A bit of Holiday History...




Halloween... Such a fun holiday! Everyone's out picking up candy from strangers hoping that they weren't cruel enough to poison them, while their renegade neighbors start preparing for Christmas 2 months early in spite of the holiday. Yes, Halloween is a great holiday, filled with all sorts of surprises! But did you know that the Halloween we celebrate today is... a little different than it was in the beginning...?

Halloween, or Hallow E'en as Ireland calls it, means All Hallows Eve, or the night before All Hallows. Including another interesting name, All Hallowmas, or All Saints, or All Soul Day, regarded on November 1st. In the old English language, Hallow means sanctify. Roman Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherians used to observe All Hallows Day to honor all Saints in heaven, known or unknown.

In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day to replace the Pagan party, the festival of the dead. It was celebrated on May 13. Later, Gregory III changed the date to November 1. The Greek Orthodox Church observes it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. the American version of Halloween Day celebration owes its origin to the ancient pre-Christian Druidic fire festival called Samhain. Samhain is pronounced sow-in. sow rhyming with cow. In Ireland the party was known as Samhein, or La Samon, the Feast of the Sun.

In Scotland, the celebration was known as Hallowe'en. In Welsh it's Nos Galen-gaeof (that is, the Night of the Winter Calends.) Faeries (spelled faeries, not fairies) were imagined to be active at this event, or season. From it the half year is reckoned. also called Feile Moingfinne (Snow Goddess).

A special Scottish Dictionary defines it as "Hallowtide. The Feast of All Soula. Sam + Fuin = end of summer, or beginning of autumn. The Celtic Gods of the dead were Gwynn ap Nudd for the British, and Arawn for the Welsh. The Irish did not have a "lord of death" like most people did. Which is why most of the customs connected with the day are remnants of the ancient religious beliefs and rituals, first of the Druids and then transcended amongst the Roman Christians who conquered them.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with a small fire or candle, which worked out quite well, because most people didn't appeal to turnips. They thought it looked too organic to be scary, in a sense.

Halloween has changed, to say the least. It began with Druidic rituals, then moved on to people honoring the rituals, then moved onto festivals, then slowly moved onto what we have today. However, we are also changing. Decades ago, it was all about being scary and frightening. However, now we are, in a sense, going back to the festival way of things, like dressing up, not to look scary, but to look funny or cute. We went from walking demons and drooling zombies, and now we're inching towards cowboys and princesses. Holidays change like that, for better or for worse. But in any case, there will always be a true Halloween... back, in the beginning, sitting out there with the Druids.