It’s that time of year again. Leaves that were on the trees just a few short weeks ago now cover the ground and the temperature falls more with each passing week. Even though Christmas things have been out in the stores for a little while now, the Halloween festivities have only just begun. People are wanting to talk about ghosts and watch scary movies. Little ghosts and goblins will soon wander the streets scaring each other and asking for candy. Personally, I have always thought of Halloween as a fun holiday. I enjoy dressing up as well as seeing the children in town excited to be in their costumes trick-or-treating. With all of the fun and commercialism of the holiday, the history of it all often gets overlooked. It’s more than just costumes and candy; there is an interesting history behind it.
The roots of the holiday we now know as Halloween go back 2,000 years to the Gaelic festival Samhain. The word Samhain means “summers end” in Gaelic and although the exact nature of it is not understood, we do know that it was a communal meeting at the end of each year that was used to gather resources for the upcoming winter. This particular festival did not have the sinister aspects that Halloween has today. Halloween beliefs and customs were brought to the United States by the Irish. In Celtic culture, Nov. 1 was the start of the New Year. It was believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thin on All Hallows Eve and spirits of those who had died were able to roam the earth on that night. People would put food out to satisfy the spirits and they carved turnips because they believed that would keep the evil spirits away. While Halloween today is often seen as evil because of its Pagan roots, that is not the case. In fact, the ancient Celts never worshipped anything resembling the Christian devil.
Today, we dress up for Halloween, something that was started by the Celts. We also often carve pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns instead of carving turnips. Trick-or-treating as we know it came about as a way to minimize Halloween mischief. By the late 1800s, it had become tradition for kids to do things like outhouse tipping, throwing eggs at houses, and unhinging farmers’ gates among other things. In an effort to decrease the vandalism, parents began encouraging trick-or-treating in costume in exchange for candy. This new tradition caught on, but Oct. 30 was adopted as the day for pranks. Bobbing for apples was used as a form of fortune telling; the first person to get an apple out of a water filled bucket without using their hands would be the first to marry. Another interesting ritual involved a woman looking into a mirror by candlelight at midnight and her future husband’s face was supposed to appear. This later evolved into what we know as the Bloody Mary ritual.
Coming up on Saturday, the library will host a Ghost Jam. You have probably heard several of our ghost stories, and now it’s your turn.
This is an event for people to share their own ghost stories and start getting in the Halloween spirit. As always, don’t forget about Storytimes at the library on Tuesdays and Wednesdays as well as Toddler Time on Mondays. During Storytime the week of Halloween, kids will be trick-or-treating around the library and are welcome to wear their costumes.
Halloween hasn’t always been the holiday we know it as today, and it is interesting to see where our traditions and rituals originated. We try to have fun with it here at the library but we can also provide you with plenty of scary stories to read and movies to watch if you enjoy a little scare this time of year. However you celebrate, be safe and have fun!
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