The Welsh called November the month of Slaughter while the Saxons called it the Month of Blood. In the Odyssey, Odysseus summons the shades of the dead by sacrificing animals. Their blood drains into a pit and the restless shades come eagerly crowing up from the underworld. Odysseus holds them at bay with his sword until the particular spirit he wants comes forward, laps up the blood and then prophesies what will happen in the future. This scene combines the themes of fear, slaughter, death, the Underworld, ghosts and divination which are common to Halloween.
Families go to the cemetery for a picnic and eat skeleton cookies and sugar skull cakes.
Some say the soul-cakes were given to the priest to buy Masses for the souls of relatives in Purgatory. Others believe they were offerings to the dead. Every year I make a pilgrimage to the Folk Art Gallery-La Tienda at 4138 University Way NE in Seattle, which carries a selection of calaveras, macabre little skeleton figures doing wonderfully unlikely things like getting married and playing in a rock and roll band. We buy one each year to add to our Dia de Muertos altar. Pumpkins, apples and nuts are harvested at this time of the year and are associated with various Halloween customs.