where does halloween come from?
i know that nowadays halloween is just a big commercial thing, but where did it come from?
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It was orginally called All’Hallows’eve.
It was a Pagan holiday,
http://www.neopagan.net/Halloween-Origins.html
November 1 is All Saints’ Day to Catholics. October 31 is the eve of it and also called All Hallows’ Eve. This was shortened to Hallowe’en. Witches, ghosts, devils, etc. were said to have a festival then.
Its true origins, even underlying All Saints’ Day, is the pre-Christian Irish feast of Samhain (pronounced like Sow-inn). The name means "summer’s end", as the Irish word for summer is "samradh". It is a feast celebrating both the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new one, although the day itself belonged to neither the old year nor the new. Because of its status as being kind of outside the calendar, it was seen as an "in-between" time, and so spirits from the other world could freely pass into this one, or the fairy folk were said to be particularly active. This is where the spooky nature of our modern Halloween came from, arriving in the tales and beliefs of the Irish immigrants as they came to America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the Christian calendar, the commemoration of the dead was changed into commemoration of those souls who were said to be certainly in Heaven–the Saints. Their souls were hallowed–holy– and so the day of November 1st became known as All Hallows’ Day. The evening before it was All Hallows Eve, or Hallow E’en in some dialects. And in more modern usage, All Hallows’ Day has become All Saints Day, but the feast is the same. But it is all based on the original Irish celebration of Samhain.
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in).
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints’, All Saints’, and All Souls’, were called Hallowmas.
All Hallows Eve: its a festaval where everyone would dress up all scary to scare a way evil spirits.
This article is about the holiday. For other uses, see Halloween (disambiguation).
Halloween
Hallowe’en
A jack-o’-lantern
Also called All Hallows Eve
All Saints’ Eve
Samhain
Hallowed End
Observed by United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Canada, sometimes Australia and New Zealand and many Latin American countries where it is known as Noche de las Brujas (Night of the Witches)[1]
Type Religious, Cultural (celebrated mostly irrespective of religion)
Significance There are many sources of Halloween’s significance
Date October 31
Celebrations Trick-or-treating, ghost tours, Bobbing for apples, Costume parties, Carving jack-o’-lanterns, Bonfires and Fireworks (in Ireland)
Look up Halloween in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.Halloween, or Hallowe’en, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31.[1] Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and carving jack-o-lanterns. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several parts of the Western world, most commonly in Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom and occasionally in parts of Australia and New Zealand.