Happy Halloween

Halloween, or Hallowe'en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31.Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and carving jack-o-lanterns. Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and occasionally in parts of Australia and New Zealand.

History

The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain). The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes erroneously regarded as the "Celtic New Year".Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them

History of name

The term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the eve of "All Hallows' Day", which is now also known as All Saints' Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints' Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1. In the ninth century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints' Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day. Liturgically, the Church traditionally celebrated that day as the Vigil of All Saints, and, until 1970, a day of fasting as well. Like other vigils, it was celebrated on the previous day if it fell on a Sunday, although secular celebrations of the holiday remained on the 31st. The Vigil was suppressed in 1955, but was later restored in the post-Vatican II calendar.

Symbols

The carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, is one of Halloween's most prominent symbols. These lanterns are usually carved from a turnip or swede (or more uncommonly a mangelwurzel). The jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night. This story has been passed down through generations of Irish families. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America,where pumpkins were readily available and much larger, making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their home's doorstep after dark. In America the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration. The tradition of carving vegetable lanterns may have been brought over by the Scottish or English--documentation is unavailable to establish when or by whom. The carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time in general in America and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.

The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists,and a rather commercialized take on the dark and mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, magic, or mythical monsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, ghouls, witches, vampires, bats, owls, crows, vultures, pumpkinmen, black cats, spiders, goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, and demons.

Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic horror films, which contain fictional figures like Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and The Mummy. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.

Black and orange are the traditional colours of Halloween.

United States and Canada

The main event for children of modern Halloween in the United States and Canada is trick-or-treating, in which children disguise themselves in costumes and go door-to-door in their neighborhoods, ringing each doorbell and yelling "trick or treat!" to solicit a gift of candy or similar items. Although the practice resembles the older tradition of "souling" in Ireland and Scotland, ritual "begging" on Halloween does not appear in English-speaking North America until the 20th century, and may have developed independently. Upon receiving trick-or-treaters, the house occupants (who might also be in costume) often hand out small candies, miniature chocolate bars, nuts, loose change, soda pop, stickers, or even crayons and pencils. Some homes will use sound effects and fog machines to help establish an eerie atmosphere. Other less scary house decoration themes might be used to entertain younger visitors. Children can often accumulate many treats on Halloween night, filling up entire pillow cases, pumpkin-shaped buckets, shopping bags, or large plastic containers. Another way some teens may amuse themselves is by finding a house with candy they like and going back to it over and over with different masks on. Large parties are commonly held on Halloween in which games like bobbing for apples and spooky story telling are common.

Ireland

All over Ireland, huge bonfires are lit. Young children in disguise are warmly received by their neighbors with gifts of "fruit, miniature chocolate bars, loose change, peanuts and of course sweets" for the "Halloween Party", whilst their older male siblings play innocent pranks on bewildered victims. Some homes will put up decorations including Halloween lights. Children have the week off from school for Halloween, and it is common for teenagers and for college students to spend weeknights out and about with friends, pranking and causing mischief, if not trick-or-treating themselves, and perhaps even "egging" [throwing eggs at] houses, drinking alcohol, throwing bangers and setting off fireworks.

Lebanon

In Lebanon a similar holiday is celebrated on the eve of Saint Barbara's Day (December 4). Children disguised in costumes also go trick-or-treating to invoke the saint's wandering in the mountains.

Scotland

In Scotland, children are known as "guisers", though this term is now going into decline. In the past, the children going guising would dress in various (often home-made) costumes and disguises: hence (dis)'guisers'. The most popular costumes were skeletons, witches and various forms of scary fiends, complete with papier-mâché masks, though nurses' or cowboys' outfits were also given a rather incongruous outing. They would then form small bands of mixed-age children, the older ones trailing their younger siblings behind them, and venture out into the darkness each with their lantern. Until at least the 1970s the traditional Halloween light carried by Scottish children was not the now ubiquitous pumpkin but a 'tumshie lantern' made, as with a pumpkin, by hollowing out a very large swede/yellow turnip ("tumshie" in the West of Scotland dialect of Scots) and carving a scary face, through which shone the candle inside. Then, each carrying their tumshie lantern, they would knock on all the neighbours' doors where the eldest or boldest of the group would ask, "Are ye wantin' any guisers?". If the answer was yes, the children would be invited inside where the grown-ups would pretend to try to guess the identity of each guiser, who then had to impress the company with a song, poem, trick, joke or dance—known as their 'party piece'—in order to earn treats. Today, however, they simply say "trick or treat" in order to earn sweets. Traditionally, nuts, oranges, apples and dried fruit as well as "sweeties" were offered, though children might earn a small amount of cash, usually no more than 50p. In some houses the neighbours would have prepared a pail or basin filled with apples ready for the game of 'dookin' for apples'. The children had to 'dook' (Scots) their faces into the water with their hands behind their backs to try to pick up an apple by biting into it.

England and Wales

In England and Wales, trick-or-treating does occur, although the practice is regarded by some as a nuisance or even a menacing form of begging. In some areas, households have started to put decorations on the front door to indicate that trick-or-treaters are welcome, the idea being that trick-or-treaters will avoid a house not participating in the custom. Tricks currently play a less prominent role, though Halloween night is often marked by vandalism such as soaping windows, egging houses or stringing toilet paper through trees.

In Welsh, Halloween is known as Nos Galan Gaeaf (the beginning of the new year). Spirits are said to walk around and a "white lady" ghost is sometimes said to appear. Bonfires are lit on hillsides to mark the night.

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 Halloween treat made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, and sometimes rolling them in nuts. At one time, candy apples were commonly given to children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples.While there is evidence of such incidents, they are quite rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant; at the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free x-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy, while there have been occasional reports of children putting needles in their own (and other children's) candy in a mere bid for attention.

One custom which persists in modern-day day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish "báirín breac"), which is a light fruit cake into which a plain ring is placed before baking. It is said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. See also king cake.

Other foods associated with the holiday:

* Candy corn

* Báirín Breac (Ireland)

* Colcannon (Ireland)

* Bonfire toffee (in the UK)

* Toffee Apple (Australia when celebrated, England, Wales and Scotland, instead of "Candy Apples")

* Apple cider

* Cider

* Roasted sweetcorn

* Popcorn

* Roasted pumpkin seeds

* Pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread

* "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.

* Small bags of chips, pretzels and cheese corn

* Chocolates, caramels, and gum

* Nuts

Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree features the holiday prominently. Halloween is frequently mentioned as an important date in the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling, whose central themes are wizardry and magic. In Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, several pivotal events occur on Halloween night, including the death of the original 'Nite-Owl'. Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the character of the Headless Horseman are often linked to the holiday in the public mindset due to later adaptations (though Halloween is not actually mentioned in the original work).

Films in which Halloween plays a significant role include adaptations of the above works, plus the Halloween film series, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Halloween That Almost Wasn't, Monster House, Donnie Darko, Hellboy, and Hocus Pocus.

Numerous Halloween television specials have been broadcast, notably It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and the annual Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episodes.

Books

* Diane C. Arkins, Halloween: Romantic Art and Customs of Yesteryear, Pelican Publishing Company (2000). 96 pages. ISBN 1-56554-712-8

* Diane C. Arkins, Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration Of Fun, Food, And Frolics From Halloweens Past, Pelican Publishing Company (2004). 112 pages. ISBN 1-58980-113-X

* Lesley Bannatyne, Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History, Facts on File (1990, Pelican Publishing Company, 1998). 180 pages. ISBN 1-56554-346-7

* Lesley Bannatyne, A Halloween Reader. Stories, Poems and Plays from Halloweens Past, Pelican Publishing Company (2004). 272 pages. ISBN 1-58980-176-8

* Phyllis Galembo, Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (2002). 128 pages. ISBN 0-8109-3291-1

* Lint Hatcher, The Magic Eightball Test: A Christian Defense of Halloween and All Things Spooky, Lulu.com (2006). ISBN 978-1847287564

* Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford Paperbacks (2001). 560 pages. ISBN 0-19-285448-8

* Jean Markale, The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year (translation of Halloween, histoire et traditions), Inner Traditions (2001). 160 pages. ISBN 0-89281-900-6

* Lisa Morton, The Halloween Encyclopedia, McFarland & Company (2003). 240 pages. ISBN 0-7864-1524-X

* Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Oxford University Press (2002). 198 pages. ISBN 0-19-514691-3

* Jack Santino (ed.), Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, University of Tennessee Press (1994). 280 pages. ISBN 0-87049-813-4

* David J. Skal, Death Makes A Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, Bloomsbury USA (2003). 224 pages. ISBN 1-58234-305-5

* Ben Truwe, The Halloween Catalog Collection. Portland, Oregon: Talky Tina Press (2003). ISBN 0-9703448-5-6.