officially ended, no more harvesting crops and it was the start of the dark, cold winter. Winter was associated with human death and the Celts believed on the night before the new year the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

The Celts lived in a volatile world and depended on comforting prophecies from Druids or Celtic priests where they could take direction during the long dark days of winter. The presence of these ghosts, or so the Celts believed, made it easier for these priests to make these predictions.

The Druids building huge sacred bonfires, where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities, commemorated Samhain. If anyone has seen the movie “The Wicker Man” (the 1973 version starring Christopher Lee) they would have seen a similar event, except the crops had failed the previous year so Christopher Lee in his role as Lord Summerisle – the chief Druid – ordered a sacrifice of a human who was also a virgin.

By 43 A.D., the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honour 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 that is practiced today on Halloween. Apples was the fruit Summerisle was famous for – the point lost on the recent dreadful Hollywood remake of “The Wicker Man” which, for reasons only known to the producers, substituted apples for honey!

Halloween slowly made its way to America with the colonisation of people mainly from Europe. Because of the different ethnic groups and the American Indian traditions meshing together a distinctly American version of Halloween emerged. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbours would share stories of the dead, tell each other’s fortunes, dance and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds.

When millions of Irish immigrants arrived fleeing the potato famine in their homeland, Halloween really took off as a festival. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition. The earliest known use in print of the term “trick or treat” appears in 1927, from Blackie, Alberta, Canada: “Halloween provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word ‘trick or treat’ to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.”

Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.

Witches have appeared in Halloween because they have taken the place of the Druids and Celtic priests and the main focus now is on the dead and scaring people. The older rituals focused on the past and the future with good spirits. Somehow, being scared is more fun.