what is the history of halloween?

Question

I really would like to know the origin of halloween where it all started ,who , how and what happen .

Answer 1

Halloween orginated in Ireland with the Ancient Celts. Their New Year began every 1 of November. They believed the night before their New Year was a magical night where the barrier between the world of the Dead and earth were blurred and the spirtis of the Dead roamed earth. To appease these spirits the celts offered them food. This practice was the origins of our Trick-Or-Treating where children go from neighborhood to neighorhood in search of candy and treats. The ancient Celts also believed in divinity and oracles. They burned animals live on Samhain Festivals. They believed that their bones predicted the future. This is the origins of the practice of divination games and fortune telling on Halloween. In England Oct 31 used to be called Nutcracker night. It was on this night that sweethearts would roast nuts in the hearth. If they snapped and cracked it was said that their beloved where faithful. On Halloween night it was believed that if a woman ate an apple while seeing herself in a mirror with a candle beside her the reflection of her future husband might appear. There are many legends about the origins of the jack-o-lantern but the most famous legend is this: Once there was a man named Jack who was a prankster. One day Satan came to tempt him. Clever Jack tricked Satan by having him perform all sorts of challenges. Satan wanted his soul so Jack thought of all kinds of tricks to out wit Satan. One of these was asking Satan to resuce his kitten from a tree. Satan climbed the tree but as he was about to climb down Jack carved the symbol of the cross. Satan froze and couldn't get down from the tree. Jack told Satan he would help him down if he promised Jack that he wouldn't have his soul. When Jack died Saint Peter barred him from entering the Pearly Gates. Jack went to Hell but Satan refused him there too because of his promise not to take Jack's Soul from him. Instead Satan threw Jack a piece of the firey coals from hell which landed inside a hollowd out turnip. Poor Jack had to roam the earth forever in limbo aided just with his 'lantern'. The origins of dressing up for Halloween is traced back to the ancient Celts of Ireland. On Halloween night they dressed in deer skins and other animal skins to confuse the Spirits. They feared that the Spirits of the Dead would capture the living and take them back to Hell so the people of ancient Ireland would disguise themselves as animals to confuse the spirits. We get our 'bobbing for Apples' from the Ancient Romans who commemorated the Roman Goddess Pomona..the Godess of fruits and trees. The Ancient Romans who conquered Britain would play apple games in memory of Pomona.

The idea of Witches disturbed the world. In Europe there were executions and torture of people believed to have been witches. Many innocent people were burned alive and many tortured with the rack or other horrible means of torture because they were thought to practice sorcery. In America hundreds of women and a few men were hung for practicing scorcery. The famous Salem Witch Trials took place between January 20th to November 1692. In 1693 the courts declared the trials where unlawful and realesed the remaining witches on trial for witchcraft. No more witches would be tried or hanged.

Today Halloween is just a fun Holiday enjoyed especially by children who dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating. Some people throw masquerade balls or parties. Halloween is particularly famous in America where people of Irish descent introduced the holiday they knew in Ireland to their new homes in America. America adopted this Irish Holiday and made it their Autumn festival.

Answer 2

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.

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 A.D. 43, Romans 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.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Answer 3

Ive read the other posts and the only thing missing is the lantern explanation. As it says in some of the info, the ancient Celts had their ceremonial fire... at the end of the celebration/ceremony.. each family would carry back an ember from the fire, to light their hearth again. To carry this ember they used a hollowed out turnip, hence the start of the lantern tradition. Turnip lanterns are still sometimes made here in Scotland. When Scots/Irish emigrated to the US, they took their Hallowe'en traditions with them, including the turnip lantern. At some point in time pumpkins started being used instead (if any of you have ever tried making a turnip lantern you'll know why!)
Happy Hallowe'en. :)

Answer 4

Originally it was a pagan holiday, all hollows eve, when they would worship the devil, and waaaaaaaaaay back when (I can't remember how long ago now, like the 1600's I believe) The pope decided to make all pagan holidays christian holidays. So even holidays like christmas and easter are actually celebrated on pagan holidays (not allot of people know that) The tradittion of halloween in america actually began in the 1800's when the Irish began to immigrate to the US because of the potatoe famine in Ireland. See in Ireland it was tradition on halloween for children to dress as ghouls and go door to door asking for crackers, and in return for them they would say a prayer for you dead loved one's, if you didnt give them a cracker (a treat) then your loved one's that had passed away would be awakened from their peacful rest and tourmented until the next year.

Answer 5

October 31 is the most important day in the satanic year. It marks the Celtic new year, and is always at the
end of the growing season, thus it became the "Festival of Death." On this day, the god of the Celtics was to
have called up the spirits of the wicked dead who had died during the past year. At the same time, other evil
spirits arose and went about the countryside harassing the people. On October 31, the Celtics expected to
be harassed by ghosts, evil spirits, and demons; and it was no fun and games to them! They would light
bonfires to guide the spirits to their own town and to ward off evil spirits.
Also check out this site:

http://www.apfn.net/Messageboard/11-03-01/discussion.cgi.65.html

Answer 6

The clue is interior the call - Hallowe'en - it extremely is an abbreviation of All Hallows Eve. Hallow is an previous English notice for holy, blessed or saint - for this reason the expression "Hallowed floor" meaning holy or sacred floor. for this reason All Saints Eve - the eve (night previously) of All Saints Day. All Saints Day is an historic Christians competition (over one thousand years previous) which became inaugurated via between the popes whilst he committed a church to the memory of each and every of the Saints (holy people who had died) who did no longer have their very own ceremonial dinner. It grew to alter into very properly-known and became celebrated throughout Europe as a manner of remembering all holy human beings, even, in some international locations, all your ancestors. using fact the competition unfold, a super form of customs grew up around it. There could be processions the evening previously with human beings dressed using fact the Saints - and others dressed up a ridicule demons or devils to tempt them - unsuccessfully for sure. The devils might additionally play tricks on human beings, yet lighting fixtures fixtures might save them away and additionally welcome the saints. Protestants rejected each and all of the previous Catholic customs and that's the source of the myths approximately devil worship - they're elementary anti-catholic. there is, regardless of a load of nonsense on the cyber web, NO data of any link to any Pagan competition, there is not any data of any Celtic day of the lifeless, NO data that Samhain (Irish for November) became the celtic New year, NO data that a ceremonial dinner became hung on Oct thirty first. in spite of everything, All Saints became began interior the 9th century via which era eire have been Christian for over 3 hundred years. that's extremely authentic that maximum persons interior the U. S. and uk (using their usually protestant roots) have forgotten why they're celebrating and function invented all forms of spurious motives. In Catholic international locations you will locate it particularly distinctive. playstation The history channel stuff approximately Halloween is entire bunkum.

Answer 7

I was going to cut and paste the whole story, but you'd still be reading it by next halloween!
So here's a link.

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

Answer 8

I think it has been changed in a silly , but frequently also cruel way, and has lust its original meaning, which was meant for the pore and kids in the hard winter time whit masks to collect some food or sweets, without losing their anonymity.
it was never intend to scare people or kids, and turcher the defenseless animals which some do.
God help them,

Answer 9

It is best explained here>http://www.gcards.com/halloween/history.html

Answer 10

http://www.history.com/minisites/halloween/

Answer 11

It is a loooong story. One I do not wish to repeat since I practiced this holiday as a sacred holiday for many years as a practicing Witch (thank God, I no longer am thanks to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 3 years ago!)....but here is a link to the story. Enjoy.

http://www.history.com/minisites/halloween/viewPage?pageId=713