The Shocking Origins of Halloween

Halloween is a jovial event in our culture where both adults and children alike have an excuse to act silly for a night. It’s the time of year where youngsters dress up as the grim reaper and offer elderly residents a confusing ultimatum - “trick or treat?” The treat can be anything just as long as it falls within the category of sweets/candy, and having the sharp plastic of the mask dig into your fragile infants face was but a small price to pay in exchange for some sugary snacks.

Chomp’s, Curly Wurly’s, Dip Dabs, chocolate coins, these all constitute as legal tender in the yet to be written Halloween law. Items such as oranges, 10 pence pieces, fruit and travel mints did not qualify, and may have resulted in what is known as a “trick”.

A trick could be anything from a knock and run, to a bit of carefully placed silly string on the front door, to even full blown criminal damage, depending on how much of an inconsiderate adolescent you were.

However for the most part the trick element was said as more of a ceremonial necessity, rather than an actual option, if you just said “treat” when they opened the door, the person might ask why you aren’t saying the traditional phrase “trick or treat” instead. There’s something interesting about it. Perhaps people still want to hear the idle threat to satisfy some kind of internal nostalgia, whilst also not wanting any part of having to pick confetti out of the windscreen wipers of their car.

One of the more peculiar holidays, Halloween still remains incredibly popular in the U.S. In 2016, US consumers spent approximately 420 million U.S dollars on Halloween costumes for their pets. Because I mean, who wouldn’t want to see their Jack Russell dressed as a pumpkin right?

So how did all this begin and why has Halloween’s popularity continued to flourish in the modern age?

How It Started

Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain. The festival of Samhain was a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture.  The exact nature of Samhain is still not fully understood, but it is thought to be an annual meeting at the end of the harvest year. It was a time where the community would gather resources and animals for the winter months. It is believed that the festival of Samhain was also a time for communicating with the dead, where the Celts would attempt to access the spirit world through a variety of prayers and rituals.

Although a direct connection between Halloween and Samhain has never been proven, many scholars believe that because All Saints' Day (or All Hallows' Mass, celebrated on Nov. 1) and Samhain, are so close together on the calendar, they could have influenced each other and later combined into the celebration we now call Halloween.

Halloween in the Modern Day

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants including the Irish fleeing the potato famine in 1846. Americans began the "trick-or-treat" tradition by taking elements from the English and Irish cultures. For example the practice of “souling” involved people dressing up and going door to door on All Souls Day. They did this to solicit gifts of food in return for prayers for the dead – which was already being practiced all over Europe.

By the 1920s, however, pranks had become the Halloween activity of choice for rowdy youngsters, sometimes amounting to more than $100,000 in damages in major metropolitan areas. Of course the Great Depression helped fuel this mentality and by the 1930’s Halloween became even more popular among the American youth, who saw it as an opportunity to get something for free and thus helped carry the tradition of Halloween and trick or treating into the modern age.

A combination of all these elements and many others contributed to the formation of today’s Halloween as we know It, and the billion dollar industry is not about to budge anytime soon.

So whether you’re dressed as a slutty bunny or one of the many creatine fuelled douche bags going as the Hulk, just remember the festival of Samahin, it’s worth appreciating. Let’s all be grateful that we don’t have to go off in search for cattle just because “winter is coming” (Jon Snow voice) and let’s tuck into a toffee apple and a horror movie instead. Happy Halloween everybody! Now go scare the sh** of someone before it’s too late.