Halloween a holiday recognized on October 31 of each year Which typically includes functions such as costume parties, trick-or-treating, making jack-o'-lanterns from pumpkins, bobbing for apples, playing pranks, attending haunted attractions, watching horror films and telling scary stories.
Although some folklorists have determined its origins began with the Roman's feast of Pomona, a goddess of seeds and fruits, or even the festival for the dead often known as Parentalia, it's more often tied to the Celtic Samhain festival, having a spelling originally as Samuin. The festival name historically retained by the Celts and Gaels from the British Isles, a
derivations from the Old Irish and roughly means "summer's end".
Although, according to English folk lore: "Samhain was a period of festive get-togethers, while medieval Irish accounts and later on, Welsh,, Irish and Scottish folklore used it as a backdrop for encounters of the supernatural, however there's no substantiation that it was ever connected to the dead during the pre-Christian era, or that any pagan religious rituals were ever held.
The Irish myths that mention Samhain are writings by Christian monks during the 10th through 11th centuries . This was around 200 years subsequent to the Catholic church inaugurating All Saints Day although a minimum of 400 years after Ireland be converted into to Christianity.
Derivation of Halloween
The word Halloween was first used during the 16th century is a Scottish variation of All-Hallows-Even ("meaning evening"), the night prior to All Hallows Day. Although the All Hallows phrase is described in the Old English (ealra halgena mæssedæg, mass-day of all saints), All-Hallows-Even is itself was not indicated until 1556.
 Halloween Symbols
The formation of symbols connected with Halloween developed over time. For example, sculpting jack-o'-lanterns from pumpkins stems from the souling tradition of sculpting turnips to lanterns as a form of recollecting the souls being held in purgatory. The turnip was traditionally used in both Scotland Ireland during Halloween, however North American immigrants made use of the native american pumpkin, which is readily available and quite a bit larger making them much easier to sculpt than turnips. The American pumpkin carving tradition was recorded in 1837 and was initially generally tied to harvest time, while not specifically becoming linked to Halloween until the middle-to-late part of the19th century.
Halloween imagery comes from a large number of sources, including Gothic works, national customs, classic horror movies (like Frankenstein & The Mummy). pluss horror literature (like the novels Dracula and Frankenstein). Some of the earliest literatute about Halloween comes from John Mayne a Scottish poet in 1780, who noted Halloween pranks; "What fearfu' pranks ensue!", along with the night associated supernatural "Bogies" (ghosts), having an influence on Halloween 1785 by Robert Burns, autumn season elements, like scarecrows. corn husks and pumpkins, are also widespread. Homes are typically decorated with these symbols types during Halloween.
Halloween images may includes themes of evil, death, mythical monsters and the occult. Orange and Black are the traditional colors of the holiday.
Trick-or-treating costumes and disguises
Customarily celebrated by children on Halloween is trick-or-treating. Children dress in costume and go one house to another, seeking treats like candy or at times money, by asking, "Trick or treat?" The "trick" word generally refers to a (typically without merit) "threat" to so some sort of mischief to the homeowners or of their property if they provide no treat. In some regions of Scotland the children still go in disguises. In this custom a child carries out some type of trick, like. singing a song or telling a ghost story, in order to deserve a treat.
The custom of dressing in costume and begging from one door to another for holiday treats goes back to the customs of the Middle Ages which also includes Christmas wassailing. Trick-or-treating remains similar to the practice of souling during the late medieval times, when poor people would go from one door to another on the day of Hallowmas (November 1), being given food in return them praying for the dead during the day of All Souls' (November 2). this tradition began in both Britain and Ireland, however similar routines for souls of the dead subsequently were discovered as south as the country of Italy. Shakespeare referred to the custom in his (1593) comedy, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, when Speed point the finger at his master for "puling [whining or whimpering] like a beggar during Hallowmas."
In both ireland and Scotland, children dressed in costume disguises going from one door to another for food or money is a
Halloween custom, and was first recorded in Scotland during Halloween in 1895 when disguised masqueraders carrying lanterns made from scooped out turnips, went homes to be compensated with fruit, cakes, and money. The Guising practice during Halloween in Northern America first went on record in 1911, when a newspaper from Kingston, Ontario reported that children were "guising" in the neighborhood.
The initial book length account of the Halloween holiday within the U.S; called "The Book of Hallowe'en" written in (1919), makes reference to souling in a chapter called "Hallowe'en in America"; written by author and American historian Ruth Edna Kelley from Massachusetts.
Although the initial reference to North American "guising" appeared in 1911, another mention of a Halloween begging ritual is mentioned, although the location is unknown, in 1915, a third mention in Chicago during 1920
The earliest acknowledged print use of the phrase "trick or treat" appeared in 1927, in Blackie, Alberta, Canada:
Hallowe’en offered an opportunity for strenuous fun. No bona fide damage resulted except to tempers of several who had to search for gates, barrels, wagons. wagon wheels, etc., most of which became decorations on the main street. The youthful harassers were at front and and back doors demanding edible pillage by the phrase "trick or treat" which the inmates
obligingly responded to and sent the trick or treater's away rejoicing.
While thousands of postcards depicting Halloween were printed between 1900 and the 1920s typically show children although do not show trick-or-treating. Thousands of cards mentioned the trick-or-treating tradition or depict children at front doors in costumes, although many were were printed subsequent to the 1920s and typically even in the 1930s. Tricksters of various types are depicted on the earlier postcards, although not the appeasing methods. Trick-or-treating did not seem to become a pervasive observance until the 1930s, and the initial U.S. appearance of the phrase in 1934, while the first usage in a nationwide publication occurred in 1939
Halloween Costumes
Halloween costumes are typically patterned after supernatural beings such as skeletons, monsters, devils witches and and ghosts. In due course, the costume choices extended to comprise of popular characters from celebrities, fiction, and other generic archetypes like princesses and ninjas
Dressing in costume and going "guising" became widespread in Scotland during Halloween by the end of the 19th century. Costuming became fashionable for Halloween parties within the US during the first part of the 1900s, occurring as frequently for adults as they did for children. The earliest Halloween costumes that were mass-produced began appearing in stores during the 1930s as trick-or-treating had become popular in the U.S.
Halloween costume parties most often occur around, or on 31 October, typically occurring on a Friday or Saturday just prior to Halloween.
UNICEF and Halloween
"Trick-or-Treating for UNICEF" has turned into a common occurrence in North America during Halloween. Beginning as a neighborhood event in 1950 in a Northeastern Philadelphia neighborhood and expanded nationally by1952, the program comprises of
distributing boxes by a school or corporate sponsors such as Hallmark, at their official stores for trick-or-treaters, by which they can then solicit small-change contributions from homes they visit. An estimated excess of $118 million has been collected for UNICEF by children since it began
Games and Other Pursuits
In a Halloween greeting card printed 1904, insight is depicted by a young woman peering into a mirror within a darkened room in hopes of catching a quick look at her future husband s face. Several games are customarily connected with Halloween parties. One traditional game is called dunking or bobbing for apples, where apples are floating in a large basin or tub of water while the participants need to employ their teeth to grasp an apple out of the tub. A variation of dunking entails kneeling upon a chair, and grasping a fork between their teeth and attempting to let the fork drop into an apple. Another traditional game entails hanging up syrup-coated scones or treacle using strings; they must be consumed without using hands as they stay attached to a string, an endeavor that predictably leads to a really sticky face.
Some games commonly played Halloween games are divination forms. A traditional Scottish style of divining a future spouse is by carving an apple into a very long strip, then through the peel over your shoulder. The peel is supposed to land using the form of of a future spouse's first name letter. Unmarried women were led to believe that if they took a seat in a dark room and glimpsed into a mirror during Halloween night, their future husband's face would show up in the mirror. However, if their destiny was to die prior to marriage, then a skull would be present. The custom was prevalent enough to be depicted on greeting cards printed in the late part of 19th century and the early part of the 20th century.
Another game or superstition that was practiced during the early 1900s had to do with walnut shells. People would write down fortunes on white paper using milk. After the paper was dry it as folded and placed inside walnut shells. As the shell became warm, the milk would become brown allowing the writing to appear on what seemed to be blank paper.
Fortune teller was also played by people would also play. The object of this game was to cut symbols from paper and place them on a platter. A person would then go into a dark room and put their hand onto a piece of ice and then place it upon a platter. Their "fortune" would then stick to their hand. These paper symbols included such items as: button-bachelorhood, dollar sign-wealth, clothespin- poverty, thimble-spinsterhood, umbrella- journey, key-fame, rice-wedding, good luck 4-leaf clover, caldron-trouble, penny-fortune, and ring-early marriage.
Viewing horror films and the relating of ghost stories have become common
occurrences at Halloween parties. TV Episodes of Halloween-themed specials (while the specials are typically pointed at children) are traditionally aired during or before Halloween, while new horror movies are typically released in theatres before Halloween to benefit from the atmosphere.
 Haunted Entertainment
Haunted attractions are forms of entertainment businesses created to both scare and thrill fans. Most Halloween attractions are seasonal venues. Origins of these compensated scare sites are not easy to pinpoint, although it's most often agreed that they were traditionally first employed by members of the Junior Chamber (Jaycees) for fundraising. They may include corn mazes, hayrides and haunted houses, while the sophistication and the effects level has increased as the venues have grown. Haunted Halloween attractions in the U.S. bring in an estimated $300 to $500 million every year, and attract an estimated 400,000 customers, however press sources in 2005 hypothesized that the scare industry had peaked at that time. This growing maturing within the business has led up to more technically-sophisticated special effects and costume design, becoming comparable to that of Hollywood productions.
Halloween Food
Because the holiday occurs during the time of the annual harvesting of apples, candy apples (called toffee apples outside of North America), taffy or caramel apples are traditional Halloween treats created by rolling entire apples in a tacky sugar syrup, occasionally followed up by subsequently rolling them in some kind of nuts.
At one point in time, candied apples were traditionally handed out to children, however the practice rapidly declined during the wake of prevalent rumors that a few individuals were embedding things such as razor blades and pins and into the apples. While there is some evidence of such occurrences, they are extremely rare while never producing serious harm. Nonetheless, numerous parents have assumed that such shocking practices were rampant due to the mass media attention. At the height of this hysteria, some hospitals provided no cost X-rays of the children's "takes" of Halloween as a way to discover evidence of such tampering. Virtually every one of the few well known candy poisoning episodes consisted parents who poisoned the candy of their own children.
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