The story of Halloween

Halloween is October 31, the last day of the Celtic calendar. It was originally a pagan festival,
honoring the dead. Halloween is known as All Hallows Eve and dates back more than 2000 years.

All Hallows Eve is the night before All Saints' Day, which was created by Christians to convert
pagans, and is celebrated on November 1st. The Catholic Church honored the saints on this
appointed day.

Halloween origin

The Halloween culture goes back to the Druids, a Celtic culture in Ireland, Great Britain and
northern Europe. Roots was at Samhain's party, which every year was October 31 to honor the
dead.

Samhain means "end of summer" or November. Samhain was a harvest festival with huge sacred
bonfires, marking the end of the Celtic year and the beginning of a new one. Many of the practices
involved in this celebration were fueled by superstition.

The Celts believed that the souls of the dead roamed the streets and villages at night. As not all
spirits were considered friends, gifts and gifts were left to pacify the evil and ensure that next
year's harvests are plentiful. This custom evolved into trick-or-treating.

Samhain

"There was a belief that it was a day when the spirits of the dead would cross into the next world,"
Santino told Live Science. Similar moments of transition during the year have always been
considered special and supernatural, he added.

Halloween offers a safe way to play with the concept of death, Santino said. People dress like the
living dead, and fake gravestones adorn the front garden, activities that would not be tolerated at
other times of the year, he said.

But according to Nicholas Rogers, a history professor at York University in Toronto and author of
"Halloween: from the pagan ritual to the evening party," "there is no conclusive evidence that
Samhain was specifically dedicated to the dead or to the worship of the ancestors

"According to the ancient sagas, Samhain was the time when the tribal people paid tribute to their
conquerors and when the sidh [ancient mounds] could reveal the magnificent palaces of the gods
of the underworld," Rogers wrote. Samhain had less to do with death or evil than with the change
of seasons and the preparation for the latency (and rebirth) of nature when summer became
winter, he said.

Although there has never been a direct connection between Halloween and Samhain, many
scholars believe that because all Saints and Samhain are so close together in the calendar that
they influenced each other and then merged into the celebration now called Halloween.
 The origins of Halloween

Devotees say that celebrating is romantic and liberating: an opportunity to get dressed and have
fun. However, critics complain that the festival is a clear example of the dangers of forced revelry,
an excuse for morbid exhibitionism, a grotesque show that has been blatantly promoted. Some
even consider it as the embodiment of evil.

Halloween marked the beginning of the year and it was a moment "when the doors between this
world and the next were open"; it was a time of 'communion with the spirits of the dead, who, like
the wild winds of autumn, could freely roam the earth'.

The medieval Celtic festival held on the first of November was Samhain is a festival of the harvest,
and also to "the usual games", libations that are presented to the gods of the sea and other
sacrifices. That Christian festival has been known by several names, including All-Hallowtide and
Hollantide.