why do we have halloween???

Question

like is there some sorta story or what lol

Answer 1

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 2

it is the eve of all saints day (all hallow's day - meaning holy)
i think it traditionally was a time for witch hunting and torchering by several different methods - burning, hanging etc.

the trick or treat thing came from america

Answer 3

all hallows eve from the pagan times.
they would celebrate spirits on this day.
dont know the full story!

we have it in the uk cos we are becoming americanised, americans celebrate it really not brits.

Answer 4

yea its like some day of the dead thing

Answer 5

Halloween is celebrated on the night of 31st October, usually by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets, gifts, toys and money. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most commonly in the United States, Ireland, Scotland and Canada. Irish, Scots and other immigrants took much older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century.The word "Halloween" derives from Hallowe'en, an old contraction, still retained in Scotland, of "All Hallow's Eve," so called, as it is the day before the Catholic All Saints holy day, which used to be called "All Hallows," derived from All Hallowed Souls. I’ll just re-read that sentence to make sure it makes sense… Yep, I think it does!! In Ireland, the name was Hallow Eve and this name is still used by some older people. Halloween was formerly 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 (along with Christmas and Easter, two other traditional northern European pagan holidays) and given a Christian reinterpretation. Halloween is also known as the Day of the Dead, and it is a day of celebration for Wiccans and other modern pagan traditions, though the holiday has lost its religious connotations among the populace at large.In Great Britain in particular, the pagan Celts celebrated the Day of the Dead on Halloween. Apparently. The spirits supposedly rose from the dead and, in order to attract them, food was left on the doors. To scare off the evil spirits, the Celts wore masks. When the Romans invaded the Britain, they embellished the tradition with their own, which is the celebration of the harvest and honouring the dead. These traditions were then passed on to the United States, who treated it like a new car, adding neons, an air-horn and bull-bars. So to speak.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 spirit world can make contact with the natural world and when magic is most potent. Halloween's theme is spooky or scary things particularly involving death, black magic, or mythical monsters. Commonly-associated Halloween characters include ghosts, witches, bats, black cats, goblins, zombies and demons, as well as certain fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween.Black and orange are the traditional colours of Halloween. There are also elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, reflected in symbols of Halloween.The jack-o'-lantern, a carved vegetable lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. In Britain and Ireland, a turnip was and sometimes still is used, but emigrants to America quickly adopted the pumpkin because it is much larger and easier to carve. Many families that celebrate Halloween will carve a pumpkin into a scary or comical face and place it on the home's doorstep on Halloween night for fun. Traditionally, something like this was done in order to scare evil spirits away.The main event of Halloween is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in costume disguises and go door-to-door in their neighbourhood, ringing the bell and yelling "trick or treat!" The occupants of the house (who might themselves dress in a scary costume in the US, but very rarely here in England) will then hand out small candies, miniature chocolate bars or other treats. Homes sometimes use sound effects and fog machines to help set a spooky mood. Except in England of course, where we simply barricade the doors, turn out the lights and pretend no one is home. Children can often accumulate many treats on Halloween night, filling up entire pillowcases or shopping bags.Tricks play less of a role in modern Halloween, though the night before Halloween is often marked by pranks 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 trick. We used to put dog poo in a paper-bag, place it on the victim’s doorstep, set the bag alight, knock on the door then run away. The unsuspecting householder would then answer the door, see the fire, and naturally, stamp on it to extinguish the flames. And poo would go everywhere! Ha! Ha! I may do that tonight!Typical Halloween costumes have traditionally been monsters such as vampires, ghosts, witches, and devils. The stereotypical Halloween costume is a sheet with eyeholes cut in it as a ghost costume. In nineteenth-century Scotland and Ireland the reason for wearing such fearsome (and non-fearsome) costumes was the belief that since the spirits that were abroad that night were essentially intent on doing harm, the best way to avoid this was to fool the spirits into believing that you were one of them. 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. In America in 2001, after the September 11 attacks, for example, costumes of fire fighters, police officers, and United States military personnel became popular among children, so I am told. 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, my research shows. I guess this year it could be Wallace & Gromit outfits. And I’m sure a few tiny Harry Potter’s will be appearing again, too!A child usually "grows out of" trick-or-treating by his or her teenage years. Teenagers and adults instead often celebrate Halloween with costume parties or other social get-togethers.There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. The most common is 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. 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 Púicíní (pronounced "pook-eeny"), a game played in Ireland, a blindfolded person is seated in front of a table on which are placed several saucers. 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 nineteenth-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 centuryBonfires played a large part in the festivities. Villagers cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames; the word "bonfire" is thought to derive from these "bone fires." With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit their hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together. Hundreds of fires are still lit each year in Ireland on Halloween night.Observance of Halloween faded in the South of England from the 17th century onwards, being replaced by the commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot on 5th November. However it remained popular in Scotland, Ireland and the North of England. It is only in the last decade that it has become popular in the South of England again, although in an entirely Americanised version.The custom survives most accurately in 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 is the only country where children never have school on Halloween and are therefore free to celebrate it in the ancient and time-honoured fashion.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 early centuries following the founding of the Christian Church have left many modern Christians uncertain of how they should react towards this holiday. Some fundamentalist Christian groups consider Halloween a Pagan holiday and may refer to it as "the most evil day of the year," refusing to allow their children to participate. Other Christians, however, continue to connect this holiday with All Saints Day. Some modern Christian churches commonly offer an "autumn 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.So now, you are fully informed of the history of the festival some of us will be celebrating (and the rest of us totally ignoring) this evening. However you spend it, enjoy it, and don’t get TOO spooked!!