Does this mean leprechaun costumes are the most traditional? Image generated by DALL-E.
Trick or treat! You might think Halloween was dreamt up by candy factories and costume stores, but it actually originated from Ireland’s (September 4th’s Globle answer) Celtic pagan harvest festival, Samhain (pronounced sow-wen). Samhain is traditionally celebrated on October 31st – November 1st, the eve on which many Irish people believed the portal between our world and the other world opened before the beginning of winter. On Samhain, fairies, spirits, ghosts and banshees could cross over and cause mischief. Good spirits could also return to visit their families and loved ones.
So how did Samhain become the Halloween we celebrate today? Traditionally, Samhain was celebrated by lighting bonfires and carving turnips to ward off evil spirits, and donning costumes to avoid being recognized and snatched away to the other world. Early costumes included swapping clothes with another gender, wearing your clothes inside out, or making masks out of sheets. To keep spirits happy and at bay, people left out food and drink offerings, much like the candy we now give out to trick-or-treaters. It’s believed that Irish immigrants to the USA, especially during the great famine, brought these traditions with them, and over time the holiday slowly evolved into the one we recognise.
Samhain is 2000-2500 years old, and the name Halloween came closer to the eighth century, when Pope Gregory III designated November 1st as All Saints Day, and the eve before as “all hallows eve”, eventually becoming Halloween.
Other classic symbols of Halloween, such as the colours black and orange, are attributable to Samhain. Black represented the death of summer while autumn represented the harvest season. Bats were likely present at Samhain bonfires, to snack on insects that were attracted to the light. But there’s one Halloween classic that didn’t originate in Ireland, and that’s the ever-controversial candy corn. You can thank a candymaker from the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia for that invention! Or don’t. I won’t tell you what to do.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Halloween
https://www.wildernessireland.com/blog/origins-of-halloween-ireland-samhain/
https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2021/10/the-origins-of-halloween-traditions/