A Brief History of Halloween

A Brief History of the Holiday


As close as we at EverythingForYourHalloween.com can tell, Halloween is a kind of cultural Frankenstein, as one writer observed. Evangelical Christians attribute one set of meanings to this day, while those who hold to the beliefs  at the core of Halloween deny the Christians’ claims and put forward radically different ones of their own. As far as we can tell, both groups are right in some very limited ways. The problem with both sides is, there’s no proof for most of their claims.
This whole debate can leave the majority of people confused. Political agendas drive these arguments as much as anything. In this climate, it doesn’t matter to either side what the facts of history say. Yet the facts are very interesting.…

A brief history of Halloween
When the Roman Catholic Church brought Christianity to Great Britain in the seventh century, some of the folk customs there were Christianized. In 835 Pope Gregory IV moved the church’s Feast of All Saints from May 1 to November 1 to replace the observance of Samhain. This was a Celtic holiday that marked the end of summer and the beginning of the Celtic new year. The Celts believed that on this night the barrier between the natural world and the supernatural was removed. This let the spirits of the dead move freely among human beings. Many of the costumes and decorations you see on Halloween reflect this belief. Samhain was the most holy and important night in the Celtic year. The old practices of the Celtic priests waxed and waned in popularity, cut were consistently denounced by the church as witchcraft. This is how Halloween became known as a witch’s holiday to many people.
All Saint’s Day, still observed today by many Christians, honored those who had died. The night before this holiday was known as “All Hallow’s Eve.” This was shortened through the centuries to Halloween.
Hallow means saints, both mean holy ones.

Apples are another common symbol of the autumn harvest. Covering them with caramel doesn’t cover this fact. Cornstalks, pumpkin and gourds are other popular symbols of the autumn harvest. Other symbols are skeletons, black cats, bats, gravestones, ghosts and witches. All these represent some aspect of death, which underscores all the Halloween traditions.
When the Romans arrived in Great Britain, long before the Roman Catholics, they brought a harvest festival to the goddess Pomona with them. She looked over Roman orchards. This holiday took place on November 1. Pomona’s association with the apple tied the fruit to Halloween games and festivities, such as bobbing for apples.
Further connecting this relationship is the apple’s traditional role in divination of a male lover. It was believed throughout Great Britain that a young woman could foresee her romantic future by sitting before a mirror at midnight on Halloween, slicing an apple into nine pieces and holding each piece on the tip of the knife before eating it. The face of her future husband would then appear over her shoulder in the mirror.
To this day in the US, many children believe that twisting an apple while holding the stem will tell them the number of letters into the alphabet their spouse’s last name will start with. This equals the number of times they turn the apple before the stem breaks off.

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