Scribd
Upload
104 views2 pages

October 31 Is Halloween and Is Now Celebrated in Many Countries Around The World

Halloween originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st. The Celts believed that on this night, ghosts of the dead returned and lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. In the 9th century, the Catholic Church established All Saints' Day on November 1st and All Souls' Day on November 2nd, and the traditions were continued the night before on October 31st, now known as Halloween. Over time, traditions such as carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating were added from both Celtic and Christian practices. Today, Halloween is widely celebrated in many countries but remains strongest in America.

Uploaded by

nana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
104 views2 pages

October 31 Is Halloween and Is Now Celebrated in Many Countries Around The World

Halloween originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st. The Celts believed that on this night, ghosts of the dead returned and lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off ghosts. In the 9th century, the Catholic Church established All Saints' Day on November 1st and All Souls' Day on November 2nd, and the traditions were continued the night before on October 31st, now known as Halloween. Over time, traditions such as carving pumpkins and trick-or-treating were added from both Celtic and Christian practices. Today, Halloween is widely celebrated in many countries but remains strongest in America.

Uploaded by

nana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

October 31 is Halloween and is now celebrated in many countries around the

world, but do you know anything about the origins of this scary special day?
Read the article and find out.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the article and do the exercises.
ShowPreparation

The origins of Halloween

If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of
fancy dress and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates
Halloween, you probably think of the United States first. Americans and Canadians have
adopted Halloween in a big way, but Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-
century Ireland, Scotland and England.

The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of
Samhain. Samhain was the Celtic New Year and they celebrated it on 1 November
because that was the end of summer and harvest time (life) and the beginning of
winter (death). It was also the time for ghosts to return to earth for a day. People lit a
big fire, wore special clothes made of animal skin and hoped to be safe from the ghosts
and the winter. In AD 609, the Catholic Church put the Christian celebration of All
Saints Day on 1 November. In AD 1000, the church added All Souls Day on 2
November, and All Hallows Eve – or Halloween – moved to the night of the 31st.
Pumpkins

The Celts carved faces into vegetables like turnips, potatoes and squash (a pumpkin is
a kind of squash) to scare the ghosts and other spirits and make them go away. It was
sometimes called a jack-o’-lantern because of an Irish story about a man, Jack. He
played a trick on the devil and then had to walk the earth for all time as a punishment.
Irish people who came to live in the United States in the 1800s found pumpkins much
easier to carve, and the tradition became the one we see today.   

Fancy dress

The Celts were afraid of the ghosts that came on Samhain. If they went outside after
dark, they covered their faces with masks. They hoped any ghosts they met would
think they were ghosts too and would leave them alone. In early America, the Native
Americans and the first Europeans celebrated the end of the harvest, but not
Halloween. When Irish people arrived, the harvest festival started to look more like
Halloween and it became popular across the country. In the late 19th century, people
tried to make Halloween less about ghosts and religion and more about celebrating the
season with a party for neighbours and family. That’s why Americans today wear all
kinds of Halloween costumes and not just scary things like witches and ghosts like in
other countries.

Trick or treat

This is another tradition that began in Europe, this time in England. When the church
introduced All Souls Day, rich people gave poor people ‘soul cakes’, a small cake made
with spices and raisins. It replaced the Celtic tradition of leaving food outside houses for
the ghosts. ‘Going a-souling’ was popular in England for hundreds of years until about
the 1930s. The Americans kept the tradition, but today children knock on people’s
doors and ask for sweets. Going trick or treating is so popular that a quarter of the
sweets for the year in the United States are sold for this one day.

The rest of the world

Halloween has become the United States’ second-biggest commercial festival after
Christmas. Halloween is also celebrated in other countries, but it’s not as big as in the
United States, even in the countries where the traditions began. Mexico celebrates the
Day of the Dead from 31 October to 2 November and some of its traditions, like giving
gifts of sugar skulls, are starting to mix with Halloween. In this way, the celebration of
Halloween continues to change as new traditions join the oldest of the Celtic ones.

You might also like