How did HALLOWEEN originate?

Question

Please add How/Where/Who/Why, and don't give me links or huge explanations, please, just a short version of the story. Happy Halloween, everybody!

VOTERS: PLEASE vote for eather:

1.DINGY'S answer
2.NICOLE'S answer
3.x_southernbelle's answer.

There were 3 great answers, so I don't know which one to pick!!

VOTERS: PLEASE vote for either:

1.DINGY'S answer
2.NICOLE'S answer
3.X_SOUTHERNBELLE'S answer

There were 3 great answers, so I didn't know which one to pick!!

Answer 1

Halloween is a tradition 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 parts of the Western world, though most commonly in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France[1] as the Pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. Irish, Scots, Calan Gaeaf in Welsh and other immigrants brought versions of the traditions 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 seldom used today, it is still a well-accepted label. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Pope Gregory III moved the old Christian feast of All Saints Day to November 1 to give Halloween a Christian interpretation . Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

Halloween is often 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, Irish tales of the Sídhe).

Answer 2

The name is a contraction of All Hallows' Eve, as the next day is All Hallows' Day or All Saints Day. There is a lot of connection with Samhain (pronounced so-wen), the Celtic festival of the end of the harvest and still marked as such by Druids, pagans and Satanists - it falls on the same day. Trick-or-treating is much more recent and I'm English so I don't know where that came from - it's only just caught on over here and most of us see it as downright rude and criminal.

Answer 3

it started out as a celebration of the celtics. They celebrated new year on Nov. 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.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes

sorry its kinda long... hope this could help

Answer 4

According to the American Peoples Encyclopedia,Halloween originated from the Druids,members of pagan groups in Britain,Ireland, and Gaul, held a celebration on October 31, the eve of the festival of Samhain.(a demon or Satan himself). It was a night were ghost ,fairies and witches rode the sky.

Answer 5

There is no "short" version of the story because Halloween is based on a Celebration of this time of year that is EXTREMELY Ancient, but I'll *try* AND add the links for you to use if you so choose. Here goes:

The Celts (pronounced kelts) called it "Samhain" (pronounced 'sow-win) during the times of the Druids in what we know today as the UK and surounding areas. Samhain was held for SEVERAL purposes in a lot of different ways. To most it was a harvest celebration. Some considered it at time when their God was going to die (just to be reborn in the following Spring) signaling the start of Winter and the impending following Spring which was their New Year. (THEY used the Phases of the Moon and the Seasons as THEIR markers of time. Today WE use a calendar.) They also considered it a time where the Vail between the Physical World and the Spirit World was the thinnest because of the shortening of daylight hours. For this reason they held certain rituals to ward off evil spirits and protect themselves from these evil spirits. They also held certain rituals to remember and honor their dead relatives and ancestors. Some of these rituals are where today's society get Jack-O'Lanterns, which were ORIGINALLY carved from turnips and used like we use flashlights today. They did NOT originally carve the faces in them. That came later to help them ward off evil spirits. They wore scarey costumes to help ward off evil spirits, too. Trick-or-treating came from the part where they honored their own ancestors by leaving out offerings to them, possibly, enticing them to visit and enjoy their brief visit to the Physical World where they could communicate.

Halloween has NOTHING to do with the Devil. It wasn't until the Dark Ages that "Christian" Kings (ESPECIALLY King James of England) said that to their people to scare them into obeying their own orders.

Don't be too lazy to READ and learn about the TRUE origins of Halloween here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/halloween...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/samhain...

Get even MORE info here:

http://www.new-life.net/halowen1.htm......

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?conte...

http://wilstar.com/holidays/hallown.htm....

http://www.samhain.com/

http://www.mythinglinks.org/samhain.html...

http://www.celticspirit.org/samhain.htm....

I've provided links because there's not enough room here to fully explain it as you would like. You can find out even more by using your search engine(s) and typing in " Halloween " and " Samhain ".

Answer 6

i found out by the 'Simpsons' ..... witches came to peoples houses to take there children and once one of them offered sweets..that took that instead...thats my way of where it originated

Answer 7

Halloween is the Catholic "All Saints Day". In old/middle english it is "all hallow's eve".

Answer 8

It is an old pre-Christian Irish pagan holiday.

Answer 9

http://www.theholidayspot.com/halloween/history.htm

http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Origins.html


there.