What Do We Know About The Origin Of Halloween?
The name Halloween means “Hallowed, or holy, evening”. For some reason this holiday has become very popular. It is the most liked holiday of the year and is celebrated with great enthusiasm in many countries.
It falls on 31st of October and is a festival to enjoy autumn, like May day, the festival to celebrate spring. The Druids were the religions priests in ancient. Gaul, Britain and Ireland. The ancient Druids celebrated autumn festival, beginning at midnight on October 31st and lasted through the next day, 1st of November.
It was their belief that the great god for death, Saman, called all wicked souls on this-night, who had died during the year and whose punishment had been to take up life in the bodies of animals. The very idea of gathering was adequate to frighten the simple minded people. People lit fires and kept awake looking for the evil spirits. The idea of witches and ghosts for being around on Halloween sprang. Some people in isolated parts of Europe still believe this.
The Romans also had a holiday on or about the 1st of November. They celebrated it in honour of their goddess Pomona. The roasted Nuts and apples before great bonfires. Our Halloween seems to be a combination of the Roman and Druid Festivals.
Originally the celebration of this festival used to be simple and only in church. All over Europe, people looked for this occasion as an opportunity for having fun and excitement. They told terrifying tales to scare each other. People instead of devoting to autumn celebrations observed the holiday devoted to supernatural, to ghosts and to witches.
Some curious customs sprang up in connection with Halloween young girls who “ducked” for apples on this night could see their future husbands if they slept with the apple under their pillow. Stealing gates, furniture, signs, etc. is done to make people think, that, they were stolen by evil spirits. No one goes close to cemetery on Halloween because of the fear of the spirits that rise up on that night. Now we use their superstitions as a way of having fun on Halloween.
