Trick or Treat
By: Richard J. Goodrich
Tags: History, Folklore, Culture, Halloween, Europe

Halloween is firmly rooted in the ancient Celtic feast of Samhain. Each year, as the sun made its annual pilgrimage into the southern sky, the ancient inhabitants of Ireland and Scotland would gather to celebrate their harvest and the coming of winter. The feast ran for twenty-four hours, beginning at sunset on October 31. As Erin Mullally noted: “the ancient Celts believed that this night marked a critical spiritual transition when the spirits of all who had died since the previous Oiche Shamhna (‘Night of Samhain’) moved on to the next life.”

During the festival, the barrier grew thin between the material world of warmth and life, and the cold chill of the spirit world. For a short period of time, the dead could return to the world of the living. Spirits — not all of them kindly — roamed the glens and mist-shrouded hollows. Families left food or other offerings (“treats”) outside their homes in the hope of pacifying the restless denizens of the other world.

The fire also played an important role in the feast. The Celts kindled massive bonfires in their villages to honor Tlachtga, the Celtic sun goddess. The fire was intended to remind the goddess to return northward in the spring. It also symbolized village unity in the face of the descending winter chill. Before the feast began, villagers extinguished the cooking fires in their homes. Then, after the bonfire was blazing, they carried burning embers home to reignite their personal flames. The shared flame linked the families together, reaffirming the corporate spirit that would guarantee another year’s survival.

Competition for a Pagan Festival

After the Roman occupation of England, and the subsequent legalization of Christianity during the reign of Constantine and Licinius, ancient Celtic practices came under pressure. St. Patrick brought the gospel to Ireland, and later, converted Irish monks carried the new faith to Scotland.

In the Christian liturgical calendar, Halloween (also known as “All Hallow’s Eve”) comes just before “All Saints Day,” which is celebrated on November 1 in the western church. It is a very old Christian festival; the earliest reference to its existence is found in the writings of Ephrem the Syrian (died 373). John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople (died 407), noted that the eastern churches celebrated the feast on the Sunday after Pentecost, which is also the eighth Sunday after Easter. The feast honors the saints and martyrs, the women and men who — through the exemplary excellence of their lives — offered salutary examples for the living.

Although the day was celebrated in the eastern half of the church since the fourth century, there are no references to it until the seventh century in the West. Pope Boniface IV wanted to convert the Roman Pantheon — a temple dedicated to “all the gods” — into a Christian church. Marcus Agrippa, Emperor Augustus’ right-hand man built the original temple and Emperor Hadrian remodeled it in the second century. During the medieval period, the building belonged to the Byzantine Emperor, Phocas. Pope Boniface IV asked the emperor to allow him to rededicate the pagan temple as a church. The emperor agreed, and on All Saints’ Day, May 13, 609, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Pantheon, changing its name to the Church of Saint Mary and the Martyrs. The church in Rome marked the consecration each year on May 13, which established the feast of All Saints’ Day in the western liturgical calendar.

The Pantheon, Rome, Italy. Author Photo.

Pope Gregory III (731–741) dedicated a chapel in St. Peter’s Basilica to “All the Saints” on November 1, and over time, the western church drifted toward celebrating the feast in autumn. Pope Gregory IV (827–844) made it official, assigning the feast to November 1. Although the pope’s decision was not motivated by a desire to compete with Samhain, the western reassignment of the date did bring the two holidays into conflict.

Halloween

From the ninth century onward, the western church celebrated All Saints’ Day on November 1. The preceding evening was the eve of All Hallows (Saints) Day. The contemporary word “Halloween” is derived from the Scottish contraction Hallowe’en (Hallows Even).

The process of the Celtic transmutation from Samhain to Halloween is poorly understood. Although Christianity challenged indigenous pagan beliefs in the medieval period, the old ways stubbornly persisted in the Celtic lands. As late as the sixteenth-century Calvinist reformers fought to suppress the superstitious traditions saturating the dark green lands. A second assault arrived during the Enlightenment when both church and rationalists tried to crush primitive “superstition.”

Nevertheless, belief in the world of spirits persisted. In Ireland, tricksters chose the night of October 31 to play tricks upon the gullible. As Timothy Correll noted: “Pranks that involved the purposeful manipulation of belief in fairies were widespread. This was widely taken advantage of at Samhain or Hallowe’en, the Celtic festival of the commencement of winter, when the otherworld was thought to protrude through the surface of existence…Jokers destroyed crops, removed and hid gates, and in some cases took apart farm vehicles so that they would fit through doors, then reassembled them in houses.”

These “tricks” were blamed on the fairies, the spirits that roamed the lands. “Treats” were left outside the home to pacify the tricksters, a custom that underpins the modern Halloween invocation, “trick or treat.” In America, which adopted and commercialized the holiday from its Irish and Scottish immigrants, the child who rings a doorbell simply earns a candy bar. In Scotland, the visitor might be asked to perform a trick. The child must then offer a bit of poetry, a joke, or a magic trick to secure the desired reward.

Neither church nor modern rationalism has managed to eradicate this ancient Celtic festival. It may be one of the most enduring legacies of a neolithic world. Although the holiday takes its name from a religious feast that honors the saints, Halloween owes far more to the Celts than the church.

Sources: Timothy Corrigan Correll. “Believers, Sceptics, and Charlatans: Evidential Rhetoric, the Fairies, and Fairy Healers in Irish Oral Narrative and Belief.” Folklore, 116.1 (2005):1–18; Erin Mullally. “Samhain Revival.” Archaeology 69.6 (2016): 34–37.