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 | From Ellen Friedrichs, your About Teen Life Editor A lot of us celebrate Halloween without really knowing the backstory. Here's some history and lore of a holiday now most commonly associated with dressing up and gorging on candy. | |
A Quick Guide to the Origin & History of Halloween
Halloween is a secular holiday combining vestiges of traditional harvest festival celebrations with customs more peculiar to the occasion such as costume wearing, trick-or-treating, pranksterism, and decorative imagery based on the changing of the seasons, death, and the supernatural. It takes place on October 31.... Read more
| Why Do We Bob for Apples on Halloween?
Some say the custom of bobbing for apples dates all the way back to pre-Christian Ireland and the pagan festival of Samhain, though there's little documentary evidence to support this. Apple bobbing has also been popularly associated with Pomona, the ancient Roman goddess of fruits, trees, and gardens in whose honor a festival was supposedly held each year on November first. But that, too, stands on shaky historical ground, as some question whether such a festival ever actually existed... Read more
| Why Do We Carve Pumpkins on Halloween?
The name "jack-o'-lantern" is of British origin and dates from the 17th century, when it literally meant "man with a lantern" (i.e., a night watchman). It was also a nickname for the natural phenomenon known as ignis fatuus (fool's fire) or "will o' the wisp," the mysterious, flickering lights sometimes seen at night over wetlands and associated in folklore with fairies and ghosts playing pranks on travelers... Read more
| The Pagan Origins of Halloween
The pagan origins of Halloween (or "elements," at least; see below) are so palpable that there is little wonder the holiday has generated considerable controversy. Falling on October 31, Halloween history tells us that this celebration is only the herald of the holiday that medieval Christian Europeans were intended to celebrate -- All Saints' Day, November 1... Read more
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