Halloween

October 31, celebrated in the United States, Canada, and the British Isles by children going door to door while wearing costumes and begging treats and playing pranks.

[Short for All Hallow Even : ALLHALLOW(MAS) + EVEN².]

For more information on Halloween, visit Britannica.com.

The eve of a major Catholic festival, All Saints (1 November), assigned to this date in the 8th century; next comes All Souls (2 November), instituted c.1000 AD as a day to pray for the dead. In England since the 19th century, and increasingly in the 20th century, it has acquired a reputation as a night on which ghosts, witches, and fairies are especially active. Why this should be is debatable.

Currently, it is widely supposed that it originated as a pagan Celtic festival of the dead, related to the Irish and Scottish Samhain (1 November) marking the onset of winter, a theory popularized by Frazer. Certainly Samhain was a time for festive gatherings, and medieval Irish texts and later Irish, Welsh, and Scottish folklore use it as a setting for supernatural encounters, but there is no evidence that it was connected with the dead in pre-Christian times, or that pagan religious ceremonies were held (Hutton, 1996: 360-70).

Anglo-Saxon texts never mention this date. Bede notes that the native name for November had been Blod-monath, ‘Blood Month’ (when surplus livestock was slaughtered to save fodder, and some offered as sacrifices), but does not pinpoint one day as significant. From the Middle Ages through to the 19th century, there is no sign in England that 31 October had any meaning except as the eve of All Saints' Day, when bells might be joyfully rung (as also on Christmas Eve and Easter Eve). Mournful tolling marked All Souls' Day, as a call to prayer for the dead. Reformers naturally objected to both, and under Elizabeth I ‘the superstitious ringing of bells at Allhallowtide, and at All Souls' Day, with the two nights before and after’ was prohibited (Strype's Annals quoted in Hazlitt, 1905: 299). But prayer for the dead proved tenacious; there are scattered references from the 16th to the early 19th centuries to people praying in the open fields at night by the light of straw torches or small bonfires, especially in Lancashire and Derbyshire (Wright and Lones, 1940: iii. 109; Hutton, 1996: 372-4). Contrary to popular opinion, the link with fire is fairly late in England, the first allusion being from 1658, though implying a well-established custom: ‘On All-Hallow e'en the master of the family anciently used to carry a bunch of straw, fired, about his corn’ (Sir William Dugdale, quoted in Hutton, 1996: 373). Early folklorists overstressed this aspect, pursuing solar symbolism and a parallel to the Beltane fires.

Folklore collections of the later 19th and 20th centuries make remarkably little mention of Halloween in England (as against Scotland), and what there is comes mainly from northern counties. Most quote Scottish sources, especially Robert Burns's poem ‘Halloween’, and it may well be that some customs detailed below were imported from Scotland to England through literary influences and fashions in Victorian times. Writing in the 1950s, Iona and Peter Opie demonstrated that Halloween was popular among children living to the north and west of a boundary running roughly south-west from the Humber to the Welsh border and then down the Severn, while those to the south and east hardly even noticed it (they celebrated November the Fifth instead). Modern factors have eliminated this distinction, but its former presence supports the suspicion that Halloween was originally Scottish.

The most common 19th-century references are to love divinations. All over the country, young people would lay two nuts (in some areas, two apple pips) side by side in the fire, named after themselves and their loved ones, to see whether they exploded or not; in the south, it was generally held that a loud pop was a good sign for the match, but northerners regarded this as bad. As on so many other nights, girls would put something under their pillows to dream of husbands: rosemary and a crooked sixpence (Addy, 1895: 80), or, in Herefordshire, a sprig of churchyard yew (Folk-Lore Journal 4 (1886), 111). An eyewitness account from Norfolk describes five men sitting all night round a pitchfork on which was placed a clean white shirt, believing that the sweetheart of one of them, ‘were she true to him’, would enter and remove it (Major Charles Loftus, My Life 1815-1849 (1877), 302-3; quoted in Wright and Lones, 1940: iii. 114-15). For other Halloween divinations, see cabbage, dumb cake, sage, three dishes.

Apples and nuts, readily available at this time, were a traditional Halloween food (hence its other name, ‘ Nut-Crack Night’), and appear in several old games now revived for children's parties. Players have to catch in their teeth apples floating in water, or hanging from a string, or balanced on a heap of flour. Whereas Scottish children disguised themselves and went house visiting, English ones more commonly attended a fancy dress party indoors; they also traditionally played at scaring people with lanterns of hollowed turnips or swedes, carved into faces and with lighted candles inside (cf. Punkie Night). In Yorkshire, they called this Mischief Night and played tricks on all and sundry.

Halloween is one of the few festivals whose popularity has increased, not declined, in recent years. Since about 1980, the media have shown growing interest, shops are full of scary masks and witches' hats, and children have taken to roaming the streets in costume, knocking on doors, saying a rhyme, and expecting money or sweets. They use pumpkins, not turnips, as lanterns. A hundred years ago, children's visiting customs of this type were commonplace, but they have declined so sharply that this new variant is surprising. It is clear from the use of the American term ‘Trick or Treat’ that it was a direct import from America, familiar to children from comics, cinema, and TV; a contributory factor was the tendency of schools and British children's TV, at about the same time, to present it as a safer alternative to Guy Fawkes Night. There have been howls of protest in this country against the Americanization of British culture, the danger to children out at night, and/or the alarm caused to the elderly. Most vociferous is the backlash from fundamentalist Christians, and even many mainstream clergy, arguing that celebrating supernatural evil forces is morally dangerous, and the fact that it is ‘fun’ makes it worse. Neo-pagans added fuel to this fire by claiming Samhain is older than All Saints, and was hijacked by the Church. This moral battle still rages, and many schools have opted to ignore Halloween, for the sake of peace.

See also ALL SAINTS, ALL SOULS, ANTROBUS, SOULING.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Wright and Lones, 1940: iii. 107-20
• Hutton, 1996: 360-85
• Opie and Opie, 1959: 268-76
• Roger Homan, British Journal of Religious Education 14:1 (1991), 9-14
• Roud, 2003: 230-5

Halloween (also Hallowe'en) is thought to have derived from a pre-Christian festival known as Samhain (pronounced "Sah-wen") celebrated among the Celtic peoples. The various peoples whom we now refer to as "Celts" once lived across Europe, but in time came to inhabit the areas known today as Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Brittany, and Cornwall. Modern Irish, Welsh, and Scots peoples are the descendants of these peoples, as are their Gaelic languages.

History

Samhain was the principal feast day of the year; it was the New Year's Day of a year that began on 1 November. Traditionally, bonfires were lit as part of the celebration. It was believed that the spirits of those who had died during the previous twelve months were granted access into the otherworld during Samhain. Thus, spirits were said to be traveling on that evening, as the Celtic day was counted from sundown to sundown.

Scholars know little about the actual practices and beliefs associated with Samhain. Most accounts were not written down until centuries after the conversion of Ireland to Christianity (c. 300 C.E.), and then by Christian monks recording ancient sagas. From the evidence, we know that Samhain was a focal point of the yearly cycle, and that traditions of leaving out offerings of food and drink to comfort the wandering spirits had joined the bonfire custom. Also, the tradition of mumming—dressing in disguise and performing from home to home in exchange for food or drink, as well as pranking, perhaps in imitation of the wandering spirits, or simply as a customary activity found throughout Europe—had become part of the occasion. With the acceptance of Christianity, the dates of the pre-Christian festivals were used as occasions for church feast and holy days. The first day of November became, in the sixth century, the Feast of All Saints, or All Hallows. Many of the folk traditions surrounding this occasion continued, and the Eve of All Hallows, Hallow Evening, has become conflated into the word "Hallowe'en." In the ninth century, 2 November was assigned the Feast of All Souls, a day set aside for prayers for all the faithful departed who had died during the previous year.

Halloween was brought to North America with Irish and British colonists, although it was not widely observed until the large influx of European immigrants in the nineteenth century, especially the Irish fleeing the potato famine in the 1840s and thereafter. In the United States, Hallowe'en, celebrated on 31 October, was a time for parties and pranking. As a festival of autumn, the fruits, vegetables, and foods associated with it are those of the harvest. Games were and are still played with apples, and the primary symbol of Halloween is the jack-o'-lantern, the great, carved pumpkin. Likewise, both apple pie and pumpkin pie are commonly served.

Samhain in Ireland

In Ireland, however, Halloween is much more a harvest festival than it is in the United States, where Thanksgiving has become the official day of thanks for abundance. As Samhain, November Eve was one of the four great quarter days of the year, each one marking the beginning of a new season. Samhain also marked the start of a new year. Halloween commands a place of honor in Ireland today greater than in the United States. And in fact it functions much like Thanksgiving does here. Family meals and a gathering of relatives are common. There is pranking throughout the season, and Halloween rhyming, in which young people go from door to door for weeks in advance of 31 October, present a rhyme or perform a song of some sort, in return for nuts, apples, or money. The money is spent on fireworks. Also well in advance of the actual day, lanterns are carved out of large turnips, called swedes, or rutabegas in the United States. These are given a face and a handle, and are carried about or set on walls to create a spooky atmosphere. When the old tradition of the turnip lantern was brought to the new world, settlers found the already hollow pumpkin to be preferable to the hard turnip, and so the pumpkin replaced the turnip in the United States. But the pumpkin is a fruit introduced to Europeans by Native Americans and is not native to Ireland, Great Britain, or the rest of Europe.

By carving a face on a turnip or a pumpkin, one transforms the organic item into a cultural one. The jack-o'-lantern is the wandering spirit of a man who was refused entry into either heaven or hell in the afterlife. He is condemned to wander this earth, carrying a lantern to guide his way. He is a trickster; he will lead hapless souls who follow his light to no good. The turnip lantern is said to represent the spirits of the dead—ghosts. The organic items are made to reference the supernatural. Also, they are turned into another kind of cultural item: food. Pumpkin pies and mashed turnips are foods of the season, and represent domestic aspects of Halloween. The wild, unpredictable outside and the safe, nuturing inside are two poles of this festival. Halloween combines danger and safety, as when trick-or-treaters in the United States are invited in for cider and doughnuts. In Ireland, the inversive elements usually precede the day itself, which is given over to parties, special meals, and traditional games. These games are often played with the seasonal foods, such as dunking for apples, but they are also used in a playful way as divination games. For instance, Halloween in Ireland is also known as Nut Crack Night, because a common game is to place two nuts together near the hearth, name them for an adolescent or courting couple, then see what the effect of the heat is on the nuts. If they explode and pop away from each other, their relationship is doomed.

Divination and Halloween food come together in the apple tarts (pies) and the cakes known as barm brack. Barm brack means speckled bread. It is a corn loaf, and it is baked with tokens inside, usually a ring, but also a thimble, or a button. To get the ring means you will be married; the button suggests bachelorhood for a man, and a thimble, spinsterhood for a woman. There may be other tokens as well. The apple tart is also baked with charms, usually a coin (preferably silver). This means good luck for the recipient. These food customs are widespread in Ireland—one sees the bakeshops advertising their apple tarts and barm bracks "with rings and mottoes." Likewise, in the supermarkets, quantities of apples, hazelnuts, peanuts in the shell (called monkeynuts), and even coconuts are displayed alongside soft drinks and false faces.

Many are the divination games and rites of Halloween. It is said, for instance, that one should peel an apple continuously, so that the peel is in one long piece, and then toss it over one's left shoulder. The peel will land and form the initial of one's future love. Typically, these games are played by girls, to whom the indoor, domestic, nurturing realm is given, while the adolescent boys collect bonfire materials and engage in games of macho daring with firecrackers. Halloween is in these ways very gendered.

According to some accounts, the Halloween supper has featured a roast fowl or even meat, but as the day before a Holy Day of Obligation in the Catholic Church, Halloween has traditionally been a day of abstinence from meat. The dishes most associated with Halloween in Ireland—colcannon, champ, and boxty—are all made from root vegetables and earthy harvests such as potatoes and cabbage. Champ is mashed potatoes, frequently with leeks, and served with a pool of melted butter in the top. Colcannon is potatoes and cabbage. Boxty is mashed potatoes mixed with grated raw potatoes, onion, and cabbage, which are then boiled, cut into portions and fried.

These traditional foods are emblematic of Halloween for many in Ireland. Sometimes, portions were left out for the fairies. In an article published in 1958, K. M. Harris quotes a man who recalls his mother putting salt on the head of each child to prevent them from being taken away by the "wee people" on Halloween. He also recounts her placing a thimble-full of salt on each plate. If the salt fell down that person would die in the next twelve months. These beliefs indicate the continued association of food with the supernatural, and perhaps echo the "old" new year's day of Samhain in the idea that what happens on this night affects the next twelve months.

Periods of transition and seasonal change frequently are felt to be times when the barriers between the natural and the supernatural—between our world and the otherworld—are opened. During such times, spirits and otherworldly creatures such as fairies are especially active. They are dangerous and must be appeased; thus the offerings of food. But they are also tricksters, and can be imitated, thus lending an air of inversion to Halloween.

Halloween in the United States

In the United States, 31 October has become a major celebration that appeals to adults as well as children, as shown by the elaborate homemade and store-bought decorations people use to decorate their homes, and also by the adult street festivals, masquerades, and parties found all over the United States. Commercially, Halloween has become second only to Christmas in the amount of revenue it generates.

Ironically, by the mid-twentieth century, Halloween in the United States had become almost exclusively a children's event. The custom of trick-or-treating (the American version of Halloween rhyming) seems to have been introduced in the 1930s as an alternative to the children's pranking activities—sometimes dangerous, such as logs in the road; always a nuisance (Tuleja, 1994). Trick-ortreating became a widespread activity after World War II. While treats could include apples and homemade sweets, the favored treat was commercially produced candy. In the United States, then, Halloween has always reflected the commercial culture of capitalism. Apocryphal stories known as "urban legends" have circulated about poisoned treats and apples with razor blades hidden in them. While there has been no substantial verification of the stories, the belief is widespread. The result is that homemade treats and natural fruits are looked at suspiciously—many communities offer Halloween treat X-raying services. Now so more than ever, the commer cially produced sweet is preferred (Ellis, 1994).

By the late twentieth century, as the generation that had enjoyed Halloween as children became adults, the holiday returned to being one in which different age groups engaged. College students hosted large costume parties. Cities such as New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco had major street festivals. As a day of public costuming and inversion, a time when people confronted images of the taboo—representations of death, evil, and chaos, Halloween had long been used by the gay population as a "safe" time to parade in drag, to publicly display an identity that they must keep hidden the rest of the year. By the end of the twentieth century, the rest of the population joined them to create a kind of national Mardi Gras. Unlike the actual Fat Tuesday, however, this carnival is in the autumn, and it combines seasonal images of the harvest with images of human death (ghosts and skeletons) as well as other unspeakables. Halloween is a time when it is safe to play with our fears, to allow our demons to come out from under the bed and take center stage once a year.

Bibliography

Ellis, Bill. "'Safe' Spooks: New Hallowe'en Traditions in Response to Sadism Legends." In Hallowe'en and Other Festivals of Death and Life, edited by Jack Jack Santino, pp. 24–44. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994.

Harris, K. M. "Extracts from the Committee's Collection." Ulster Folklife 4 (1958): 37–49.

Santino, Jack. All Around the Year: Holidays and Celebrations inAmerican Life. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Santino, Jack, ed. Hallowe'en and Other Festivals of Death and Life. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994.

Santino, Jack. The Hallowed Eve: Dimensions of Culture in a Calendar Festival in Northern Ireland. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

Tuleja, Tad. "Trick or Treat: Pre-texts and Contexts." In Hallowe'en and Other Festivals of Death and Life, edited by Jack Santino, pp. 82–102. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994.

—Jack Santino

This article is about the holiday. For other uses, see Halloween (disambiguation).

Halloween
Jack-o'-lantern
Also called	All Hallows’ Eve All Saints’ Eve
Observed by	Numerous Western countries (see article)
Type	Secular with roots in Christianity and paganism
Date	October 31
Celebrations	Varies by region but includes trick-or-treating, ghost tours, apple bobbing, costume parties, carving jack-o'-lanterns
Related to	Samhain, All Saints’ Day

Halloween (also spelled Hallowe’en) is a holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints’ Day. It is largely a secular celebration, but some Christians and pagans have expressed strong feelings about its religious overtones.^[1][2][3] Irish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America during Ireland's Great Famine of 1846.^[4] The day is often associated with the colors orange and black, and is strongly associated with symbols such as the jack-o'-lantern. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o'-lanterns, reading scary stories, and watching horror movies.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origin of name 2 Symbols 3 Trick-or-treating and guising 3.1 Costumes 3.2 Costume sales 3.3 UNICEF 4 Games and other activities 4.1 Haunted attractions 4.2 Foods 5 Around the world 6 Religious perspectives 7 See also 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

History

Halloween has origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain, possibly derived from Gaulish samonios).^[5] The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes^[6] regarded as the "Celtic New Year".^[7] Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient Celtic pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Celts believed that on October 31, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, into which the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to copy the evil spirits or placate them.^[8][9]

Origin of name

The term Halloween, originally spelled Hallowe’en, is shortened from All Hallows’ Eve (both even and eve are abbreviations of evening, but Halloween gets its n from even) as it is the eve of "All Hallows’ Day",^[10] which is now also known as All Saints’ Day. It was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions,^[11] until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day from May 13 (which had itself been the date of a pagan holiday, the Feast of the Lemures) to November 1. In the 9th century, the Church measured the day as starting at sunset, in accordance with the Florentine calendar. Although All Saints’ Day is now considered to occur one day after Halloween, the two holidays were, at that time, celebrated on the same day.

Symbols

On Hallows’ eve, the ancient Celts would place a skeleton on their window sill to represent the departed. Originating in Europe, these lanterns were first carved from a turnip or rutabaga. Believing that the head was the most powerful part of the body, containing the spirit and the knowledge, the Celts used the "head" of the vegetable to frighten off any superstitions.^[12] Welsh, Irish and British myth are full of legends of the Brazen Head, which may be a folk memory of the widespread ancient Celtic practice of headhunting - the results of which were often nailed to a door lintel or brought to the fireside to speak their wisdom. The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack,^[13] a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip. The carving of pumpkins is associated with Halloween in North America,^[14] where pumpkins were not only readily available but much larger, making them easier to carve than turnips. Many families that celebrate Halloween carve a pumpkin into a frightening or comical face and place it on their doorstep after dark. In America, the tradition of carving pumpkins is known to have preceded the Great Famine period of Irish immigration.^{[citation needed]} The carved pumpkin was originally associated with harvest time in general, in America and did not become specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.^{[citation needed]}

The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, works of Gothic and horror literature, in particular novels Frankenstein and Dracula, and nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists,^[15] and a rather commercialized take on the dark and mysterious. Halloween imagery tends to involve death, evil, the occult, magic, or mythical monsters. Traditional characters include the Devil, the Grim Reaper, ghosts, ghouls, demons, witches, pumpkin-men, goblins, vampires, werewolves, martians, zombies, mummies, skeletons, black cats, spiders, bats, owls, crows, and vultures.^[16]

Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic horror films (which contain fictional figures like Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy). Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.

The two main colors associated with Halloween are orange and black.^[17]

Trick-or-treating and guising

Main article: Trick-or-treating

Typical Halloween scene in Dublin, Ireland.

Costumes

Main article: Halloween costume

Halloween costumes are traditionally those of monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Costumes are also based on themes other than traditional horror, such as those of characters from television shows, movies, and other pop culture icons.

Costume sales

BIGresearch conducted a survey for the National Retail Federation in the United States and found that 53.3% of consumers planned to buy a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average (up $10 from the year before). They were also expected to spend $4.96 billion in 2006, up significantly from just $3.3 billion the previous year.^[18]

UNICEF

Main article: Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF

"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" has become a common sight during Halloween in North America. Started as a local event in a Philadelphia suburb in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $119 million (US) for UNICEF since its inception. In 2006, UNICEF discontinued their Halloween collection boxes in parts of the world, citing safety and administrative concerns.^[19]

Games and other activities

This section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (October 2008)

In this Halloween greeting card from 1904, divination is depicted: the young woman looking into a mirror in a darkened room hopes to catch a glimpse of the face of her future husband.

There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween parties. One common game is dunking or apple bobbing, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin (to make things even more challenging, try removing the stems from the apples) ^[20]. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drop 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 very sticky face. Kids can play a "kill the witch game" by drawing and coloring a witch on a large piece of paper, cutting out circles from black construction paper and sticking tape on the back to make the witch's warts. Then blindfold the players, spin them around three times and have 'em pin ugly warts on the witch! The player who sticks the wart closest to the nose wins. ^[21]

Some games traditionally played at Halloween are forms of divination. In Puicíní (pronounced "poocheeny"), a game played in Ireland, a blindfolded person is seated in front of a table on which several saucers are placed. The saucers are shuffled, and the seated person then chooses one by touch; the contents of the saucer determine the person's life during the following year. In 19th-century Ireland, young women placed slugs in saucers sprinkled with flour.^{[citation needed]} A traditional Irish and Scottish form of divining one's future spouse is to carve an apple in one long strip, then toss the peel over one's shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name. This custom has survived among Irish and Scottish immigrants in the rural United States.^{[citation needed]}

Unmarried women were frequently told^[who?] 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. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^{[citation needed]}

The telling of ghost stories and viewing of horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of TV series and specials with Halloween themes (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before the holiday, while new horror films, are often released theatrically before the holiday to take advantage of the atmosphere.

Haunted attractions

Main article: Haunted attraction

Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons; most are seasonal Halloween businesses. Origins of these paid scare venues are difficult to pinpoint, but it is generally accepted that they were first commonly used by the Junior Chamber International (Jaycees) for fundraising.^[22] They include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides,^[23] and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown. Haunted attractions in the United States bring in an estimate $300–500 million each year, and draw some 400,000 customers, although trends suggest a peak in 2005^[22]. This increase in interest has led to more highly technical special effects and costuming that is comparable with that in Hollywood films.^[24]

Foods

Candy apple

Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, candy apples (also known as toffee, caramel or taffy apples) are a common Halloween treat made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.

At one time, candy apples were commonly given to children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples.^[25] While there is evidence of such incidents,^[26] they are quite rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free x-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy, and there have been occasional reports of children putting needles in their own (and other children's) candy in need of a bit of attention.^{[citations needed]}

One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish "báirín breac"), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin and other charms are placed before baking. It is 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.

Other foods associated with the holiday:

• Candy corn
• Báirín Breac (Ireland)
• Colcannon (Ireland)
• Bonfire toffee (in the UK)
• Toffee Apple (Australia when celebrated, England, Wales and Scotland, instead of "Candy Apples")
• Apple cider
• Cider
• Roasted sweet corn
• Popcorn
• Roasted pumpkin seeds
• Pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread
• "Fun-sized" or individually wrapped pieces of small candy, typically in Halloween colors of orange, and brown/black.
• Novelty candy shaped like skulls, pumpkins, bats, worms, etc.
• Small bags of potato chips, pretzels and caramel corn
• Chocolates, caramels, and gum
• Pumpkin and Apple pie ice cream are sometimes enjoyed.

Around the world

Main article: Halloween around the world

Halloween is not celebrated in all countries and regions of the world, and among those that do the traditions and importance of the celebration vary significantly. Celebration in the United States has had a significant impact on how the holiday is observed in other nations. The history of Halloween traditions in a given country also lends context to how it is presently celebrated.

Religious perspectives

See also: All Saints and Samhain

In North America, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are quite diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions of All Saints’ Day,^[27][28] while some other Protestants celebrate the holiday as Reformation Day, a day of remembrance and prayers for unity.^[29] Celtic Christians may have Samhain services that focus on the cultural aspects of the holiday, in the belief that many ancient Celtic customs are "incompatible with the new Christian religion. Christianity embraced the Celtic notions of family, community, the bond among all people, and respect for the dead. Throughout the centuries, pagan and Christian beliefs intertwine in a gallimaufry (hodgepodge) of celebrations from October 31 through November 5, all of which appear both to challenge the ascendancy of the dark and to revel in its mystery."^[30]

Many Christians ascribe no negative significance to Halloween, treating it as a purely secular holiday devoted to celebrating "imaginary spooks" and handing out candy. Halloween celebrations are common among Roman Catholic parochial schools throughout North America and in Ireland. In fact, the Roman Catholic Church sees Halloween as having a Christian connection.^[31] Father Gabriele Amorth, a Vatican-appointed exorcist in Rome, has said, "[I]f English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."^[1] Most Christians hold the view that the tradition is far from being "satanic" in origin or practice and that it holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.^[30] Other Christians, primarily of the Evangelical and Fundamentalist variety, are concerned about Halloween, and reject the holiday because they believe it trivializes (and celebrates) "the occult" and what they perceive as evil.^[2] A response among some fundamentalists in recent years has been the use of Hell houses or themed pamphlets (such as those of Jack T. Chick) which attempt to make use of Halloween as an opportunity for evangelism.^[32] Some consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith^[33] due to its origin as a pagan "Festival of the Dead." In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on the holiday.^[32] Many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy.

Religions other than Christianity also have varied views on Halloween. Some Wiccans feel that the tradition is offensive to "real witches" for promoting stereotypical caricatures of "wicked witches".^[3]

See also

Holidays portal

• List of Halloween television specials
• Fakelore
• Friday the 13th
• Ghost Festival
• Devil's Night
• The Clique
• Halloween events
• Samhain

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Gyles Brandreth, "The Devil is gaining ground" The Sunday Telegraph (London), March 11, 2000.
2. ^ ^{a b} Halloween: Satan's New Year (2006) by Billye Dymally, Halloween: Counterfeit Holy Day (2005) by Kele Gershom, and Halloween: What's a Christian to Do? (1998) by Steve Russo. An opposing viewpoint is found in The Magic Eightball Test: A Christian Defense of Halloween and All Things Spooky (2006) by Lint Hatcher.
3. ^ ^{a b} Reece, Kevin (2004-10-24). "School District Bans Halloween". KOMO News. http://www.komonews.com/news/archive/4136266.html. Retrieved on 2006-09-14. 
4. ^ "Halloween Comes to America". A&E Television Networks. http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=715&display_order=1&sub_display_order=2&mini_id=1076. Retrieved on 2008-11-12. 
5. ^ Nicholas Rogers, "Samhain and the Celtic Origins of Halloween," Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 11-21.
6. ^ Hutton, Ronald (1996) Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0192880454
7. ^ Danaher, Kevin (1972) The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs Dublin, Mercier. ISBN 1-85635-093-2 pp.190–232
8. ^ Campbell, John Gregorson (1900, 1902, 2005) The Gaelic Otherworld. Edited by Ronald Black. Birlinn Ltd. ISBN 1-84158-207-7 pp.559-62
9. ^ Arnold, Bettina (2001-10-31). "Halloween Customs in the Celtic World". University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. http://www.uwm.edu/~barnold/lectures/holloween.html. Retrieved on 2007-10-16. 
10. ^ Simpson, John; Weiner, Edmund (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (second ed.). London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861186-2. OCLC 17648714. 
11. ^ Danaher, Kevin (1972) The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs Dublin, Mercier. ISBN 1-85635-093-2 pp.190–232
12. ^ "Halloween and the jack-o-lantern". Witchway.net. http://www.witchway.net/hallows/jack.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
13. ^ History of the Jack O'Lantern, Pumpkin Nook
14. ^ Skal, David J. (2002). Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween. New York: Bloomsbury, 34. ISBN 1-58234-230-X.
15. ^ Nicholas Rogers, "Halloween Goes to Hollywood," Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 103-124.
16. ^ Hal Siemer, Spooky Halloween: A Celebration of the Dark, QuestMagazine.com.
17. ^ Steven Heller. Halloween: Vintage Holiday Graphics. Taschen. 2005.
18. ^ Grannis, Kathy; Scott Krugman (September 20, 2006). "As Halloween Shifts to Seasonal Celebration, Retailers Not Spooked by Surge in Spending" (HTML). National Retail Federation. http://www.nrf.com/content/default.asp?folder=press/release2006&file=halloween06.htm. Retrieved on 31 October 2006. 
19. ^ Beauchemin, Genevieve; CTV.ca News Staff (2006-05-31). "UNICEF to end Halloween 'orange box' program". CTV. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060530/unicef_orange_060530?s_name=&no_ads=. Retrieved on 2006-10-29. 
20. ^ "Halloween Party Game Ideas" Kidzworld.com. Retrieved on 2009-03-17.
21. ^ "Halloween Party Game Ideas" Kidzworld.com. Retrieved on 2009-03-17.
22. ^ ^{a b} Associated Press (2005-10-30). "Haunted house business getting frightfully hard". MSNBC.com. MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9855272/. Retrieved on 2008-11-18. 
23. ^ Greg Ryan (2008-09-17). "A Model of Mayhem". Hudson Valley Magazine. http://www.hvmag.com/Hudson-Valley-Magazine/October-2008/A-Model-of-Mayhem/. Retrieved on 2008-10-06. 
24. ^ Wilson, Craig (2006-10-12). "Haunted houses get really scary". USAToday.com. http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2006-10-11-haunted-house-main_x.htm. 
25. ^ Nicholas Rogers, "Razor in the Apple: Struggle for Safe and Sane Halloween, c. 1920-1990," Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 78-102.
26. ^ "Urban Legends Reference Pages: Pins and Needles in Halloween Candy". Snopes.com. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/mayhem/needles.asp. Retrieved on 2008-10-31. 
27. ^ "Bishop challenges supermarkets to lighten up Halloween" (HTML). www.manchester.anglican.org. n.d.. http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr9106.html. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. 
28. ^ "Halloween and All Saints Day" (HTML). newadvent.org. n.d.. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01315a.htm. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. 
29. ^ "Reformation Day: What, Why, and Resources for Worship" (HTML). The General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church. 2005-10-21. http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=15084&loc_id=9,612,32,52. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. 
30. ^ ^{a b} "Feast of Samhain/Celtic New Year/Celebration of All Celtic Saints November 1" (HTML). All Saints Parish. n.d.. http://allsaintsbrookline.org/celtic/samhain.html. Retrieved on 2006-11-22. 
31. ^ Halloween’s Christian Roots AmericanCatholic.org. Retrieved on October 24, 2007.
32. ^ ^{a b} "Salem 'Saint Fest' restores Christian message to Halloween" (HTML). www.rcab.org. n.d.. http://www.rcab.org/Pilot/2004/ps041105/saintfest.html. Retrieved on 2006-10-22. 
33. ^ ""Trick?" or "Treat?"—Unmasking Halloween" (HTML). The Restored Church of God. n.d.. http://www.thercg.org/articles/totuh.html. Retrieved on 2007-09-21. 

Further reading

• Diane C. Arkins, Halloween: Romantic Art and Customs of Yesteryear, Pelican Publishing Company (2000). 96 pages. ISBN 1-56554-712-8
• Diane C. Arkins, Halloween Merrymaking: An Illustrated Celebration Of Fun, Food, And Frolics From Halloweens Past, Pelican Publishing Company (2004). 112 pages. ISBN 1-58980-113-X
• Lesley Bannatyne, Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History, Facts on File (1990, Pelican Publishing Company, 1998). 180 pages. ISBN 1-56554-346-7
• Lesley Bannatyne, A Halloween Reader. Stories, Poems and Plays from Halloweens Past, Pelican Publishing Company (2004). 272 pages. ISBN 1-58980-176-8
• Phyllis Galembo, Dressed for Thrills: 100 Years of Halloween Costumes and Masquerade, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (2002). 128 pages. ISBN 0-8109-3291-1
• Lint Hatcher, The Magic Eightball Test: A Christian Defense of Halloween and All Things Spooky, Lulu.com (2006). ISBN 978-1847287564
• Ronald Hutton, Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain, Oxford Paperbacks (2001). 560 pages. ISBN 0-19-285448-8
• Jean Markale, The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year (translation of Halloween, histoire et traditions), Inner Traditions (2001). 160 pages. ISBN 0-89281-900-6
• Lisa Morton, The Halloween Encyclopedia, McFarland & Company (2003). 240 pages. ISBN 0-7864-1524-X
• Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Oxford University Press (2002). 198 pages. ISBN 0-19-514691-3
• Jack Santino (ed.), Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life, University of Tennessee Press (1994). 280 pages. ISBN 0-87049-813-4
• David J. Skal, Death Makes A Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, Bloomsbury USA (2003). 224 pages. ISBN 1-58234-305-5
• Ben Truwe, The Halloween Catalog Collection. Portland, Oregon: Talky Tina Press (2003). ISBN 0-9703448-5-6.

External links

Find more about Halloween on Wikipedia's sister projects: Definitions from Wiktionary

Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews

Learning resources from Wikiversity

• U.S. Census data about Halloween in the United States
• Feast of Samhain/Celtic New Year/Celebration of All Celtic Saints—Celtic Christianity
• Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal—Celtic Studies, Gaelic culture and religion
• Halloween at the Open Directory Project

v • d • e Halloween Main History · Symbols · Trick-or-treating · Activities · Around the world · Religious perspectives Traditions Apple bobbing · Food · Ghost tours · Costumes · Jack-o'-lantern · Trick-or-treating Events Bonfire · Brooke Hills Spooktacular · HalloWishes · Halloween Horror Nights · Halloween Horror Nights (Hollywood) · Halloween Horror Nights (Orlando) · Halloween Spooktacular (Orlando) · Halloween Spooktacular (San Diego) · Halloween in the Castro · Haunted Mansion Holiday · Haunted attraction · Headless Horseman Hayride · Howl-O-Scream · Howl-O-Scream (San Antonio) · Howl-O-Scream (Tampa Bay) · Howl-O-Scream (Williamsburg) · Knott's Halloween Haunt · Knott's Scary Farm · Mickey's Trick-Or-Treat Party · Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party · New York's Village Halloween Parade · Pumpkin Fest · Pumpkin queen · Rutland Halloween Parade · Shocktoberfest · Spinning tunnel · Terror Behind the Walls · Halloween in the Castro Media Television · Films · Books · Music:Albums · Songs Related Allantide · Beggars Night · Devil's Night · The Great Pumpkin · Hop-tu-Naa · Koroksun · Mischief night · Samhain Related Days and times All Saints

v • d • e Holidays, Observances, and Celebrations in the United States April Fools' Day • Arbor Day • Ash Wednesday • Black Friday • Christmas Day • Christmas Eve • Cinco de Mayo Columbus Day • Earth Day • Easter Sunday • Easter Monday • Election Day • Father's Day • Flag Day Good Friday • Groundhog Day • Halloween • Hanukkah • Independence Day • Kwanzaa • Labor Day • Leif Erikson Day Martin Luther King, Jr. Day • Mardi Gras • Memorial Day • Mischief Night • Mother's Day • New Year's Day New Year's Eve • Palm Sunday • Passover • Patriots' Day • Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day • Presidents Day • Ramadan Rosh Hashanah • Saint Patrick's Day • Super Bowl Sunday • Thanksgiving • Valentine's Day • Veterans Day • Yom Kippur

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Common misspelling(s) of Hallowe'en

• Hallowean

Dansk (Danish)
n. - allehelgensaften (31. okt.)

Nederlands (Dutch)
vooravond van Allerheiligen

Français (French)
n. - Halloween/veille de la Toussaint

Deutsch (German)
n. - Halloween (Abend vor Allerheiligen)

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - Παραμονή των Αγίων Πάντων (31 Οκτωβρίου)

Italiano (Italian)
vigilia d'Ognissanti

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dia (f) das bruxas (EUA)

Русский (Russian)
канун дня всех святых

Español (Spanish)
n. - víspera del Día de Todos los Santos

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - allhelgonaafton 31 okt.

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
万圣节前夕

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 萬聖節前夕

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 모든 성인의 날 전야, 만성제

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - ハロウィーン

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) عشيه عيد جميع القديسين, عشيه 31 تشرين أول‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮ליל כל הקדושים, 13 לאוקטובר‬

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