History of Halloween Halloween Halloween: 5th Century B.C., Ireland Even in ancient times, Halloween was a festival for witches, goblins, and ghosts, as well as for lighting bonfires and playing devilish pranks. What has changed over the centuries are the reasons for dressing up ghoulishly, lighting fires, and acting mischievous. Now these things are done for fun -- and by children; in the past, they were done in deathly earnest - and by adults. Named "All Hallows Eve," the festival was first celebrated by the ancient Celts in Ireland in the fifth century B.C. On the night of October 31, then the official end of summer, Celtic households extinguished the fires on their hearths to deliberately make their homes cold and undesirable to disembodied spirits. They then gathered outside the village, where a Druid priest kindled a huge bonfire to simultaneously honor the sun god for the past summers harvest and to frighten away furtive spirits. The Celts believed that on October 31, all persons who had died in the previous year assembled to choose the body of the person or animal they would inhabit for the next twelve months, before they could pass peacefully into the afterlife.

To frighten roving souls, Celtic family members dressed themselves as demons, hobgoblins, and witches. They paraded first inside, then outside, the fire less house, always as noisy and destructive as possible. Finally, they clamored along the street to the bonfire outside town. A villager, deemed by appearance or mannerism to be already possessed, could be sacrificed in the fire as a lesson to other spirits contemplating human possession. The Romans adopted Celtic Halloween practices, but in A.D. 61 they outlawed human sacrifice, substituting the Egyptian custom of effigies (called ushabti by the Egyptians, who buried scores of statuettes with a pharaoh in place of his living attendants, once entombed with their king). In time, as belief in spirit possession waned, the dire portents of many Halloween practices lightened to ritualized amusement. Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine in the 1840s brought to America with them the Halloween customs of costume and mischief. The favorite pranks played by New England Irish youths on "mischief night" were overturning outhouses and unhinging front gates. J ack-O'-Lantern.

The Irish also brought with them a custom that New England agriculture forced them to modify. The ancient Celts had begun the tradition of a sort of jack-o'-lantern, a large turnip hollowed out and carved with a demon's face and lighted from inside with a candle. Immigrants found few turnips in their new land but numerous fields of pumpkins. Whereas the Pilgrims had made the edible part of the pumpkin a hallmark of Thanksgiving, the Irish made the outer shell synonymous with Halloween. It was also the Irish who originated the term jack-o'-lantern, taken from Irish folklore. As the legend goes, a man named Jack, notorious for his drunken ways, tricked the devil into climbing up a tree. Quickly carving a cross into the tree's trunk, Jack trapped Satan until he swore hed never again tempt Jack to sin. Upon his death, Jack found himself barred from the comforts of heaven for his repeated sinning, and also refused entrance to the heat of hell from an unforgiving Satan. Condemned to wander in frigid darkness until Judgment Day, he implored the devil for burning embers to light his way.

Though Satan had embers in surplus, he allotted Jack a single coal that would last an agonizingly short time. Putting the ember into a turnip he had chewed hollow, he formed jacks lantern. Trick or Treat. The most widely accepted theory on the origins of trick-or-treating traces the practice to the ninth-century European custom of "souling." On All Souls Day, Christians walked from village to village begging for square biscuits with currants, called soul cakes. The beggars promised to offer up prayers for the dead relatives of the donors, the number of prayers to be proportional to the donors generosity. The quantity of prayers a dead person amassed was significant in a practical way, for limbo was the penitential layover stop on the journey to heaven, and sufficient prayer, even by an anonymous individual, greatly shortened the stay.

The Facts on Halloween: Spiritual Life in God The Facts on Halloween By John Ankerberg, John Weldon and Dillon Burroughs Guest Writers CBN.com  (Excerpt from The Facts on Halloween by Harvest House Publishers) In ad 835, Pope Gregory IV designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day, or All Hallows’ Day (the term hallow refers to saints). The night before November 1, October 31, was known as All Hallows’ Evening. How did we get the term Halloween? Look at the name “All Hallows’ Evening.” If we drop the word “all,” the “s” on Hallows’, and the “v” and “ing” on evening, the result spells Halloween. Long before the church gave this name to the evening before All Saints’ Day (a celebration in remembrance of saints and martyred saints), it had been celebrated in various ways in many places around the world.

The book Every Day’s a Holiday accurately observes that Halloween “probably combines more folk customs the world around than will ever be sorted out, catalogued and traced to their sources.” The Druids It is generally agreed by historians that Halloween came to take the place of a special day celebrated by the ancient Druids. The Druids were the educated or priestly class of the Celtic religion. The Celts themselves were the first Aryan people who came from Asia to settle in Europe. In fact, we can see certain similarities between Druidism and the religion of India: Celtic religion, presided over by the Druids (the priestly order) presents beliefs in various nature deities and certain ceremonies and practices that are similar to those in Indian religion. The insular Celts and the people of India also shared certain similarities of language and culture, thus indicating a common heritage. For example, the Indian pagan gods Siva Pasupati (“lord of the animals”) and Savitr (“god of the sun”) are similar to the Celtic gods Cernunnos, a horned god who appears in the yoga position, and the god Lug, or Lugus (perhaps originally a sun god).

“As in Hinduism, the Druids also believed in reincarnation, specifically in the transmigration of the soul, which teaches that people may be reborn as animals.” The Celtic peoples lived in northern France, throughout the United Kingdom, and in Ireland. They engaged in occult arts, worshiped nature, and gave nature supernatural, animistic qualities. Certain trees or plants, such as oak trees and mistletoe, were given great spiritual significance. (According to Celtic authority Lewis Spence, the original meaning of the term Druid implies a priest of the oak cult.) Interestingly, it has been claimed that 90 percent of the world’s sometimes mysterious “crop circles” lie within the geographical proximity of the ancient and possibly Druidic ruins of Stonehenge. At least some of these phenomena may be considered supernatural. What is the Occult? Religious writers often use the word occult, but what does it mean? According to the Oxford American Dictionary, occult can be defined as: 1. secret, hidden except from those with more than ordinary knowledge. 2. involving the supernatural, occult powers. The occult [involves] the world of the supernatural, mystical or magical.

In everyday usage, occult usually is used to refer to spiritual practices that focus on secret knowledge gained through personal experience or attempts to communicate with spirits. The term is used in reference to everything from ancient earth religions to modern conversations about ghosts and hauntings. The Celts worshiped the sun god Belenus, especially on Beltane, May 1, and they worshiped another god, apparently the lord of death, or the lord of the dead, on Samhain (pronounced “SOW-wen” by Wiccans), October 31. Beltane (“Fire of Bel”) was the time of the summer festival, while Samhain was the time of the winter festival. Human sacrifice was offered during both occasions. According to Julius Caesar in his Commentaries and other sources, the Celts believed they were descended from the god Dis, a tradition handed down from the Druids. Dis was the Roman name for the god of the dead. Of the 400 names of Celtic gods known, Belenus is mentioned most often. Samhain as the specific name of the lord of death is uncertain, but it is possible that the lord of death was the chief Druid deity.

We’ll follow the common practice of other authors on this issue and refer to this deity by the name Samhain. Druidic festivals The Celts and their Druid priests began their New Year on November 1, which marked the beginning of winter. They apparently believed that on October 31, the night before their New Year and the last day of the old year, Samhain gathered the souls of the evil dead who had been condemned to enter the bodies of animals. He then decided what animal form they would take for the next year. (The souls of the good dead were reincarnated as humans.) The Druids also believed that the punishment of the evil dead could be lightened by sacrifices, prayers, and gifts to Samhain. Druid worshipers attempted to satisfy and please this deity because of his power over the souls of the dead, whether these souls were good or evil. For those who had died during the preceding 12 months, Samhain allowed their spirits to return to earth to their former places of habitation for a few hours to associate once again with their families.

As a result of this belief, the Celts taught that on their New Year’s Eve (our Halloween) ghosts, evil spirits, and witches roamed the earth. In order to honor the sun god (Belenus) and to frighten away evil spirits who allegedly feared fire, large bonfires were lit on hilltops. In Lewis Spence’s The History and Origins of Druidism we read, The outstanding feature of Samhain was the burning of a great fire.…Samhain was also a festival of the dead, whose spirits at this season were thought of as scouring the countryside, causing dread to the folk at large. To expel them from the fields and the precincts of villages, lighted brands from the bonfire were carried around the district…Divinations for the fate of the individual throughout the new year were engaged in. For several days before New Year’s Eve (October 31), young boys would travel the neighborhood begging for material to build these massive bonfires. The fires were believed to not only banish evil spirits but rejuvenate the sun. Until fairly recent times, the hilltop Halloween fires of the Scots were called Samhnagan, indicating the lingering influence of the ancient Celtic festival.

On this night, evil or frustrated ghosts were also believed to play tricks on humans and cause supernatural manifestations, just like poltergeists today. As part of the celebration, people dressed in grotesque masks and danced around the great bonfires, often pretending they were being pursued by evil spirits. In addition, food was put out to make the ghosts or souls of the good dead Samhain had released feel welcomed and at home. Because Samhain marked the beginning of a new year, an interest in divination (the magic art of interpreting the unknown by interpreting random patterns or symbols) and fortune-telling became an important part of this holiday. For example, the Druids believed that the particular shape of various fruits and vegetables could help predict, or divine, the future. Victims of human sacrifice were used for the same purpose. When the Romans conquered Britain, some of their customs were added to the traditions of the Druids, while others, such as human sacrifice, were banned. The Samhain celebration was not unique to the Druids. Many festivals worldwide celebrate a time when the dead return to mingle with the living. The Hindus call it a night of Holi.

The Iroquois Native Americans celebrate a feast of the dead every 12 years, when all those who have died during the preceding 12 years are honored with prayers. A national holiday in Mexico, the Day of the Dead, begins on November 2 and lasts several days. In this gruesome festival, death becomes a kind of neighborly figure, appearing on candy, jewelry, toys, bread, cakes, and so on. This is the time when the souls of the dead return and when the living are to honor them. For example, doors are decorated with flowers to welcome the angelitos, the souls of dead children. For the most part, then, our modern Halloween appears to trace its initial origin to the practices of the ancient Druids at their winter festival on October 31. History of Halloween - Halloween - HISTORY.com History of Halloween A+E Networks Introduction Straddling the line between fall and winter, plenty and paucity, life and death, Halloween is a time of celebration and superstition. It is thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts.

In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. In a number of countries around the world, as the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, people continue to usher in the winter season with gatherings, costumes and sweet treats. Google Ancient Origins of Halloween Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred.

On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter. Did You Know? One quarter of all the candy sold annually in the U.S. is purchased for Halloween. To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter. 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 honor 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 . On May 13, 609 A.D., Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III (731–741) later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1. By the 9th century the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted the older Celtic rites.

In 1000 A.D., the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It is widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. All Souls Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Halloween Comes to America Celebration of Halloween was extremely limited in colonial New England because of the rigid Protestant belief systems there. Halloween was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups as well as the American Indians meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included “play parties,” public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors 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. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country. In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland’s potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. 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. 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. In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century. By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats.

A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country’s second largest commercial holiday. Today’s Halloween Traditions The American Halloween tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg for food and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits. The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale, food, and money. The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes.

To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter. Halloween Superstitions Halloween has always been a holiday filled with mystery, magic and superstition. It began as a Celtic end-of-summer festival during which people felt especially close to deceased relatives and friends. For these friendly spirits, they set places at the dinner table, left treats on doorsteps and along the side of the road and lit candles to help loved ones find their way back to the spirit world. Today’s Halloween ghosts are often depicted as more fearsome and malevolent, and our customs and superstitions are scarier too. We avoid crossing paths with black cats, afraid that they might bring us bad luck. This idea has its roots in the Middle Ages , when many people believed that witches avoided detection by turning themselves into cats. We try not to walk under ladders for the same reason.

This superstition may have come from the ancient Egyptians, who believed that triangles were sacred; it also may have something to do with the fact that walking under a leaning ladder tends to be fairly unsafe. And around Halloween, especially, we try to avoid breaking mirrors, stepping on cracks in the road or spilling salt. But what about the Halloween traditions and beliefs that today’s trick-or-treaters have forgotten all about? Many of these obsolete rituals focused on the future instead of the past and the living instead of the dead. In particular, many had to do with helping young women identify their future husbands and reassuring them that they would someday—with luck, by next Halloween—be married. In 18th-century Ireland, a matchmaking cook might bury a ring in her mashed potatoes on Halloween night, hoping to bring true love to the diner who found it. In Scotland, fortune-tellers recommended that an eligible young woman name a hazelnut for each of her suitors and then toss the nuts into the fireplace. The nut that burned to ashes rather than popping or exploding, the story went, represented the girl’s future husband.

(In some versions of this legend, confusingly, the opposite was true: The nut that burned away symbolized a love that would not last.) Another tale had it that if a young woman ate a sugary concoction made out of walnuts, hazelnuts and nutmeg before bed on Halloween night she would dream about her future husband. Young women tossed apple-peels over their shoulders, hoping that the peels would fall on the floor in the shape of their future husbands’ initials; tried to learn about their futures by peering at egg yolks floating in a bowl of water; and stood in front of mirrors in darkened rooms, holding candles and looking over their shoulders for their husbands’ faces. Other rituals were more competitive. At some Halloween parties, the first guest to find a burr on a chestnut-hunt would be the first to marry; at others, the first successful apple-bobber would be the first down the aisle. Of course, whether we’re asking for romantic advice or trying to avoid seven years of bad luck, each one of these Halloween superstitions relies on the good will of the very same “spirits” whose presence the early Celts felt so keenly.

Tags Halloween HALLOWEEN: ITS ORIGINS AND CELEBRATION The celebration of Halloween has dual origins. The first is in a pre-Christian Celtic feast associated with the Celtic New Year. The second is in the Christian celebration of All Saints Day (Nov. 1st) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2). In the British Isles November 1st is called All Hallows, thus the evening before is All Hallows Eve. The Celtic Feast The ancient Celtic peoples who inhabited England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Brittany (NW France) celebrated their New Year's Day on what would be November 1st on our calendar. Prior to their conversion to Catholicism these peoples practiced a pagan religion controlled by a priest class known as Druids. The Druids are most famous for the stone monument of Stonehenge and other astronomical calendars that remain in their former domains. The period prior to the New Year, as the year wound down, was a time to consider the mystery of human death. It was believed that on the last night of the year the lord of death, Samhain, allowed the souls of the dead to return to their homes.

Souls that had died in sin, and in Celtic belief imprisoned in the bodies of animals, could be released through gifts to the lord of death, including human sacrifices. It was also thought that evil spirits, demons, ghosts, witches were also free to roam around this night and could be placated by a feast. They would also leave you alone if you dressed like them and thus appeared to be one of them. Families would also extinguish their hearth fires on this evening to be re-lit from a common New Year's bonfire built on the hilltops, which was meant to symbolize the driving away of darkness and evil with the coming of the new year. The jack-o-lantern as a means of scaring away evil and providing light may be a vestige of this custom. When the Romans conquered Gaul (France) and Britain (excluding Scotland and Ireland) in the century before and after Christ, the bloody elements of Druidic practice were banned. The Christian Feasts of All Saints and All Souls During the first three centuries of Christianity the Church frequently had to operate "underground" due to the persecutions of the Roman state against her. During these periods there were many martyrs who died for their faith in Jesus Christ.

The most renowned of these were honored locally by the preservation of the relics (if available) and by the celebration of the anniversary of their death, as a feast in honor of their birth into eternal life. As time passed, neighboring dioceses would honor each others martyrs and even exchange relics for veneration, the way the first century Christians kept the clothes and handkerchiefs touched by St. Paul (Acts 19:12). At the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth the most vicious of all persecutions occurred, that of the emperor Diocletian (284-305). The martyrs became so many that in some places it was impossible to commemorate even the most significant of them. The need for a common feast of all martyrs was becoming evident. This common feast became a reality in some places, but on various dates, as early as the middle of the fourth century. As far as Roman practice goes it is known that on 13 May 609 or 610, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Roman Pantheon as a temple of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs.

Beginning with Gregory III (731-741) the celebration of a feast of All Saints was commemorated at St. Peters on November 1. Gregory IV (827-844) extended this feast to the entire Church. The feast of All Souls developed more gradually, first with a monastic celebration of their departed on October 1st. This seems to have occurred first in Germany in the 900s. The patronage of St. Odilio of Cluny extended this feast to other monasteries, first of his own Order, then to Benedictines and others, from where it spread to dioceses, including Rome. It was only in 1915 that the special privilege of three Masses was granted to all priests by Pope Benedict XV. Halloween during Christian Times The conversion of Celtic peoples to Christianity did not dampen their enthusiasm for the pre-Christian year-end custom of feasts, bonfires, and masks, essentially new year's eve costume parties.

The proximity to the developing Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls resulted in an attempt to move the celebration to the evening before All Souls, when children would go door to door receiving treats for a promise of prayer for the dead of the household. This attempt to associate the Celtic remembrance of the dead with the Christian memorial ultimately failed and the celebration remained a year-end custom (by the old Celtic calendar), though Halloween remains primarily a children's feast. With the massive emigration of Irish in the last century the All Hallows Eve customs of costumes, jack-o-lanterns and trick or treating, were transported to North America. Scary costumes remain the historical norm for Halloween, though the advent of more sinister and violent times has encouraged many parents to take a gentler approach. Today many families, and even parishes, hold group celebrations, often with costumes of the saints, the poor souls or famous Catholics (such as the Pope, Mother Teresa or the like) and other elements which re-enforce the Christian side of Halloween's origins.

Electronic Copyright ï¿½ 1998 EWTN All Rights Reserved The Official History of Halloween The Official History of Halloween PumpkinPatchesAndMore.org - Find a pumpkin patch, corn maze, safe trick-or-treating, hayrides and other Fall and Halloween fun near you! Toggle navigation Close The Official History of Halloween Halloween is one of the world's oldest holidays, dating back to pagan times. But it is celebrated today by more people in more countries than ever before. there's a simple reason: it is fun and it is good, clean, harmless fun for young and old alike! Also see Halloween around the world and see this page of current Halloween facts and statistics . Summary Since much of the history of Halloween wasn't written down for centuries; some of it is still sketchy and subject to debate. But the most plausible theory is that Halloween originated in the British Isles out of the Pagan Celtic celebration of Samhain . It goes back as far as 5 B.C. It was believed that spirits rose from the dead and mingled with the living on this day. The Celts left food at their doors to encourage good spirits and wore masks to scare off the bad ones.

Some historians believe that the Romans who invaded England added a few of their own traditions to the celebration of Samhain; such as celebrating the end of the harvest and honoring the dead; others say that since the Romans never conquered the Celts (Ireland and Scotland) there was no mingling of cultures, and that the Celts celebrated the end of the harvest and honored their dead in this way, anyway! Many centuries later, the Roman Catholic church, in an attempt to do away with pagan holidays, such as Halloween (and Christmas, which had been the Roman pagan holiday of Saturnalia) established November 1st as All Saint's Day (in French, la Toussaint), in celebration of all the saints who do not have their own holy day. This attempt to detract attention from the pagan celebration of Samhain didn't work. The celebrations on the eve of All Saint's Day continued to grow and change! During the massive Irish immigration into America in the 1840s, Halloween found its way to the United States, where it continued to flourish! It is also believed that the Christian practice of celebrating the evening before a holiday, such as Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, etc. came from the Jewish traditions.

Jewish days and holidays begin with the evening before. Always have, as Judaism follows a lunar calendar in which the sunsets begin the new day. Many Christian groups now observe holy days from sundown on one day until sundown on the following day. The modern name, Halloween comes from "All Hallows' Evening," or in their slang "All Hallow's Even", the eve of All Hallows' Day. "Hallow" is an Old English word for "holy person," and All Hallows' Day is just another name for All Saints' Day, eventually, it became abbreviated to "Hallowe'en" and then "Halloween." Samhain and the Celts The Celts lived hundreds of years ago in what is now Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and northern France. The Celtic people, around 800 B.C., commonly kept sheep and cattle. When the weather got colder, the shepherds brought their animals down from the hills to closer pastures. Life changed dramatically between summer and winter for the Celts.

In the winter months, everybody stayed inside or close to home, fixing things indoors, sewing, spending time together, and generally trying to avoid being outside where one froze to death, go sick, or otherwise was killed or eaten by something that was larger and hungry. The change of seasons from growing, plenty, and life to winter, dark, shortages and death was at the meaning behind the holiday. The final harvest of the year was marked by a celebration called Samhain (pronounced sow-en) and was also the ancient Celtic New Year. Samhain, which translates to "end of summer," usually occurred around the end of October, when the weather started to get cold in Ireland and Scotland. (yes, I know it's not a big difference from "summer" there, but they apparently can tell the difference! :) Celts believed that transitions, times when things change from one state to another, had magical properties. Samhain marked what was for them one of two of the biggest turning points of the year (Spring being the other) a change in the weather as well as a change in life. The Celts also believed this magical time created an opening to the dead.

They believed the worlds of the dead and the living were closest at the time of Samhain, and that the spirits of the dead were freed to travel once more among the living, in part because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld. People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to help them on their journey to the otherworld, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were afoot: ghosts, fairies, and demons! Many of the activities of the Samhain festival were related to these beliefs. Many of those practices then evolved into odern day Halloween traditions. Celtic Traditions On October 31st after the crops were all harvested and put into storage for the winter ahead, the cooking fires in the homes would be extinguished. The Druids, the Celtic priests, would meet in the hilltop in the dark oak forest (oak trees for their size and strength and mistletoe for remaining green in the winter and having berries in the cold were considered sacred).

The Druids would light new fires and offer sacrifices of crops and animals to thank the gods for the harvest and appease the gods of the coming winter. The morning after, the Druid priests would give an hot ember from the fires to each family, who would then take them home to start new cooking fires. The fireplace and fire were a big deal to the Celts, as they kept the homes warm and free from evil spirits. The festival lasted for 3 days. Many people would parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals representing various gods of nature. All Saints' Day Societies and religions honored their martyrs for thousands of years. Catholics canonized saints after death. Saints are effectively "ranked" higher since they have special status (sainthood, holiness) bestowed upon them, saints are held in esteem as role models, and God may perform miracles on earth through them. Roman Catholics, and some other Christians, honor saints, and ask them for guidance in daily life. Many saints have their own day to honor them. But with so many thousands of canonized saints, only a small percentage are recognized specifically.

Pope Boniface IV officially established All Saints' Day in order to honor all the saints at one time. All Saints' Day originally fell on May 13. In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory the First issued a now famous edict to his missionaries regarding the beliefs and customs of the peoples they wanted to convert. Rather than try to banish native peoples' customs and beliefs, the pope had his missionaries to incorporate them: if a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship. In 835 AD, Pope Gregory III moved it to November 1 to try to take over the pagan holiday. Officially, the Church chose this new date to mark the papal dedication of a church honoring the saints. Few historians accept that as the Catholic Church had a long-standing policy of incorporating non-Christian traditions into its holidays. For example, many historians believe, for example, that the church set Christmas on December 25 so that it would correspond with pagan winter solstice festivals (Shepherds don't "watch over their flock by night" in the winter, as the flock is inside or would die in the cold!).

That appears to be fairly certain. The connection between Samhain and the Catholic All Saints Day is less certain. Ronald Hutton (an English historian who specialises in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism and author of The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain , 1996) and another historian, Steve Roud (the creator of the Roud Folk Song Index and an expert on folklore and superstition, of Maresfield, East Sussex, England, and author of The English Year , and A Dictionary of English Folklore ), say theree is no connection between Samhain and the Catholic All SaintsDay, November 1st; that there was no attempt to "Christianize" the pagan Celtic holiday. In any case, when All Saints' Day moved to November 1, many of the pagan Samhain traditions were brought into the holy day's activities. This may have helped bring descendents of the ancient Celts into Christianity, but it created some problems for the church. Much of the Samhain traditions centered on the supernatural and spirit world, ideas that don't have much of a place in Christianity.

Recognizing saints, who were by definition dead, covered a lot of the same ground, but the creepy and supernatural aspects like the dead spirits walking the earth again at midnight certainly wasn't part of Christianity. Young men were now instructed to go door to door begging for food for the town poor. Villagers were allowed to dress up in costume to represent a saint. Now, instead of dressing up to chase away evil spirits, and celebrating pagan beliefs, they were dressed up to honor the saints. Like anyone cared! :) Witches One legend has it that on one All Hallows Eve that a priest was walking by on a country road when on the hill he saw the bonfires burning. He saw people dancing around the fire in costumes with shafts and torches in their hands. With the moon as a backdrop to the fires the people appeared to be flying in the air. The man hurried to the village to tell that witches were flying and evil was afoot. Presumably, this is where the myth of witches on broomsticks flying on Halloween comes from. There is a lesser known church holiday called All Soul's Day that came into being at the end of the 10th century. It was an occasion to recognize all Christian dead. .

All Souls' Day All Souls' Day, observed on November 2, is celebrated with Catholic masses and festivities in honor of the dead. The living pray on behalf of Catholics who are in purgatory, the state in the afterlife between the land of the living and the otherworlds where souls are purified before proceeding to heaven. Souls in purgatory, who are members of the church just like living Christians, must suffer so that they can be purged of their sins. Through prayer and good works, living members of the church may help their departed friends and family. It was on Halloween in 1517 that Martin Luther began to try to reform the Catholic Church. It ended in the formation of the Protestant Church, which didn't believe in saints (in the Roman Catholic sense of of specific individuals). Without Saints, there would be no All Hallow's eve, no Halloween and no partying, so in Britain, when a conspiracy to blow up the English Parliament and King James I in 1605 was foiled, this became a convemnient means to solve two issues at once. The celebrations that people were accustomed to just moved to November 5 and became Guy Fawkes Day.

Guy Fawkes was not-too-bright accomplice who became the fall 'guy" (his name is also where we get the word "guy" from) in a Catholic plot to blow up the English Parliament, which at that time was Protestant. So, although technically, the celebration was to commemorate the failure of the plot, nonetheless, it was Halloween. Bonfires were lit across the country. People made lanterns from carved out turnips and children went begging for "a penny for the guy" (and they were to use the pennies to buy more wood for the bonfire upon which Guy Fawkes was to be burned alive. gruesome, huh? I knew you'd like that.. Realizing that it could not completely get rid of the supernatural aspects of the celebrations, the Catholic church began characterizing the spirits as evil forces associated with the devil. This is where much of the more malevolent Halloween imagery, such as evil witches and demons come from. All Souls' Day has morphed and exists today, particularly in Mexico, where All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day are collectively observed as "Los Dias de los Muertos" (The Days of the Dead).

First and foremost, the Days of the Dead is a time when families fondly remember the deceased, visit their graves and clean the gravesites and leave fresh flowers. But it is also a time marked by Mardi Gras-like festivities, including spectacular parades of skeletons and ghouls. In one tradition, a mock funeral procession with a live person inside a coffin is paraded through the streets. Trick-or-Treating In the Celtic times and up till the medieval ages, fairies (a.k.a., faeries) were also thought to run free on the Eve of Samhain. Faeries weren't necessarily evil, but not particularly they weren't good. They were mischievous. They liked rewarding good deeds and did not like to be crossed. On Samhain, faeries were thought to disguise themselves as beggars and go door to door asking for handouts. Those who gave them food were rewarded. Those who did not were subjected to some unpleasantness. In medieval times, one popular All Souls' Day practice was to make "soul cakes," simple bread desserts with a currant topping. In a custom called "souling," children would go door-to-door begging for the cakes, much like modern trick-or-treaters.

For every cake a child collected, he or she would have to say a prayer for the dead relatives of the person who gave the cake. These prayers would help the relatives find their way out of purgatory and into heaven. The children even sang a soul cake song along the lines of the modern "Trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat, give me something good to eat." Dressing up as ghouls and ghosts originated from the ancient Celtic tradition of townspeople disguising themselves as demons and spirits. The Celts believed that disguising themselves to look like the spirits who were wandering the earth that night might allow them to escape the notice of the real spirits wandering the streets. ( ref ) As part of the Samhain celebration, Celts would bring home an ember from the communal bonfire at the end of the night. They carried these embers in hollowed-out turnips, creating a lantern resembling the modern day jack-o'-lantern. This carried on in Ireland and Scotland through the 18th century.

A very popular character in Irish folk tales was Stingy Jack ( ref ), a famous cheapskate who, on several occasions, avoided losing his soul to the devil by tricking him (often on All Hallows' Eve). Much like the American stories of the devil and . In one story, he convinced Satan to climb up a tree for some apples, and then cut crosses all around the trunk so the devil couldn't climb down. The devil promised to leave Jack alone forever, if he would only let him out of the tree. When Jack eventually died, he was turned away from Heaven, due to his life of sin. But, in keeping with their agreement, the Devil wouldn't take Jack, either. He was cursed to travel forever as a spirit in limbo. As Jack left the gates of Hell, the Devil threw him a hot ember to light the way in the dark. Jack placed the ember in a hollowed-out turnip, and wandered off into the world. According to the Irish legend, you might see Jack's spirit on All Hallows' Eve, still carrying his turnip lantern through the darkness. Click here for a web page that has the complete Stingy Jack story!

Traditional jack-o'-lanterns, hollowed-out turnips with embers or candles inside, became a very popular Halloween decoration in Ireland and Scotland a few hundred years ago. Folk tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other spirits on Halloween, and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with the more plentiful pumpkins. As it turns out, pumpkins were easier to carve than turnips. People began to cut frightening faces and other elaborate designs into their jack-o'-lanterns. All of this brings us to PUMPKINS which become Jack O'Lanterns, which you want to go pick and carve. So let's look at why! Jack-O'-Lanterns If you are not from the British Isles, you won't believe where your hollowed out pumpkin comes from! In Ireland and Scotland hollowed-out turnips with embers or candles inside, became a very popular Halloween decoration a few hundred years ago. Baldrick would have met his dream!

(Fans of "Blackadder" will recognize this!) Tradition held that they would ward off Stingy Jack and other malevolent spirits on Halloween, and they also served as representations of the souls of the dead. Irish families who emigrated to America brought the tradition with them, but they replaced the turnips with pumpkins, which, native to the new world, were plentiful. It didn't hurt that they are a lot easier to carve than turnips. Have you ever tried to hollow out a turnip? People began to carve frightening faces and other designs into their jack-o'-lanterns. Bringing it home to the United States Meanwhile, back in the new world, the settlers were all Protestant and Halloween was technically a Catholic holiday. The original colonists in this country found ANY celebration immoral, especially a Catholic one. In fact, celebrating Christmas in the Massachusetts colony was once illegal, punishable by banishment or death. After the American Revolution, Halloween still never really caught on in America. Most of the country was farmland, and the people too far spread out to share different celebrations from Europe. Any chance to get together was looked forward to - barn raisings, quilting bees, taffy pulls.

Eventually, a fall holiday called the Autumn Play Party developed. People would gather and tell ghost stories, dance and sing and feast and light bonfires. The children would stage a school pageant where they paraded in costumes. The Autumn Play Parties lasted until the Industrial revolution. After that, the majority of Americans lived in cities and had no need for such get togethers. By the end of the Civil War, only Episcopalians and Catholics celebrated All Saints' Day and Halloween, and the two religions combined made up less than 5% of the population. Concerned about letting a part of their heritage fade away, the the two religions began an aggressive campaign to put those two holidays on all public calendars. In the late 1800's there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborhood "get-togethers," than about the supernatural. .At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate. The first year All Saints' Day and Halloween showed up on the calendars, the newspapers and magazines made a big deal about it. Suddenly, everyone knew about Halloween and began celebrating it by lighting bonfires and having masquerade parties.

The first official citywide Halloween celebration in the United States, occurred in Anoka, Minn., in 1921. In the 1920's and 30's Halloween became a secular but community centered holiday which was celebrated with parades and town wide parties. By the 1950's vandalism had to be brought under control and by this time Halloween was more of a child's celebration. Treats were handed out in order to prevent tricks like lawn rolling at each home. Those traditions have made Halloween the country's second largest commercial holiday to the tune of more than $2 billion spent on candy each year. Today, Halloween is once again being celebrated as an adult holiday or masquerade, like Mardi Gras. Men and women in every disguise imaginable are now participating in parades. Many parents decorate their homes and yards, dress in costume, hand out candy at their door or go with their children as they collect candy. And despite its origins, today it has nothing to do with evil, devil worship, satanic forces, etc. It's just good clean fun! Sources and references Rogers, Nicholas (2002). "Samhain and the Celtic Origins of Halloween".

Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, pp.11–21. New York: Oxford University Press . ISBN 0-19-516896-8 Rogers, Nicholas (2002). Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press. pp. 28–30. ISBN 0-19-514691-3 . All About Halloween | Halloween.com » History of Halloween Back in the Old Days Back in the old days, or once upon a time, in the tradition of fairy tales, there were the Celtic people and their Druid priests. The Druids were believed to have the ability, among other skills, to commune with the dead. Their powers, it was rumored, were much more powerful on the day of Samhain (pronounced sow-en), which was the last day of the year in the Celtic calendar. But, before believing that the Halloween celebration came directly from Samhain, a day mistakenly attributed directly to the Wiccans rather than to the Celts, you must understand that it is a blend of Hallowmas, a celebration of Catholic origins, as well as the Roman festival called Feralia.

On the day of Samhain, the Celtic people would all extinguish their home’s hearth fire. They would gather in front of a blessed bonfire and would sing, dance and listen to the stories that were told during the celebration. At the end of the evening, each person would take some of the bonfire home to relight their heart fire in hopes of ensuring good fortune to their home and family for the coming year. It is said that if your hearth fire would not light from the sacred bonfire, misfortune, even death, would befall someone in the house that very year. By the 19th century, most of the religious aspects of the Halloween celebration had dwindled away and it was mostly a secular holiday, a gathering of community with only some of the remnants of the past clinging to it like the cobwebs of a haunted house. People would still dress up in costume, but less for the original reason of confusing the dead and more for just plain entertainment and fun. Halloween Travels to the New World European immigrants brought many of their traditions and beliefs with them to the New World, even those that were sometimes frowned upon or scoffed at.

Halloween itself was largely disallowed, even forbidden, but in Maryland, the tradition was not only allowed but encouraged. The people there held what they called “play parties” where they would take turns telling each other’s fortunes, dancing, singing and telling ghost stories. The children would dress in costumes and try to scare one another as well. The Irish immigrants came to the new world in great masses, fleeing from the Potato Famine that was starving them to death, and brought with them the Halloween tradition of going door to door looking for sweets and other treats. The tradition of trick or treating is still a favorite among little children today. The Witchcraft, Halloween Connection There are still many, especially among fundamentalist Christians, who believe that Halloween is nothing more than a celebration of paganism and witchcraft because of some of the traditions that are involved. It was thought that on Halloween night, a young woman could determine who her future spouse would be by staring into a mirror in a darkened room or by peeling an apple in one long strip and then casting the peel over her shoulder.

Other traditions involved baking small coins and trinkets as well as a single, plain ring into a barm brack, a type of fruit cake that would be shared among the neighbors. If you got a trinket in your piece – that was your fate for the coming year, with the person who got the ring destined to wed. Counteracting Halloween While the Catholic Church bears no ill will toward the Halloween traditions and the holiday itself, there are some Christian churches who say that it encourages witchcraft and may even lead to Satanism. These churches hold “Hell Houses” meant to scare children and young adults away from the traditions and to lead them back to the church. Some of these churches even hand out pamphlets and religious tracts on Halloween night to be found when the children go through their candy. Where Did Halloween Come From? Why Halloween Was Celebrated Now comes the shocking truth from history as to why this holiday was celebrated! Here are the plain facts as written in THE BOOK OF HALLOWEEN, on page 10, by Ruth Kelley: The pagan Druid priests ï¿½taught the immortality of the soul, that it passed from one body to another at death . . . .

They believed that on the last night of the old year (October 31) the lord of death gathered together the souls of all those who had died in the passing year and had been condemned to live in the bodies of animals, to decree what forms they should inhabit for the next twelve months. He could be coaxed to give lighter sentence by gifts and prayers.ï¿½ ï¿½On the New Year, their sins being expiated, they were released to go to the Druid Heaven.ï¿½ (From Halloween Through Twenty Centuries, p. 5). Halloween was celebrated to preserve in the minds of the people the false doctrine of the immortality of the soul ï¿½ that the dead are not really dead. Almost all heathen nations had days in honor of the dead ï¿½ days originally instituted to commemorate the death of Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-10) whom Semiramis, his wife, said was still alive.

Now let us understand the meaning of the word ï¿½Halloween.ï¿½ It is the eve of Allhallows or Hallowmas or All Saintsï¿½ Day ï¿½ and as such it is one of the most solemn festivals of the [Catholic] church.ï¿½ (From page 3 of Lintonï¿½s Halloween Through Twenty Centuries.) Halloween is the evening of Allhallows or All Saintsï¿½ Day, which falls on November 1. Since in ancient times, the days were customarily reckoned as beginning at sunset, Halloween was merely the evening celebration in anticipation of the great day of November 1, dedicated to the lord of the dead! Who Was the ï¿½Lord of the Deadï¿½? You will remember that shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus was questioned by the Sadduces about the resurrection. In order to prove that there would be a resurrection from the dead, Jesus told them: ï¿½But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,ï¿½ Matthew 22:31-32. Notice the meaning of Jesusï¿½ answer. Since the patriarches are DEAD, and since God is ONLY the God of the living ï¿½ because the DEAD serve not the Lord (Psalms 6:5, 115:17) ï¿½ then there must be a resurrection of the DEAD in order that they might live again and that God might be their God. To make the resurrection possible, ï¿½Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living,ï¿½ Romans 14:9. Observe that Jesus became the lord or master of the dead because through His resurrection He gained the keys of the grave and death (Revelation 1:18) and will resurrect the dead so they may live to serve Him. But from whom did Jesus gain these keys? Who had prior mastery over the dead?

Paul, in the book of Hebrews, speaks of ï¿½him that had the power of death, that is the devil,ï¿½ Hebrews 2:14. So the devil, Satan, was lord or master of the dead! Among the heathen Druids, Samhain or Saman, the lord of the dead, was Satan! To this day people still celebrate with frolicking fun a wild night in honor of the devil! Paul says that the heathen who thought they were worshipping the true God were actually serving demons (Gal. 4:8). Young people today who set fires on Halloween are not serving God. But if Halloween is merely the evening in honor of the devil, how did the day ï¿½ called Allhallows or All Saintsï¿½ Day ï¿½ come to be celebrated in the professing Christian Church?

The Origin of All Saintsï¿½ Day The first of November, celebrated among the pagans in honor of Samhain ï¿½ Satan ï¿½ is today celebrated in hundreds of churches ï¿½to honor all the saints, known and unknown, and according to [pope] Urban IV, to supply any deficiencies in the faithfulï¿½s celebration of saintsï¿½ feasts during the year,ï¿½ (Catholic Encyclopedia). How did the veneration of saints, supposedly alive in heaven, come to be celebrated on a day in honor of the devil? ï¿½. . . The Church, feeling that every martyr should be venerated, appointed a common day for all.ï¿½ Notice, what once was a memorial for each martyr on different days became a general day in honor of the dead who were believed to be alive in heaven. ï¿½Gregory III (731-741) consecrated a chapel in the basilica of St. Peter to all the saints and fixed the anniversary on November 1 . . . . Gregory IV (827-844) extended the celebration on 1 November to the entire Church.

The vigil (Halloween) seems to have been held as early as the feast itself.ï¿½ Notice that the celebration of Halloween, the eve of the day, is as old as the celebration of All Saintsï¿½ Day in the Catholic Church. On page 6 of his book, Ralph Linton says of this holiday, ï¿½All Saintsï¿½ Day was introduced into the church calendar because the year was not long enough to make it possible to dedicate a special day for each spirit of the Catholic Church . . . . That the day chosen was one already associated in the popular mind with a thronging of spirits of the dead which was quite in line with church policy of incorporating harmless pagan folk ideas.ï¿½ Protestants continued the celebration of Halloween partly ï¿½since it was on this day, in 1517, that Martin Luther posted his epoch-making ninety-five theses on the door of the castle church at Wittenbergï¿½ which started the Protestant Reformation. ï¿½He chose Halloween night because he knew that the townsfolk . . . would be coming to the church that night.ï¿½ (Halloween, pp.

9-10.) Origin of ï¿½Trick or Treatï¿½ Do you know where the common Halloween prank of children knocking on doors and shouting ï¿½trick or treatï¿½ originated? Linton says: ï¿½. . . certainly it comes from pagan times.ï¿½ In Ireland up to the turn of the century, it was customary to have a procession ï¿½led by a man in a white robe wearing a horse-head mask.ï¿½ (ï¿½The horse was sacred to the Sun God,ï¿½ says Linton, ï¿½which indicated that this custom was a survival of a Druid rite.ï¿½) The procession levied a contribution from the farmers in the perverted name of what probably was an old Druid god. Unless the procession was ï¿½treated liberally with gifts, the farmers were ï¿½trickedï¿½ with the threat of a curse that would ruin next yearï¿½s crops! This traditional custom of having processions at Halloween is further derived from another unusual practice.

Wealthy churches during the Middle Ages, copying the ancient Greek and Roman religious processions, paraded the relics of patron saints. The poorer parishes could not afford to buy relics so they used caricatures of their patron saints. ï¿½Those who were not playing the parts of the holy ones also wanted to get into the procession and so dressed up as angels or devils. The Allhallows procession around the churchyard eventually became a gay and motley parade (from page 103 of Halloween Through Twenty Centuries). The present day ï¿½trick or treatï¿½ is but a continuation of these degenerate and absurd customs which came out of paganism and have been labeled with Christian names. Is it any wonder that children and adults wantonly damage private property ï¿½ on a day originally dedicated to Satan, the Destroyer? Do Jews Celebrate Halloween? | Jewish Virtual Library Do Jews Celebrate Halloween? Tweet Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Day, originated as a celtic holiday that was celebrated by Druids, the priests of a religious order in ancient Gaul and Britain .

The celebration marked the end of summer harvest season and pumpkins, cornstalks and other similar products of the earth were used in the feasting and merrymaking. In the eighth century, the Catholic Church realized it was failing in efforts to keep Christians from celebrating the pagan holiday and decided to incorporate Halloween into the Christian calendar. The holiday would be celebrated on the first of November as a day honoring all saints, hence the name All Saints' Day. The night before, October 31, was called "holy [hallowed] evening," and many of the old pagan, Druid practices were retained in the Christian celebration, including the tradition to dress up as ghosts, goblins, witches, fairies, elves and other mythical creatures. Today, Halloween is celebrated in a number of countries around the world, including the United States , with customary practices that include trick-or-treating, costume parties, lighting bonfires and visiting haunted houses. While many American non-Orthodox Jews do tend to celebrate the non-religious traditions of Halloween, halacha prohibits Jewish participation in the holiday. The reasons for the Jewish prohibition vary.

Mainly, Jews are forbidden by the Torah to partake in "gentile customs," a prohibition derived from Leviticus 18:3 . This edict has been used by Jewish religious leaders as a source to determine the dress code and permissible behavior of the Jewish community throughout history. Jews are also not allowed to partake in non-Jewish or idoltorous worship, per the Ten Commandments . Halloween, having both pagan and Catholic backgrounds, is deemed a gentile festival and is therefore forbidden to Jews. That being said, despite Halloween's religious origins most Americans consider the holiday to be a national tradition - much like Thanksgiving - without the attachment of any religious significance. Many American Jews have adopted this interpretation of the tradition with the understanding that the holiday has only a secular meaning. Rabbinically speaking, however, a holiday's origins do not simply disappear over time, so Halloween would still be considered a religious holiday- gentile in nature and ultimately against Jewish law .

Question: Which priests first celebrated Halloween?
Answer: Druids