Why do we celebrate Halloween?
IF Halloween has become an annual celebration of Americanised commercialism in recent years, its roots stretch back much further than trick-or-treat callers and pumpkins.
The festival has its origins in the mists of time - and its features often remain consistent across different cultures.
Halloween can be traced back to the Druids, a Celtic culture in Ireland, Britain and northern Europe. The Druid feast of Samhain fell on October 31 and honoured the dead.
Samhain marked “summer’s end” and was a harvest festival with sacred bonfires, signifying the end of the Celtic year and beginning of a new one.
The Celts believed the souls of the dead roamed their villages at night.
Since not all spirits were thought to be friendly, gifts and treats were left out to pacify the evil ones and ensure next year’s crops would be plentiful.
In the Christian tradition, Halloween was also known as All Hallows Eve and dates back to the first millennium.
It was the evening before All Saints Day, which was created to convert pagans, and celebrated on November 1.
Fast forward to the second half of the 19th century, and America was flooded with immigrants from Europe.
The newcomers, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the potato famine of 1846, helped to popularise Halloween in America.
Drawing on old Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today’s trick-ortreat tradition.
Trick-or-treating also has links to the early All Souls’ Day parades in England.
During the festivities, poor people would beg for food, and families would give them pastries called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives.
Children would later visit houses in their neighbourhood and be given ale, food, and money.
Right, where’s my Scream mask?