Growing up in England from a child to a teenager in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, Halloween was an American thing you saw on the telly. There was no dressing up and trick-or-treating, not in my family home anyway. Even when my kids were younger I never really bothered much about Halloween. It was just all too American for me and just liked the English traditions I was brought up with. They had fun wearing masks, bobbing for apples etc. but we never went out dressed up knocking on people’s doors. in fact, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone else do it either.
Nowadays all of the above is a common sight. I am no killjoy and I don’t knock anyone who really enjoys it. I admit it’s a fun thing for kids to do and a good excuse for a party for the adults which I have enjoyed going to in the past few years. When you have suffered from depression and anxiety for as long as I have, just to be included can be a lifesaver.
The main thing I like about Halloween is dressing up and the Horror theme to it. I have never celebrated Halloween in my life in the past because, since I was a kid, I have loved horror. Every day is Halloween for me, ha ha.
About Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe’en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on the 31st of October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints’ Day. It begins the observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which is believed to have pagan roots. Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianised as All Hallow’s Day, along with its eve, by the early Church. Other academics believe Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallow’s Day. Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century, and then through American influence Halloween had spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.
Popular Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films. Some people practice the Christian religious observances of All Hallows’ Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, although it is a secular celebration for others. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows’ Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.
A Jack o’ Lantern made for the Holywell Manor Halloween celebrations in 2003.
Etymology
The word Halloween or Hallowe’en (Saints’ evening) is of Christian origin. It is a term equivalent to All Hallows Eve and is attested in Old English. It comes from the Scottish form of All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day). Even is the Scots term for eve or evening, and is contracted to e’en or een so (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Hallowe’en.
The History Of Halloween
Christian Origins And Historic Customs
Halloween is thought to have influences from Christian beliefs and practices. The English word Halloween comes from All Hallows’ Eve, being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (All Saints’ Day) on the 1st of November and All Souls’ Day on the 2nd of November. Since the time of the early Church, major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows’. These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time when Western Christians honour all saints and pray for recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime. In 4th-century Roman Edessa it was held on the 13th of May, and on this date in 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to St Mary and all martyrs. This was the date of Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead.
In the 8th century, Pope Gregory III (731 – 741) founded an oratory in St. Peter’s for the relics of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors. Some sources say it was dedicated on the 1st of November, while others say it was on Palm Sunday in April 732. By 800, there was evidence that churches in Ireland and Northumbria were holding a feast commemorating all saints on November 1st. Alcuin of Northumbria, a member of Charlemagne’s court, may then have introduced this 1st of November date in the Frankish Empire. In 835, it became the official date in the Frankish Empire. Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea, although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter. They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of dying in nature. It is also suggested the change was made on the practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it, and perhaps because of public health concerns over Roman Fever, which claimed a number of lives during Rome’s sultry summers.
By the end of the 12th century, the celebration had become known as the holy days of obligation in Western Christianity and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for souls in purgatory. It was also customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls. The Allhallowtide custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Wales, Flanders, Bavaria and Austria. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers’ friends and relatives. This was called souling. Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat, or the soulers would act as their representatives. As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms. Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593). While souling, Christians would carry lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips, which could have originally represented souls of the dead. These jack-o’-lanterns were used to ward off evil spirits. On All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day during the 19th century, candles were lit in homes in Ireland, Flanders, Bavaria, and Tyrol, where they were called soul lights, which served to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes. In many of these places, candles were also lit at graves on All Souls’ Day. In Brittany, libations of milk were poured on the graves of kinfolk, or food would be left overnight on the dinner table for the returning souls. This custom was also found in Tyrol and parts of Italy.
Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh linked the wearing of costumes to the belief in vengeful ghosts. It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints’ Day, and All Hallows’ Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognised by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes. In the Middle Ages, churches in Europe that were too poor to display relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead. Some Christians observe this custom at Halloween today. American historian Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianisation of an earlier pagan custom. Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed that once a year, on Hallowe’en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival known as the danse macabre, which was often depicted in church decoration. Historians Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that the danse macabre urged Christians not to forget the end of all earthly things. The danse macabre was sometimes enacted in European village pageants and court masques, with people dressing up as corpses from various strata of society, and this may be the origin of Halloween costume parties.
In Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation, as Protestants berated purgatory as a popish doctrine incompatible with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. State-sanctioned ceremonies associated with the intercession of saints and prayer for souls in purgatory were abolished during the Elizabethan reform, though All Hallow’s Day remained in the English liturgical calendar to commemorate saints as godly human beings. For some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows’ Eve was redefined and said that souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits. Other Protestants believed in an intermediate state known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham). In some localities, Catholics and Protestants continued souling, candlelit processions, or ringing church bells for the dead. The Anglican church eventually suppressed this bell-ringing. Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl both wrote that barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they travelled the earth. After 1605, Hallowtide was eclipsed in England by Guy Fawkes Night ( November 5th), which appropriated some of its customs. In England, the ending of official ceremonies related to the intercession of saints led to the development of new, unofficial Hallowtide customs. In 18th – 19th century rural Lancashire, Catholic families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows’ Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen’lay. There was a similar custom in Hertfordshire and the lighting of tindle fires in Derbyshire. Some suggested these tindles were originally lit to guide the poor souls back to earth. In Scotland and Ireland, old Allhallowtide customs that were at odds with Reformed teaching were not suppressed as they were important to the life cycle and rites of passage of local communities and curbing them would have been difficult.
In parts of Italy until the 15th century, families left a meal out for the ghosts of relatives, before leaving for church services. In 19th-century Italy, churches staged theatrical re-enactments of scenes from the lives of the saints on All Hallow’s Day, with participants represented by realistic wax figures. In 1823, the graveyard of Holy Spirit Hospital in Rome presented a scene in which bodies of those who recently died were arrayed around a wax statue of an angel who pointed upward towards heaven. In the same country, parish priests went house-to-house, asking for small gifts of food which they shared among themselves throughout that night. In Spain, they continue to bake special pastries called bones of the holy (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and set them on graves. At cemeteries in Spain and France, as well as in Latin America, priests lead Christian processions and services during Allhallowtide, after which people keep an all-night vigil. In 19th-century San Sebastian, there was a procession to the city cemetery at Allhallowtide, an event that drew beggars who appealed to the tender recollections of one’s deceased relations and friends for sympathy.
Halloween (1785) by Scottish poet Robert Burns, recounts various legends of the holiday.
A Bangladeshi girl lighting grave candles on the headstone of a deceased relative in the city of Chittagong for the observance of Allhallowtide.
While she is doing this, her mother is praying for their passed relative. In the background, there are other Bangladeshi Christians hanging garlands on cross-shaped grave stones.
Four young adult Lutheran Christians praying on the night of All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween) for Christian martyrs, saints, and all the faithful departed, especially their loved ones, in preparation for All Hallows’ Day (All Saints’ Day), the following day of Hallowtide.
These Swedes, as well as other believers, have also lit votive candles and hung wreaths near the crucifix by which they are solemnly praying. This photograph was taken in the Solna Municipality of Stockholm, Sweden.
The Geography Of Halloween
You can read more Geography of Halloween here.
A Halloween display in Harborland, Kobe, Hyogo, Japan.
Gaelic Folk Influence
Today’s Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots. Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that “there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived”. The origins of Halloween customs are typically linked to the Gaelic festival Samhain.
Samhain is one of the quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and has been celebrated from October 31st to November 1st in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. A kindred festival has been held by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany. this is a name meaning the first day of winter. For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset, thus the festival begins the evening before the 1st of November by modern reckoning. Samhain is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century, and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.
Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the darker half of the year. It was seen as a liminal time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí, the spirits or fairies, could more easily come into this world and were particularly active. Most scholars see them as degraded versions of ancient gods whose power remained active in the people’s minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs. They were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings. At Samhain, the Aos Sí were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for them. The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them. The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures. In 19th century Ireland, candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this, the eating, drinking, and games would begin.
Throughout Ireland and Britain, especially in the Celtic-speaking regions, the household festivities included divination rituals and games intended to foretell one’s future, especially regarding death and marriage. Apples and nuts were often used, and customs included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others. Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke, and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers. In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them It is suggested the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun and held back the decay and darkness of winter. They were also used for divination and to ward off evil spirits. In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes. In Wales, bonfires were also lit to prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth. Later, these bonfires kept away the devil.
From at least the 16th century, the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales. This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to souling. Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them. In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses (some of which had pagan overtones) in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the Muck Olla and not doing so would bring misfortune. In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed. F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked or blackened with ashes from the sacred bonfire. In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod. In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.
Elsewhere in Europe, mumming was part of other festivals, but in the Celtic-speaking regions, it was particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers. From at least the 18th century, imitating malignant spirits led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween did not spread to England until the 20th century. Pranksters used hollowed-out turnips or mangel wurzels as lanterns, often carved with grotesque faces. By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits, or used to ward off evil spirits. They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century, as well as in Somerset, known as Punkie Night. In the 20th century, they spread to other parts of Britain and became generally known as jack-o’-lanterns.
A traditional Irish Halloween mask.
This early 20th-century mask is displayed at the Museum of Country Life in Ireland.
Snap-Apple Night, painted by Irish artist Daniel Maclise in 1833.
It shows people feasting and playing divination games on Halloween in Ireland. It was inspired by a Halloween party he attended in Blarney, in 1832.
A traditional Irish Jack-o’-lantern.
This plaster cast of a Halloween turnip (rutabaga) lantern is on display in the Museum of Country Life in Ireland.
Spread To North America
Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott write that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland recognised All Hallow’s Eve in their church calendars, although the Puritans of New England strongly opposed the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas. Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America.
It was not until after mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in America. Most American Halloween traditions were inherited from the Irish and Scots, though in Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside. Originally confined to these immigrant communities, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and was celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial, and religious backgrounds by the early 20th century. Then, through American influence, these Halloween traditions spread to many other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century, including to mainland Europe and some parts of the Far East.
The Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.
This annual Halloween Parade takes place in New York, U.S.A. and it heads up Sixth Avenue. It’s hard to top this when it comes to Halloween, whether in New York City or anywhere else. This group is doing the mass zombie dance as seen in Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video.
Symbols
Development of artefacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o’-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows’ Eve in order to frighten evil spirits. There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o’-lantern, which in folklore is said to represent a soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell.
The folktale says that on route home after a night’s drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack placed the coal in a hollowed-out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern had been roaming looking for a place to rest.
In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween, but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger, making it easier to carve than a turnip. The American tradition of carving pumpkins was recorded in 1837 and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.
Outdoor Halloween decorations.
A decorated house in Weatherly, Carbon County, Pennsylvania.
Trick-Or-Treating And Guising
You can read more about trick-or-treating here.
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house usually getting sweet treats or sometimes money, asking the question, “Trick or treat?” The word trick implies a they will perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling. John Pymm wrote that “many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church.” These feast days included All Hallows’ Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday. Mumming practised in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, involved masked persons in fancy dress who paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence.
In England, from the medieval period, up until the 1930’s, people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic, going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends. In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluluwa and is practised on All Hallow’s Eve among children in rural areas. People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.
In Scotland and Ireland, guising is a traditional Halloween custom. This is where children disguised in costume go from door to door for food or coins. It is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped-out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money. In Ireland, the most popular phrase for kids to shout (until the 2000’s) was “Help the Halloween Party”. The practice of guising at Halloween in North America was first recorded in 1911, when a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, reported children going guising around the neighbourhood.
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the U.S.A. titled The Book of Hallowe’en (1919), and references souling in the chapter Hallowe’en in America. In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic, she said, “Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries”.
While the first reference to guising in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920. The earliest known use in print of the term trick or treat appears in 1927, in the Blackie Herald, of Alberta, Canada.
The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920’s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating did not seem to have become a widespread practice in North America until the 1930’s, with the first U.S.A. appearances of the term in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.
A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when children are offered treats from the trunks (or boot as we say in the U.K.) of cars parked in a church parking lot, or sometimes, a school parking lot. In a trunk-or-treat event, the boot of each car is decorated with a certain theme, such as those of children’s literature, movies, scripture, and job roles. Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being safer than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it solves the rural conundrum in which homes are built a half-mile apart.
Trick-or-treaters in Sweden.
A girl in a Halloween costume at Waterdown Public School, Waterdown, Ontario, Canada in 1928.
Waterdown is the same province where the Scottish Halloween custom of guising was first recorded in North America.
A Trunk-Or-Treat Event In Darien, Illinois, U.S.A.
This event is at the Lutheran Church and Early Learning Center in Darien. This particular car has a jack-o’-lantern theme.
Costumes
Read more about Halloween costumes here. You can see the Halloween costumes I have worn over the years here.
Halloween costumes were traditionally modelled after figures such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, scary-looking witches, and devils. Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.
Dressing up in costumes and going guising was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century. A Scottish term, the tradition is called guising because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children. In Ireland and Scotland, the masks are known as false faces, a term recorded in Ayr, Scotland in 1890 by a Scot describing guisers. He said, “I had mind it was Halloween. The wee callans (boys) were at it already, rinning aboot wi’ their fause-faces (false faces) on and their bits o’ turnip lanthrons (lanterns) in their haun (hand)”. Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the U.S.A. in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the U.S.A. in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows’ Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures who at one time caused us to fear and tremble, people are able to poke fun at Satan whose kingdom has been plundered by Jesus. Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento more.
The yearly New York’s Village Halloween Parade was begun in 1974 and it is the world’s largest Halloween parade and America’s only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience.
A Halloween shop in Waterloo Street, Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, selling masks in 2010.
The EXCELLENT Frankenstein mask from Trick Or Treat Studios.
This is a very cool Universal Classic Monsters mask I purchased for Halloween 2023. It is officially licenced by Universal Studios and made for Trick Or Treat Studios. It is, to date, the favourite mask I have in my mask collection and what I have worn for Halloween parties. To see me in this and many more masks click here.
Pet Costumes
According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumblebee in third place.
Games And Other Activities
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one’s future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a rare few in rural communities as they were considered to be deadly serious practices. In recent centuries, these divination games have been a common feature of the household festivities in Ireland and Britain. They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom. Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona.
The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th – 20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today. One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called dooking in Scotland) in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. 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 that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth.
Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one’s future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse’s name. Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire, one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match. A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked and the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst. Unmarried women were 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. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Another popular Irish game was known as púicíní (blindfolds). This involves a person being blindfolded and then they would choose between several saucers. The item in the saucer would provide a hint as to their future. A ring would mean that they would marry soon, clay meant that they would die soon (perhaps within the year), water meant that they would emigrate, rosary beads meant that that they would take Holy Orders (become a nun, priest, monk, etc.), a coin meant that they would become rich and a bean meant that they would be poor. The game features prominently in the James Joyce short story Clay (1914).
In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food (usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon) and portions of it served out at random. A person’s future would be foretold by the item they happened to find, for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.
Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.
Telling ghost stories, listening to Halloween-themed songs and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday.
A 1904 Halloween greeting card.
This early 20th-century card divination depicts a young woman looking into a mirror in a darkened room in hopes of catching a glimpse of her future husband.
Children bobbing for apples on Halloween.
A Halloween gathering.
Haunted Attractions
You can read more about haunted attractions here.
Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare their customers. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses etc. and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown.
The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam. The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection.
It was during the 1930’s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950’s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children’s Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children’s Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.
The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of The Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on the 12th of August 1969. Knott’s Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott’s Scary Farm, which opened in 1973. Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first hell houses in 1972.
The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was co-sponsored by W.S.A.I. (an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio). It was last produced in 1982. Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980’s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.
On the evening of May 11th, 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished. The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better-funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum. Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, theme parks entered the business seriously. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott’s Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990’s as a result of America’s obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States. The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.
Humorous tombstones for Halloween.
These were in front of a house with a haunted house theme in Northern California, U.S.A.
A humorous Halloween window display window in Historic 25th Street, Ogden, Utah, U.S.A.
Food
On All Hallows’ Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.
Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, toffee apples (known as candy apples or taffy apples in the U.S.A.) and caramel apples are Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, or caramel, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts or other small savouries or confections and allowing them to cool.
One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (báirín breac), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking. It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it. It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany.
Halloween-themed foods are also produced by companies in the lead-up to the night, for example, when Cadbury releases Goo Heads (similar to Creme Eggs) in spooky wrapping.
Here are some foods associated with Halloween around the world:
Barmbrack.
Bonfire toffee.
Candy apples.
Candy corn.
Candy pumpkins.
Caramel apples.
Caramel corn.
Chocolate.
Colcannon.
Halloween cake.
Monkey nuts (peanuts in their shells).
Novelty sweets/candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.
Pumpkin Pie.
Roasted pumpkin seeds.
Roasted sweet corn.
Soul cakes.
Sweets/candy.
Toffee apples.
Pumpkins for sale during Halloween.
A toffee apple with peanuts.
A jack-o’-lantern Halloween cake with a witches hat.
This cake was made in Braga, Portugal.
See Also
List of fiction works about Halloween.
List of films set around Halloween.
List of Halloween television specials.
The above articles and the rest of the images on this page were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.
Read more about Halloween and notes etc. regarding the above post here.
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The image shown above of a carved pumpkin is the copyright of Wikipedia user Toby Ord. It comes with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 2.5).
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The image shown above of a jack-o’-lantern Halloween cake with a witches hat is the copyright of Wikipedia user Joseolgon. It comes with a Creative Commons licence (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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