Halloween

For other uses, see Halloween (disambiguation).
"All Hallows' Eve" redirects here. For other uses, see All Hallows' Eve (disambiguation).
For the slasher multimedia franchise, see Halloween (franchise).
Halloween
A jack-o'-lantern, the carving and displaying of which is a Halloween tradition
Also called
  • Hallowe'en
  • Allhalloween
  • All Hallows' Eve
  • All Saints' Eve
Observed byWestern Christians and many non-Christians around the world[1]
TypeChristian, cultural
SignificanceFirst day of Allhallowtide[2][3]
CelebrationsTrick-or-treating, costume parties, making jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, divination, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions
ObservancesChurch services,[4] prayer,[5] fasting,[1] vigil[6]
Date31 October
Related toSamhain, Hop-tu-Naa, Calan Gaeaf, Allantide, Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, St. Martin's Day, Reformation Day, Mischief Night (cf. vigil)

Halloween, or Hallowe'en[7][8] (less commonly known as Allhalloween,[9] All Hallows' Eve,[10] or All Saints' Eve),[11] is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It is at the beginning of the observance of Allhallowtide,[12] the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.[3][13][14][15] In popular culture, the day has become a celebration of horror and is associated with the macabre and the supernatural.[16]

One theory holds that many Halloween traditions were influenced by Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain, which are believed to have pagan roots.[17][18][19][20] Some go further and suggest that Samhain may have been Christianized as All Hallows' Day, along with its eve, by the early Church.[21] Other academics say Halloween began independently as a Christian holiday, being the vigil of All Hallows' Day.[22][23][24][25] Celebrated in Ireland and Scotland for centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants took many Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century,[26][27] and then through American influence various Halloween customs spread to other countries by the late 20th and early 21st century.[16][28]

Popular activities during Halloween include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins or turnips into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling frightening stories, and watching horror or Halloween-themed films.[29] Some people practice the Christian observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead,[30][31][32] although it is a secular celebration for others.[33][34][35] Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.[36][37][38][39]

  1. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Fasting was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Halloween". Anglican Diocese of Worcester. 20 October 2020. Retrieved 2 November 2023. the word Halloween means 'holy evening' and comes from All Hallow's Eve? Traditionally it is the fast day before the feast days of All Saints (1 Nov) and All Souls (2 Nov) which are opportunities to celebrate the saints and remember those who have departed this life.
  3. ^ a b Hughes, Rebekkah (29 October 2014). "Happy Hallowe'en Surrey!" (PDF). The Stag. University of Surrey. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 November 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2015. Halloween or Hallowe'en, is the yearly celebration on October 31st that signifies the first day of Allhallowtide, being the time to remember the dead, including martyrs, saints and all faithful departed Christians.
  4. ^ "Service for All Hallows' Eve". The Book of Occasional Services 2003. Church Publishing, Inc. 2004. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-89869-409-3. This service may be used on the evening of October 31, known as All Hallows' Eve. Suitable festivities and entertainments may take place before or after this service, and a visit may be made to a cemetery or burial place.
  5. ^ Anne E. Kitch (2004). The Anglican Family Prayer Book. Church Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-0-8192-2565-8. Archived from the original on 25 January 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2011. All Hallow's Eve, which later became known as Halloween, is celebrated on the night before All Saints' Day, November 1. Use this simple prayer service in conjunction with Halloween festivities to mark the Christian roots of this festival.
  6. ^ The Paulist Liturgy Planning Guide. Paulist Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8091-4414-3. Archived from the original on 31 October 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Rather than compete, liturgy planners would do well to consider ways of including children in the celebration of these vigil Masses. For example, children might be encouraged to wear Halloween costumes representing their patron saint or their favorite saint, clearly adding a new level of meaning to the Halloween celebrations and the celebration of All Saints' Day.
  7. ^ Lindsay, Sandy (30 October 2023). "Hallowe'en is a spooktacular event for the Goodfellows". Saugeen Times. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
  8. ^ Max, Christina (26 October 2023). "Local haunted houses to explore this Hallowe'en". The Wetaskiwin Times. Retrieved 25 November 2023.
  9. ^ Palmer, Abram Smythe (1882). Folk-etymology. Johnson Reprint. p. 6.
  10. ^ Elwell, Walter A. (2001). Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Baker Academic. p. 533. ISBN 978-0-8010-2075-9. Halloween (All Hallows Eve). The name given to October 31, the eve of the Christian festival of All Saints Day (November 1).
  11. ^ "NEDCO Producers' Guide". 31–33. Northeast Dairy Cooperative Federation. 1973. Originally celebrated as the night before All Saints' Day, Christians chose November first to honor their many saints. The night before was called All Saints' Eve or hallowed eve meaning holy evening. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ^ "Tudor Hallowtide". National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. 2012. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Hallowtide covers the three days – 31 October (All-Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en), 1 November (All Saints) and 2 November (All Souls).
  13. ^ Davis, Kenneth C. (29 December 2009). Don't Know Much About Mythology: Everything You Need to Know About the Greatest Stories in Human History but Never Learned. HarperCollins. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-06-192575-7.
  14. ^ "All Faithful Departed, Commemoration of". Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  15. ^ "The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls' Day) - November 02, 2021 - Liturgical Calendar". Catholic Culture. Archived from the original on 1 November 2022. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  16. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference rogers_m was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Smith, Bonnie G. (2004). Women's History in Global Perspective. University of Illinois Press. p. 66. ISBN 978-0-252-02931-8. Retrieved 14 December 2015. The pre-Christian observance obviously influenced the Christian celebration of All Hallows' Eve, just as the Taoist festival affected the newer Buddhist Ullambana festival. Although the Christian version of All Saints' and All Souls' Days came to emphasize prayers for the dead, visits to graves, and the role of the living assuring the safe passage to heaven of their departed loved ones, older notions never disappeared.
  18. ^ Nicholas Rogers (2002). Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516896-9. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Halloween and the Day of the Dead share a common origin in the Christian commemoration of the dead on All Saints' and All Souls' Day. But both are thought to embody strong pre-Christian beliefs. In the case of Halloween, the Celtic celebration of Samhain is critical to its pagan legacy, a claim that has been foregrounded in recent years by both new-age enthusiasts and the evangelical Right.
  19. ^ Austrian information. 1965. Retrieved 31 October 2011. The feasts of Hallowe'en, or All Hallows Eve and the devotions to the dead on All Saints' and All Souls' Day are both mixtures of old Celtic, Druid and other pagan customs intertwined with Christian practice.
  20. ^ Merriam-Webster's Encyclopædia of World Religions. Merriam-Webster. 1999. p. 408. ISBN 978-0-87779-044-0. Retrieved 31 October 2011. Halloween, also called All Hallows' Eve, holy or hallowed evening observed on October 31, the eve of All Saints' Day. The Irish pre-Christian observances influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows' Eve, celebrated on the same date.
  21. ^ Roberts, Brian K. (1987). The Making of the English Village: A Study in Historical Geography. Longman Scientific & Technical. ISBN 978-0-582-30143-6. Retrieved 14 December 2015. Time out of time', when the barriers between this world and the next were down, the dead returned from the grave, and gods and strangers from the underworld walked abroad was a twice- yearly reality, on dates Christianised as All Hallows' Eve and All Hallows' Day.
  22. ^ O’Donnell, Hugh; Foley, Malcolm (18 December 2008). Treat or Trick? Halloween in a Globalising World. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 91–92. ISBN 978-1-4438-0265-9. Hutton (1996, 363) identifies Rhys as a key figure who, along with another Oxbridge academic, James Frazer, romanticised the notion of Samhain and exaggerated its influence on Halloween. Hutton argues that Rhys had no substantiated documentary evidence for claiming that Halloween was the Celtic new year, but inferred it from contemporary folklore in Wales and Ireland. Moreover, he argues that Rhys: "thought that [he] was vindicated when he paid a subsequent visit to the Isle of Man and found its people sometimes called 31 October New Year's Night (Hog-unnaa) and practised customs which were usually associated with 31 December. In fact the flimsy nature of all this evidence ought to have been apparent from the start. The divinatory and purificatory rituals on 31 October could be explained by a connection to the most eerie of Christian feasts (All Saints) or by the fact that they ushered in the most dreaded of seasons. The many "Hog-unnaa" customs were also widely practised on the conventional New Year's Eve, and Rhys was uncomfortably aware that they might simply have been transferred, in recent years, from then Hallowe'en, to increase merriment and fundraising on the latter. He got round this problem by asserting that in his opinion (based upon no evidence at all) the transfer had been the other way round." ... Hutton points out that Rhy's unsubstantiated notions were further popularised by Frazer who used them to support an idea of his own, that Samhain, as well as being the origin of Halloween, had also been a pagan Celtic feast of the dead—a notion used to account for the element of ghosts, witches and other unworldly spirits commonly featured within Halloween. ... Halloween's preoccupation with the netherworld and with the supernatural owes more to the Christian festival of All Saints or All Souls, rather than vice versa.
  23. ^ Barr, Beth Allison (28 October 2016). "Guess what? Halloween is more Christian than Pagan". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 15 October 2020. It is the medieval Christian festivals of All Saints' and All Souls' that provide our firmest foundation for Halloween. From emphasizing dead souls (both good and evil), to decorating skeletons, lighting candles for processions, building bonfires to ward off evil spirits, organizing community feasts, and even encouraging carnival practices like costumes, the medieval and early modern traditions of "Hallowtide" fit well with our modern holiday. So what does this all mean? It means that when we celebrate Halloween, we are definitely participating in a tradition with deep historical roots. But, while those roots are firmly situated in the medieval Christian past, their historical connection to "paganism" is rather more tenuous.
  24. ^
    • Moser, Stefan (29 October 2010). "Kein 'Trick or Treat' bei Salzburgs Kelten" (in German). Salzburger Nachrichten. Archived from the original on 17 March 2014. Retrieved 11 August 2017. Die Kelten haben gar nichts mit Halloween zu tun", entkräftet Stefan Moser, Direktor des Keltenmuseums Hallein, einen weit verbreiteten Mythos. Moser sieht die Ursprünge von Halloween insgesamt in einem christlichen Brauch, nicht in einem keltischen.
    • Döring, Alois; Bolinius, Erich (31 October 2006), Samhain – Halloween – Allerheiligen (in German), FDP Emden, Die lückenhaften religionsgeschichtlichen Überlieferungen, die auf die Neuzeit begrenzte historische Dimension der Halloween-Kultausprägung, vor allem auch die Halloween-Metaphorik legen nahe, daß wir umdenken müssen: Halloween geht nicht auf das heidnische Samhain zurück, sondern steht in Bezug zum christlichen Totengedenkfest Allerheiligen/ Allerseelen.
    • Hörandner, Editha (2005). Halloween in der Steiermark und anderswo (in German). LIT Verlag Münster. pp. 8, 12, 30. ISBN 978-3-8258-8889-3. Der Wunsch nach einer Tradition, deren Anfänge sich in grauer Vorzeit verlieren, ist bei Dachleuten wie laien gleichmäßig verbreitet. ... Abgesehen von Irrtümern wie die Herleitung des Fests in ungebrochener Tradition ("seit 2000 Jahren") ist eine mangelnde vertrautheit mit der heimischen Folklore festzustellen. Allerheiligen war lange vor der Halloween invasion ein wichtiger Brauchtermin und ist das ncoh heute. ... So wie viele heimische Bräuche generell als fruchtbarkeitsbringend und dämonenaustreibend interpretiert werden, was trottz aller Aufklärungsarbeit nicht auszurotten ist, begegnet uns Halloween als ...heidnisches Fest. Aber es wird nicht als solches inszeniert.
    • Döring, Volkskundler Alois (2011). "Süßes, Saures – olle Kamellen? Ist Halloween schon wieder out?" (in German). Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Archived from the original on 14 June 2011. Retrieved 12 November 2015. Dr. Alois Döring ist wissenschaftlicher Referent für Volkskunde beim LVR-Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte Bonn. Er schrieb zahlreiche Bücher über Bräuche im Rheinland, darunter das Nachschlagewerk "Rheinische Bräuche durch das Jahr". Darin widerspricht Döring der These, Halloween sei ursprünglich ein keltisch-heidnisches Totenfest. Vielmehr stamme Halloween von den britischen Inseln, der Begriff leite sich ab von "All Hallows eve", Abend vor Allerheiligen. Irische Einwanderer hätten das Fest nach Amerika gebracht, so Döring, von wo aus es als "amerikanischer" Brauch nach Europa zurückkehrte.
  25. ^ "All Hallows' Eve". British Broadcasting Corporation. 20 October 2011. Archived from the original on 28 October 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2020. However, there are supporters of the view that Hallowe'en, as the eve of All Saints' Day, originated entirely independently of Samhain and some question the existence of a specific pan-Celtic religious festival which took place on 31st October/1st November.
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference rogers_nw was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Brunvand, Jan (editor). American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2006. p.749
  28. ^ Colavito, Jason. Knowing Fear: Science, Knowledge and the Development of the Horror Genre. McFarland, 2007. pp.151–152
  29. ^ Paul Fieldhouse (17 April 2017). Food, Feasts, and Faith: An Encyclopedia of Food Culture in World Religions. ABC-CLIO. p. 256. ISBN 978-1-61069-412-4.
  30. ^ Skog, Jason (2008). Teens in Finland. Capstone. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-7565-3405-9. Most funerals are Lutheran, and nearly 98 percent of all funerals take place in a church. It is customary to take pictures of funerals or even videotape them. To Finns, death is a part of the cycle of life, and a funeral is another special occasion worth remembering. In fact, during All Hallow's Eve and Christmas Eve, cemeteries are known as valomeri, or seas of light. Finns visit cemeteries and light candles in remembrance of the deceased.
  31. ^ "All Hallows Eve Service" (PDF). Duke University. 31 October 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 31 May 2014. About All Hallows Eve: Tonight is the eve of All Saints Day, the festival in the Church that recalls the faith and witness of the men and women who have come before us. The service celebrates our continuing communion with them, and memorializes the recently deceased. The early church followed the Jewish custom that a new day began at sundown; thus, feasts and festivals in the church were observed beginning the night before.
  32. ^ "The Christian Observances of Halloween". National Republic. 15: 33. 5 May 2009. Among the European nations the beautiful custom of lighting candles for the dead was always a part of the "All Hallow's Eve" festival.
  33. ^ Hynes, Mary Ellen (1993). Companion to the Calendar. Liturgy Training Publications. p. 160. ISBN 978-1-56854-011-5. In most of Europe, Halloween is strictly a religious event. Sometimes in North America the church's traditions are lost or confused.
  34. ^ Kernan, Joe (30 October 2013). "Not so spooky after all: The roots of Halloween are tamer than you think". Cranston Herald. Archived from the original on 26 November 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2015. By the early 20th century, Halloween, like Christmas, was commercialized. Pre-made costumes, decorations and special candy all became available. The Christian origins of the holiday were downplayed.
  35. ^ Braden, Donna R.; Village, Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield (1988). Leisure and entertainment in America. Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. ISBN 978-0-933728-32-5. Retrieved 2 June 2014. Halloween, a holiday with religious origins but increasingly secularized as celebrated in America, came to assume major proportions as a children's festivity.
  36. ^ Santino, p. 85
  37. ^ All Hallows' Eve (Diana Swift), Anglican Journal
  38. ^ Mahon, Bríd (1991). Land of Milk and Honey: The Story of Traditional Irish Food & Drink. Poolbeg Press. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-85371-142-8. The vigil of the feast is Halloween, the night when charms and incantations were powerful, when people looked into the future, and when feasting and merriment were ordained. Up to recent time this was a day of abstinence, when according to church ruling no flesh meat was allowed. Colcannon, apple cake and barm brack, as well as apples and nuts were part of the festive fare.
  39. ^ Fieldhouse, Paul (17 April 2017). Food, Feasts, and Faith: An Encyclopedia of Food Culture in World Religions. ABC-CLIO. p. 254. ISBN 978-1-61069-412-4. Archived from the original on 31 October 2017. Retrieved 13 August 2017. In Ireland, dishes based on potatoes and other vegetables were associated with Halloween, as meat was forbidden during the Catholic vigil and fast leading up to All Saint's Day.