History of Halloween by Ellie Sheeran

Halloween is a favorite holiday of adults and children from all corners of the world, regardless of how close or far-flung. But, in the midst of inhaling one's sweets, have we ever paused to consider why, and how? How did the frankly goofy holiday that is Halloween come about? To find the answers to those elusive questions, we have to jump into a time machine and set the date for just over two thousand years ago. We would find ourselves perplexed; as Dorothy would say, we wouldn't be in Kansas anymore! Landing 2,000 years in the past and smack dab in the center of Celtic culture, there would be endless sights to explore. The Celts lived in a vast swath of areas across Europe, including Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, much of central Europe, and France: but today, we focus on the Irish Celts, whose culture and traditions are strikingly prevalent even today. 

                                      

Above: Map of projected Celtic territory over time

On November 1st of the Celtic calendar, Celts celebrated a holiday called Samhain; succinctly, the holiday of a waning harvest season. November the 1st marked the end of the plentiful harvest season in the months prior and the beginning of winter: a season notorious for bitter cold, disease, and most importantly, death. It was believed that, on the eve of the seasons' change, the boundary between the planes of the living and that of the dead became...blurred. Ambiguous. That the dead, on October 31st, walked the earth amongst the living. To honor the dead among them, the Celts often dressed like them, as spirits and phantoms; ghosts. Often, celebrators would dedicate a hand-built home altar to the ritual of Samhain and offer food, photographs, and tokens of remembrance. 

But celebrating and honoring the dead is not a modern concept; death rites and celebrations have been present since the beginning of time, it seems. A fantastic example is that of the Mound of Hostages, a mass burial site discovered in northern Ireland that dates back to over 5,000 years ago. Inside the tomb are countless bodies and countless more treasures like precious metals and jewelry. More interesting, though, is the exterior architecture. Outside the mass tomb are tall, asymmetric stones; these stones are mathematically aligned so that, on only two days of the year, does the sun shine unencumbered into the tomb and illuminate its contents. I think it no coincidence that the morning of Samhain, November 1st is one of those two dates.

Above: the Mound of Hostages

                                                                 

But how did Halloween make the leap from Samhain to...well, dressing up as clowns and scaring small children for hilarious schadenfreude? What about trick-or-treating? Trick-or-treating comes from the British tradition of mumming and guising. Mumming and guising, coming from (again) the idea that the dead walked the earth on All Hallow’s Eve, involved dressing up in bizarre costumes and asking for food and gifts: those celebrating the holiday believed that the giving of food and gift sated the spirits’ appetites and brought good fortune upon the household. Sound familiar? Ever closer to the present day, in the eighteenth century, the practice of reciting rhymes and passages often with pagan undercurrents and threatening mischief upon door-to-door homeowners became commonplace. Especially in Scotland and Ireland, parents would often take their children out to go from door to door, reciting verses and asking for food.   

Above: Modern Rendition of Láir Bhán guise*

One such example is that of Láir Bhán, meaning ‘White Mare’ in old Irish: a man would dress as the aforementioned white mare and do just that: take groups of youth to participate in mumming and guising. 

These holiday traditions are not too different, I would say, from parents taking their children out trick-or-treating nowadays. They recite the little rhyme “trick or treat”: trick being a mild threat of mischief and pranks, and treat for the candy they eventually receive and dress as ghosts and zombies: beings of the undead world. But however the giving of food may sate the hunger of the spirits wandering the earth, their haul is negligible in comparison to that of a punctual dentist. Happy Halloween!

*Guise: An appearance, or manner of presentation, typically concealing the true nature of something; a synonym for costume and sometimes mask.