Have yourself a merry little Samhain

Well, I'm in Ireland, which is definitely appropriate, since this is where Halloween was invented. Other than knowing that the Irish pretty much came up with Halloween, and that the holiday's roots were in pagan Celtic festivals, I wasn't all that up on the subject. 

Fortunately, I found a handy-dandy 2021 blog post from Heather Thomas at the Library of Congress that pretty much filled in all the gaps in my knowledge.

First off, what became Halloween started out as Samhain (that's saw-win to yez), "a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts."

In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III landed on November 1 as a day to honor saints. Not sure whether Pope G was aware of Samhain, but, thanks to St. Patrick et al., Christianity had long since come to Ireland. And, of course, the Church always liked to established holy days to coincide with pagan-based celebrations. And, of course, some of the traditions of those pagan-based celebrations were incorporated into the religious holy days. (Christmas trees, Easter eggs). 

With All Saints' Day observed on November 1, it was just natural to get something going on it's eve. That would be All Hallows Eve, which over time saw its pronunciation mushed into Halloween. 

And naturally some pagan-based traditions made their way in.

Carving Jack-o-Lanterns came from Ireland, but originally what was carved was a turnip, not a pumpkin. I'm all for carving turnips and taking them out of the food chain, but pumpkins actually look better. Anyway, the tradition:

...is allegedly based on a legend about a man named Stingy Jack who repeatedly trapped the Devil and only let him go on the condition that Jack would never go to Hell. But when Jack died, he learned that Heaven did not want his soul either, so he was forced to wander the Earth as a ghost for eternity. The Devil gave Jack a burning lump of coal in a carved-out turnip to light his way. Locals eventually began carving scary faces into their own turnips to frighten away evil spirits.

Ghosts are associated Samhain, as the "Celtic people believed that during the festival, spirits walked the Earth." Eventually, the Christian holiday expanded into All Souls' Day on November 2nd. All Souls' Day - unlike All Saints' Day - never turned into a holy day of obligation. So it wasn't a day off for parochial schools. We did, blessedly, have November 1st off, giving us plenty of time - after we hit an early Mass - to loll around sorting through our trick or treat candy troves.

Costume-wearing began as scary costumes, as, during Samhain, folks wanted to disguise themselves so they wouldn't be taken for ghosts. Scary costumes are still donned, but so are non-scary costumes like Elsa and Elmo. 

There are competing versions of how trick-or-treating came about. It may have come from Samhain, when the Celts "would leave food out to appease the spirits traveling the Earth at night," which morphed into people who decided that it wasn't all that bad to get themselves dressed up as a spirit if they could get some of that food (or drink). 

Another theory of the case is that trick-or-treating came from the Scottish tradition of souling, which had kids and poor adults going from home to home asking for food and money in exchange for praying for departed souls on All Souls' Day. This was eventually replaced by guising, with prayers dropped out and "tricks" (including songs and jokes) dropped in.

A third theory takes us from Ireland and Scotland to America, where some argue that trick-or-treating was brought to us by German-Americans, via their "belsnickeling" practice, a "Christmas tradition where children would dress in costume and then call on their neighbors to see if the adults could guess the identities of the disguised." The kiddos who fooled the grown ups were given a treat. 

I'm a bit skeptical here. As a half-German-American, I've never heard of "belsnickeling," and I'm pretty sure that if this had been a real thing, my German-American mother (who knew everything about everything) would have mentioned it when we were telling her that the Irish invented Halloween.

Thanks to the Celts, black and orange are Halloween's signature colors because "black represented the 'death' of summer while the orange symbolized the autumn harvest season." Makes sense to me. 

Unlike bobbing for apples, which never made much sense to me. Too high a degree of difficulty for too little a payoff. Turns out the bobbing for apples comes from an old Roman courting ritual associated with a festival in honor of Pomona. The timing for the Pomona celebration roughly coincided with Samhain, so when the Romans showed up in ancient times, bobbing for apples became a thing. 

Beggars' Eve (October 30th), which I guess is known in most places as Mischief or Devil's Night, is when - back in my day - boys who thought they were too old for Halloween went out and soaped car windows and TP'd trees. This tradition came to America with Irish and Scottish immigrants. 

Giving out candy on Halloween is mostly a product of post-war candy companies encouraging the practice. Prior to that, "fruit, nuts, coins, and toys were just as likely to be given out."  

Most houses of my childhood were definitely on the candy end of the give outs - thankfully. But one couple ("old folks", Irish immigrants) gave out apples. (Yawn! I could get an apple by opening the fridge.) One family gave out popcorn balls wrapped in orange or black cellophane, another - the father had a Continental Baking route - gave out Hostess Snowballs. And two families where the fathers worked for pharma gave out little plastic ball-bearing puzzles that were giveaways for some company they repped for.)

When I think Halloween, I, of course, think candy corn, which was invented in the US of A. I know it's terrible, but I really do have to have some. I couldn't count on it being available in Dublin, so I smuggled some in.

Happy Samhain! (And thank you, Heather Thomas.)