when is halloween?

Question

why is it celebrated and how it is celebrated

Answer 1

Here is everything u ever needed to know about hallowween,

Halloween (IPA pronunciation: [hælə'win], [hælo'win]) is an observance celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France[1] as a pagan Celtic harvest festival. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows' Day"[2] (also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldomly used today, it is still a well accepted label. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches). In Christian folklore, because it is an eve, the magic breaks at midnight, with the transition to All Saints' Day — a rare case where midnight brings beneficial effects.[citation needed]
Contents
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* 1 Ireland
* 2 United Kingdom
* 3 United States/Canada
* 4 Australia & New Zealand
* 5 Bonaire
* 6 Symbols
* 7 Trick-or-treating and guising
* 8 Games and other activities
* 9 Foods
* 10 Cultural history
o 10.1 Christian festival
o 10.2 Origin: Celtic observation of Samhain
+ 10.2.1 Samhain mistaken as New Year
o 10.3 Norse Elven Blót
* 11 Halloween traditions
o 11.1 Punkie Night
* 12 Religious viewpoints
* 13 References
* 14 See also
* 15 External links

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Ireland

Halloween is most popular in Ireland, where it originated, also known in Irish Gaelic as "Oíche Shamhna" or "Samhain Night". The Celts celebrated Halloween as Samhain, "End of Summer," a pastoral and agricultural festival of fire, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to ward off evil spirits. (See Origin: Celtic observation of Samhain below.) In Ireland they continued to practice their deep-rooted, ancient pagan rites well after the arrival of Christianity in the middle of the sixth century.
Trick or Treat?
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Trick or Treat?

Pope Gregory IV standardized the date of All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day, on November 1 to the entire Western Church in 835. There is no primary documentation that Gregory was aware of or reacting to Samhain among the Celts in the selection of this date. See Christian festival below. (Eastern Christianity continued its celebration of the holiday on the first Sunday after Pentecost.) Because Samhain had traditionally fallen the night before All Hallows', it eventually became known as All Hallows' Even' or Hallowe'en. While Celts were happy to move their All Saints' Day from its earlier date of the 20th of April, ("...the Felire of Oengus and the Martyrology of Tallaght prove that the early medieval churches celebrated the feast of All Saints upon 20 April.")[3] they were unwilling to give up their existing festival of the dead and continued to celebrate Samhain.

Unfortunately, there is frustratingly little primary documentation of how Halloween was celebrated in preindustrial Ireland. Historian Nicholas Rogers has written,

Halloween
It is not always easy to track the development of Halloween in Ireland and Scotland from the mid-seventeenth century, largely because one has to trace ritual practices from [modern] folkloric evidence that do not necessarily reflect how the holiday might have changed; these rituals may not be "authentic" or "timeless" examples of preindustrial times.[4]

Halloween

On Halloween night in present-day Ireland, adults and children dress up as creatures from the underworld (ghosts, ghouls, zombies, witches, goblins - see thumbnail), light bonfires, and (especially in Derry and Dublin) enjoy spectacular fireworks displays. The children walk around knocking on the doors of neighbours, in order to gather fruit, nuts, and sweets for the Halloween festival. Salt was once sprinkled in the hair of the children to protect against evil spirits.

The houses are decorated by carving pumpkins or turnips into scary faces and other decorations. The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barnbrack which is a fruit bread. Each member of the family gets a slice. Great interest is taken in the outcome as there is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag then your financial future is doubtful. If you get the coin then you can look forward to a prosperous year. Getting the ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness.

Children also have a week-long break from school for Halloween, and the last Monday in October is a bank holiday given for Halloween even though they quite often don't fall on the same day.
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United Kingdom

Scotland, having a shared Gaelic culture and language with ancient Ireland, has celebrated the festival of Samhain robustly for centuries. Robert Burns portrayed the varied customs in his poem "Halloween" (1785).

The same could not be said for most of England in the post-Roman era. The Anglo-Saxon invasions of the 5th and 6th centuries AD pushed the native Celts north and westward in Britain, to present-day Wales, and Northern England, taking the festival with them. The English Reformation in the 16th century de-emphasized Roman Catholic holy days like All Hallows Day and its associated eve. With the rise of Guy Fawkes Night celebrations in 17th century England, many Halloween traditions, especially the building of bonfires, were transferred to the new holiday, only five days from the old. Halloween celebrations in any significant manner did not return to England until the latter half of the 20th century.

Today, adults in the UK often dress up and go to fancy dress parties or pubs and clubs on Halloween night.

The black cat was considered to be bad luck, whereas a white cat was considered to be good luck but in general the black cat is a lucky omen in the UK.[citation needed]

Halloween in Scotland consists chiefly of children going door to door "guising" (or "Galoshin" on the south bank of the lower Clyde) dressing up and offering entertainment of various sorts in return for gifts.

In some parts of Yorkshire, there is a similar festival called Mischief Night which falls on the 4 November. Children do tricks on adults which range from the minor to more serious such as taking doors off their hinges on this night. The doors were also often thrown into ponds, or taken a long way away. In recent years these tricks have, in some cases, turned into severe acts of vandalism and criminal damage including streetfires and destruction of private property.[5]

In England it is said that elves rode on the backs of the villagers' cats. The cats had fun but the villagers did not and would lock their cats up so that the elves could not catch them.

Children were told not to sit in the circles of yellow and white flowers where fairies have danced as they may be stolen by the fairies. It was also bad to sit under the hawthorn tree since fairies loved to dance on these and if they saw children their tempers would be prickled.

Throughout the United Kingdom children carve faces or deisgns into pumpkins.[6] Then they place them on display in their windows to go along with the scary theme of Halloween. (See article Jack-o'-lantern.)

Witchballs are also hung up in English homes, usually by the windows or front/back door and are said to glow if a witch passes by.

Bobbing for apples is also another English custom on halloween. Apples were put into a barrel that had been filled to the brim with water and an individual would have to catch an apple by catching them in their mouth with out using their hands. Once an apple had been caught, it was traditional to peel the apple and drop the peelings into the barrel to see if the peel would spell out a letter. Whatever letter the peeling formed itself into would be the first initial of the participant's true love.

Other traditions include apple ducking, fireworks, recounting of ghost stories and playing games such as Hide 'n' Seek. Apple tarts are usually baked with a coin hidden inside, and large quantities of various types of nuts are eaten. Bolder children might also play a game called Thunder and Lightning, which involves knocking "like thunder" on a neighbours door, then running away "like lightning".

Tradition is slowly changing, however. Many children will arrive at a door and merely exclaim, "Trick or treat", and money is given out, as well as, or in place of, sweets. Bonfires are less commonly lit for Hallowe'en in Northern Ireland these days.
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United States/Canada

Halloween did not become a holiday in America until the 19th century, where lingering Puritan tradition meant even Christmas was scarcely observed before the 1800s. North American almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th centuries make no mention of Halloween in their lists of holidays.[7] The transatlantic migration of nearly two million Irish following the Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849) brought the holiday and its customs to America. Scottish emigration from the British Isles, primarily to Canada before 1870 and to the United States thereafter, brought that country's own version of the holiday to North America.

When the holiday was observed in 19th-century America, it was generally in three ways. Scottish-American and Irish-American societies held dinners and balls that celebrated their heritages, with perhaps a recitation of Robert Burns' poem "Halloween" or a telling of Irish legends, much as Columbus Day celebrations were more about Italian-American heritage than Columbus. Home parties would center around children's activities, such as bobbing for apples and various divination games, particularly about future romance. And finally, pranks and mischief were common on Halloween.

Commercial exploitation of Halloween in America did not begin until the 20th century. The earliest were perhaps Halloween postcards, which were most popular between 1905 and 1915, and featured hundreds of different designs.[8] Dennison Manufacturing Company, which published its first Hallowe'en catalog in 1909, and the Beistle Company were pioneers in commercially made Halloween decorations, particularly die-cut paper items.[9][10] German manufacturers specialized in Halloween figurines that were exported to America in the period between the two world wars.

There is little primary documentation of masking or costuming on Halloween in America, or elsewhere, before 1900.[11] Mass-produced Halloween costumes did not appear in stores until the 1950s, when trick-or-treating became a fixture of the holiday, although commercially made masks were available earlier.

In the United States, Halloween has become one of the most profitable holidays, next to Christmas, for retailers.[12] In the 1990s many manufactures began producing a larger variety of Halloween yard decorations; prior to this a majority of decorations were homemade. Some of the most popular yard decorations are jack-o'-lanterns, scarecrows, witches, orange and purple string lights, inflatable decorations such as spiders, pumpkins, mummies, vampires and Frankenstein's Monsters, and animatronic window and door decorations. Other popular decoration are foam tombstones and gargoyles.

The National Confectioners Association reported, in 2005, that 80 percent of adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters,[13] and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating.[14]

Anoka, Minnesota, USA, the self-proclaimed "Halloween Capital of the World," celebrates with a large civic parade. Salem, Massachusetts, also has laid claim to the title, though Salem has tried to separate itself from its history of persecuting witchcraft. Despite that, the city does see a great deal of tourism surrounding the Salem witch trials, especially around Halloween. Nearby Keene, New Hampshire, USA, hosts a Jack-o'-Lantern festival each October which curently has the record for most pumpkins carved in a single day.

New York City hosts the United States' largest Halloween celebration, The Village Halloween Parade. Started by a Greenwich Village mask maker in 1973, the parade now attracts over two million spectators and participants as well as roughly four million television viewers each year. It is the largest participatory parade in the country if not the world, encouraging spectators to march in the parade as well. It is also the largest annual parade held at night.

In many towns and cities, trick-or-treaters are welcomed by lighted porch lights. In some large or crime-ridden cities, however, trick-or-treating is discouraged, forbidden, or restricted to staged trick-or-treating events within one or more of the cities' shopping malls, in order to prevent potential acts of violence against trick-or-treaters.

Those living in the country may hold Hallowe'en parties. These parties usually involve games (often traditional games like bobbing for apples, searching for candy in a similar manner to Easter egg hunting, or a snipe hunt), a hayrack ride (often accompanied by a scary story and one or more masked and costumed people hiding in the dark to jump out and scare the riders), and treats (usually a bag of candy and/or homemade treats). Scary movies may also be watched. Normally, the children are picked up by their parents at pre-determined times. However, it is not uncommon for these parties to include sleepovers.
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Australia & New Zealand

Because Hallowe'en was not celebrated in England before the twentieth century, it did not travel to Australia and New Zealand with British colonization, but it has some recognition due to American cultural media influences. Compared to the United States, Hallowe'en is reasonably uncelebrated in Australia and New Zealand.
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Bonaire
The children of the largest town in Bonaire all gather together on Hallowe'en day.
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The children of the largest town in Bonaire all gather together on Hallowe'en day.

In the island of Bonaire, all the children of a town gather together in a group, and unlike most places, instead of trick-or-treating at people's houses, they trick-or-treat for candy in the town shops.
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Symbols
Jack-o'-lanterns may be carved with funny faces.
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Jack-o'-lanterns may be carved with funny faces.

The imagery surrounding Hallowe'en is largely an amalgamation of the Hallowe'en season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists, and a rather commercialized take on the dark,diaria and mysterious. This art generally involves death, magic, or mythical monsters. Commonly-associated Hallowe'en characters include ghosts, aliens, ghouls, witches, bats, owls, crows, vultures, haunted houses, pumpkinmen, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, werewolves, and demons. Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic film, such as fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster in the vein of Boris Karloff and Alfred Hitchcock. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Hallowe'en.

Black and orange are the traditional colors of Hallowe'en. In modern Hallowe'en images and products, purple, green, and red are also prominent.

The use of these colors is largely a result of advertising for the holiday that dates back for over a century. They tend to be associated with various parts of Hallowe'en's imagery.
COLOR ASSOCIATIONS Color Symbolism
Black death, night, witches, black cats, bats, vampires
Orange pumpkins, jack o' lanterns, Autumn
Purple night, the supernatural, mysticism
Green goblins, monsters
Red blood, evil

Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, are also reflected in symbols of Halloween.

The carved jack-o'-lantern, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. Although there is a tradition in the British Isles of carving a lantern from a rutabaga, mangelwurzel, or turnip, the practice was first named and associated with Halloween in North America, where the pumpkin was available, and much larger and easier to carve. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark.
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Trick-or-treating and guising

Main article: Trick-or-treating

The main event of modern US-style Halloween is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in costume disguises and go door-to-door in their neighborhood, ringing each doorbell and yelling "trick or treat!" Although this resembles the older tradition of guising in Ireland and Scotland, ritual begging on Halloween does not appear in English-speaking America until the 20th century, and may have developed independently. The occupants of the house (who might themselves dress in a scary costume) will then hand out small candies, miniature chocolate bars, and sometimes even soda pop. Some American homes will use sound effects and fog machines to help set a spooky mood. Other house decoration themes (that are less scary) are used to entertain younger visitors. Children can often accumulate many treats on Halloween night, filling up entire pillow cases or shopping bags.

In Ireland, great bonfires were lit throughout the breadth of the land. Young children in their guises were gladly received by the neighbors with some "fruit, apples and nuts and of course sweets" for the "Halloween Party", whilst older male siblings played innocent pranks on bewildered victims.

In Scotland, children or guisers are more likely to recite "The sky is blue, the grass is green, may we have our Halloween" instead of "trick or treat!". They visit neighbours in groups and must impress the members of the houses they visit with a song, poem, trick, joke or dance in order to earn their treats. Traditionally, nuts, oranges, apples and dried fruit were offered, though sometimes children would also earn a small amount of cash, usually a sixpence. Very small children often take part, for whom the experience of performing can be more terrifying than the ghosts outside.

Tricks play less of a role in modern Halloween, though Halloween night is often marked by vandalism such as soaping windows, egging houses or stringing toilet paper through trees. Before indoor plumbing was so widespread, tipping over or displacing outhouses was a popular form of intimidation. Casting flour into the faces of feared neighbors was also done once upon a time.

Typical Halloween costumes have traditionally been monsters such as vampires, ghosts, witches, and devils. In recent years, it has become common for costumes to be based on themes other than traditional horror, such as dressing up as a character from a TV show or movie, or choosing a recognizable face from the public sphere, such as a politician (in 2004, for example, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry were both popular costumes in America). In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, for example, costumes of Islamic terrorists, firefighters, police officers, and United States military personnel became popular among children and adults. In 2004, an estimated 2.15 million children in the United States were expected to dress up as Spider-Man, the year's most popular costume.[15]

"'Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" has become a common sight during Halloween in North America. Started as a local event in a Philadelphia suburb in 1950, and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $119 million for UNICEF since its inception.

BIGresearch conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the US and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up 10 dollars from last year). An estimate of $3.3 billion was made for the holiday spending.

A child usually "grows out of" trick-or-treating by his or her teenage years. Trick-or-treating by teenagers is accepted, but generally discouraged with genial ribbing by those handing out candy. Teenagers and adults instead often celebrate Halloween with costume parties, staying home to give out candy, listening to Halloween music, watching horror movies or scaring people.

Visiting a haunted house or a dark attraction are other Halloween traditions. Notwithstanding the name, such events are not necessarily held in houses, nor are the edifices themselves necessarily regarded to possess actual ghosts. A variant of this is the haunted trail, where the public encounters supernatural-themed characters or presentations of scenes from horror films while following a trail through a heavily wooded area or field. One of the largest Halloween attractions in the U.S.A. is Knott's Scary Farm in California, which features re-themed amusement park rides and a dozen different walkthrough mazes, plus hundreds of costumed roving performers. Film studios often release horror films on or around the holiday in hopes of attracting people in search of scary entertainment. Recent examples include Saw (and its sequels), a director's cut of Ridley Scott's Alien, The Grudge 2 and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre prequel.
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Games and other activities

There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is dooking or bobbing for apples, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water; the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity which inevitably leads to a very sticky face.

Some games traditionally played at Halloween are forms of divination. In Puicíní (pronounced "pooch-eeny"), a game played in Ireland, a blindfolded person is seated in front of a table on which several saucers are placed. The saucers are shuffled and the seated person then chooses one by touch. The contents of the saucer determine the person's life for the following year. A saucer containing earth means someone known to the player will die during the next year, a saucer containing water foretells travel, a coin means new wealth, a bean means poverty, etc. In 19th-century Ireland, young women placed slugs in saucers sprinkled with flour. The wriggling of the slugs and the patterns subsequently left behind on the saucers were believed to portray the faces of the women's future spouses.

In North America, unmarried women were frequently told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before they married, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Television specials with a Halloween theme, usually aimed at children, are commonly aired on or before the holiday while new horror films are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.
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Foods
Candy apples
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Candy apples

Main article: Poisoned candy scare

Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, Candy Apples (also known as toffee, taffy or caramel apples) are a common treat at Halloween. They are made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, and sometimes then rolling them in nuts. At one time candy apples were a common treat given to children, but this practice rapidly waned after widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples that they would pass out to children. While there is evidence of such incidents occurring they are very rare and have never resulted in any serious injuries. Nonetheless, many parents were under the assumption that the practice was common. At the peak of this hysteria, some hospitals were offering to x-ray children's Halloween haul at no cost in order to look for such items. Almost all of the very few Halloween candy poisoning incidents on record involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy, while there are occasional reports of children sticking needles in their own candy (and that of other children) more in an effort to get attention than cause any harm.

A Halloween custom which has survived unchanged to this day in Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish "báirín breac"). This is a light fruit cake into which a plain ring is placed before baking. It is said that whoever finds this ring will find his or her true love during the following year. See also King cake

Other foods associated with the holiday:

* candy corn
* bonfire toffee (in the UK)
* Toffee Apple (in Australia and Scotland, instead of "Candy Apples")
* hot apple cider
* roasted or popped corn
* roasted pumpkin seeds
* pumpkin pie
* "fun-sized" or individually wrapped pieces of small candy, typically in Halloween colors of orange, and brown/black.
* novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.

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Cultural history

Main article: History and folklore of Halloween

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Christian festival

Pope Boniface IV established an anniversary dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the martyrs when he consecrated the Pantheon on May 13, 609 (or 610). This Christian feast day was moved to November 1st from May 13th by Pope Gregory III in the eighth century in order to mark the dedication of the All Saints Chapel in Rome — establishing November 1st as All Saints Day and October 31st as All Hallows' Eve. Initially this change of date only applied to the diocese of Rome, but was extended to the rest of Western Christianity a century later by Pope Gregory IV in an effort to standardize liturgical worship.

The feast day of All Souls Day, celebrated to commemorate those souls condemned temporarily to Purgatory, was inaugurated by St Odilo, at the time the abbott of the influential monastery at Cluny, on November 2, 998.
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Origin: Celtic observation of Samhain

According to what can be reconstructed of the beliefs of the ancient Celts, the bright half of the year ended around November 1 or on a Moon-phase near that date, a day referred to in modern Gaelic as Samhain ("Sow-in" or alternatively "Sa-ven", meaning: End of the Summer). After the adoption of the Roman calendar with its fixed months, the date began to be celebrated independently of the Moon's phases.

As October 31st is the last day of the bright half of the year, the next day also meant the beginning of Winter, which the Celts often associated with human death. The Celts also believed that on October 31, the boundary separating the dead from the living became blurred. (There is a rich and unusual myth system at work here; the spirit world, the residence of the "Sidhe," as well as of the dead, was accessible through burial mounds. These mounds opened at two times during the year, making the beginning and end of Summer highly spiritually resonant.)

The Celts' survival during the cold harsh winters, depended on the prophecies of their priests or Druids. They believed that the presence of spirits would aid in the priests' abilities to make future predictions.

The exact customs observed in each Celtic region differ, but they generally involved the lighting of bonfires and the reinforcement of boundaries, across which malicious spirits might cross and threaten the community.

Like most observances around this season, warmth and comfort were emphasized, indulgence was not. Stores of preserved food were needed to last through the winter, not for parties.
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Samhain mistaken as New Year

Popular literature over the last century has given birth to the near universal assumption that Samhain, now associated with the Roman Catholic theme and folkways of Hallowe'en, was the "Celtic New Year". Both the work of scholarly historians and Neopagan writers have begun to scrutinize this assertion. The historian Ronald Hutton, in his exhaustive study of the folk calendar of the British Isles[3] points out that there are no references which attest to this usage earlier than the 18th century, neither in church nor civic records. Although it may be generally correct to refer to Samhain as "Summer's End", this point of descent into the year's darkness may require better proof for us to cite this "end" as also being a "beginning". On the other hand, there is a huge volume of proof of the western world, including late Celtia, as having begun their calendars either at the end of December or around March 25th at various periods back through and before Medieval times.
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Norse Elven Blót

In the old Norse religion an event believed to occur around the same time of the year as Halloween was the álfablót (elven blót), which involved sacrifices to the elves and the blessing of food. The elves were powers connected to the ancestors, and it can be assumed that the blót related to a cult of the ancestors. The álfablót is also celebrated in the modern revival of Norse religion, Ásatrú.
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Halloween traditions

Main article: Halloween traditions

Halloween traditions survive most accurately on the island of Ireland, where the last Monday of October is a public holiday. All schools close for the following week for mid-term, commonly called the Halloween Break. As a result Ireland and Northern Ireland are the only countries where children never have school on Halloween and are therefore free to celebrate it in the ancient and time-honored fashion.

The custom of trick-or-treating resembles the European custom called souling, similar to the wassailing customs associated with Yule. On November 2, All Souls' Day, beggars would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes" — square pieces of bread with currants. Christians would promise to say prayers on behalf of dead relatives helping the soul's passage to heaven. 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 at the Samhain.

Further information: Puck (mythology)

Souling died out in most areas of England by the mid-17th century, during the Protestant Reformation. There is no evidence that souling was ever practiced in North America, and trick-or-treating seems to have evolved there independently: the earliest report of ritual begging on Halloween is from 1915, and it did not become a widespread practice until the 1930s. Ritual begging on Halloween did not appear in the British Isles until the late 20th century, and imitates the American custom.

In Celtic parts of western Brittany, Samhain is still heralded by the baking of kornigou. Kornigou are cakes baked in the shape of antlers to commemorate the god of winter shedding his "cuckold" horns as he returns to his kingdom in the Otherworld.

In the Isle of Man where Halloween is known as Hop-tu-Naa children carry turnips instead of pumpkins, and sing a song called Jinnie the Witch.
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Punkie Night

"Punkie Night" is observed on the last Thursday in October in the village of Hinton St. George in the county of Somerset in England. On this night, children carry lanterns made from hollowed-out mangel-wurzels (a kind of beet; in modern days, pumpkins are used) with faces carved into them. They bring these around the village, collecting money and singing the punkie song. Punkie is derived from pumpkin or punk, meaning tinder.

Though the custom is only attested over the last century, and the mangel-wurzel itself was introduced into English agriculture in the late 18th century, "Punkie Night" appears to be much older even than the fable that now accounts for it. The story goes that the wives of Hinton St. George went looking for their wayward husbands at the fair held nearby at Chiselborough, the last Thursday in October, but first hollowed out mangel wurzels in order to make lanterns to light their way. The drunken husbands saw the eerie lights, thought they were "goolies" (the restless spirits of children who had died before they were baptized), and fled in terror. Children carry the punkies now. The event has spread since about 1960 to the neighboring village of Chiselborough.

Sources: on-line report from the Western Gazette and a National Geographic radio segment. Chiselborough Fair is memorialized by Fair Place in the village. The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868) reported that there was "a fair for horses and cattle on the last Thursday in October."
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Religious viewpoints

The majority of Christians ascribe no doctrinal significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular entity devoted to celebrating imaginary spooks and handing out candy. The secular celebration of Halloween may loom larger in contemporary imagination than does All Saints Day.

The mingling of Christian and Pagan traditions in the development of Halloween, and its assumed preoccupation with evil and the supernatural, have left some modern Christians uncertain of how they should react towards the holiday. Certain fundamentalist and evangelical Protestants, along with some Eastern Orthodox Christians as well as conservative Jews and Muslims, strongly object to the holiday and refuse to allow their children to participate, citing its pagan origins (and, in some cases, its Roman Catholic connections) as well as what they regard as its Satanic imagery.[16] In some areas, complaints from fundamentalist Christians that the schools were endorsing a pagan religion have led the schools to stop distributing UNICEF boxes at Halloween. Another response among conservative evangelicals in recent years has been the use of Hell houses or themed pamphlets (such as those of Jack T. Chick) which attempt to make use of Halloween as an opportunity for evangelism.

Other Christians, particularly Roman Catholics, continue to connect the holiday with All Saints Day.[17] Some modern Christian churches commonly offer a fall festival or harvest-themed alternative to Halloween celebrations. Still other Christians hold the view that the holiday is not Satanic in origin or practice and that it holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality actually being a valuable life lesson. Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the senior exorcist of Vatican City, said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, "…if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[18]

Likewise, to many Protestant churches, October 31 is also the date of Reformation Day, a minor religious festival. Some families, churches, and religious schools combine the holidays.

Objections to celebrating Halloween are not limited to those of the Abrahamic religions. Some members of the Wiccan religion feel that the holiday is offensive to real witches for promoting a stereotypical caricature of a witch.[19] Additionally, many Wiccans and other neo-Pagan adherents object to Halloween as a vulgarized, commercialized mockery of the original Samhain observances.

Answer 2

Halloween (IPA pronunciation: [hælə'win], [hælo'win]) is an observance celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in Canada, the United States, Puerto Rico, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France[1] as a pagan Celtic harvest festival. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows' Day"[2] (also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldomly used today, it is still a well accepted label. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches). In Christian folklore, because it is an eve, the magic breaks at midnight, with the transition to All Saints' Day — a rare case where midnight brings beneficial effects.

Answer 3

Halloween is celebrated on the evening of October 31st, which is the evening before the Christian feast of All Saint's Day. It's history goes back to the ancient religion of the Celtic tribes. The Celts worshipped nature and believed in the spirit world. Their main god was the sun and they celebrated two festivals revolving around it: Beltane to mark the beginning of summer and Samhain or Saman to mark the start of winter. They believed that at the end of summer, Samhain, the lord of death overpowers the sun god. On October 31, Samhain assembles all the evil spirits who had died the previous year and allows them to return home to visit the living. After the harvest, the druids would meet under an oak grove or near large stone circles where they performed sacrifices. The priests would light fires and offer sacrifices to Samhain to ensure that the sun returned after the winter. During the night all fires except the one to Samhain were extinguished. The Vigil of Samhain would keep the sacrificial fire on through the night and the next day embers from this fire would be used to light the fire in each household. Villagers would try to appease goblins and demons with offerings of food and nuts. If the demon was satisfied with the treat, it was believed it would not trick the person or cast an evil spell. Thus the origin of the present day trick or treat. Legend has it that people would also wear masks or other disguises and blacken their faces to try and pass unnoticed by the spirits. This stemmed from the belief that ghosts or spirits cannot see their own reflection. If a goblin or demon saw another creature looking suitably horrible, they would run away in terror.
After the Romans conquered Britian they brought with them their own harvest festival held on November 1, and over the years, the two festivals got mixed up and became one long holiday. In 834 A.D., Pope Gregory III shifted the festival of All Saints Day, then celebrated on May 13 to November 1. The new day was called All Saints Day or Hallowmas. Thus, the evening and night before it became All Hallow's eve and later Halloween. The Celtic concept of ghosts and witches became blended with Roman and later Christian customs. In Ireland and Britain, Halloween was also celebrated as Mischief Night when villagers were allowed to play pranks on each other.
Today, Halloween is a festival of fun for kids. An occasion to dress up as little monsters, ghosts or witches. Over time the custom of adults dressing up as demons changed and the children took over. As they went from house to house they would knock at each house and cry "trick or treat". People would then give the children apples or buns and later candy to keep from being tricked.

Answer 4

Well Sweetie...

At the end of this month, which is October by the way if you didnt know.. youll see a bunch of little furry things running around scaring people, little princesses, even pumpkins that have magically grown legs and drooling mouths..

But dont be afraid. Theyre only little kids celebrating HALLOWEEN!!

Just give them some candy and theyll leave you alone.

Besides, its supposed to be a fun holiday.. its the only day where kids can come within 100 yards of your sex offender neighbor's house to get candy!

Oh and umm btw.. *looks up at person above me*... "Overachiever"...

xx

Answer 5

hi Halloween is on 31st October. Its celebrated in many ways but here in UK we do a game of duck apples where you get a big bowl filled with water, put in apples and then try to get apples out using mouth only. You dress up in various costumes, and nowadays, the children take on 'trick or treating' like USA, where all dressed up, children knock on neighbourhood oors for treats be it sweets or money, if the children dont get anything then tricks are usually played on that house etc. I also decorate the house - spooky - for children lol.

Answer 6

It is on December 25th. People celebrate by having a giant bunny serve them turkey and dressing at midnight. It is celebrated becuase that is when America declared independence from Canada, 50 years ago.

Answer 7

IT is on October 31st every year. This is a holiday for anyone who is young or young at heart to dress up is fun or scary costumes and celebrate! Try it! You'll like it!

Answer 8

Hi,
Halloween is on October 31
The history and customs you can find on the following web site:
http://wilstar.com/holidays/hallown.htm

Children like ´Halloween' because of 'Trick-or-Treat';
They dress up and go from door to door to collect sweets.

There is pumpkin carving to make Jack-o-Lanterns

The reasons why are explained on the web site.

Many people have dress - up parties.

Answer 9

It si celebrated around dec or Jan in European countries, it done to keep away Ghost & witches , they have parties where everyone dresses up as freaks

Answer 10

Oct. 31
Its to honour our dead and is celebrated this day and age by dressing up in costumes and collecting candy and going to dances...

Answer 11

oct 31st . its celebrated so people can dress however they want 2 , like they did in thier wildest dreams.and how celebrated ..., have parties, teenagers dressing like sluts, trick or treating,get sick eating candies, scaring people . those r mostly the mains things .i think.