On the night from October 31st to November 1st in many Anglo-Saxon countries, and now in most of the world, it is commemorated Halloween. This celebration has nothing to do with the Witches’ Night, although many people confuse them both and very often we hear somebody saying that the night of October 31st is the Witches’ Night. So, before we proceed with the history and some outstanding characteristics of Halloween, we are going to clarify this misconception.
Witches’ Night is a commemoration held in Germany. It takes place on the night from April 30th to May 1st (first difference with Halloween), its name, in German, is Walpurgis Nacht (literally, “Night of the Witches”) and the other main difference with Halloween is that on Walpurgis it is believed that witches and sorcerers meet wit the Devil himself and all of them indulge in a big orgy. Walpurgis is, therefore, a commemoration of something evil, for the result of that communion between the Devil and his followers is that the latter come out with a greater strength to do mean and destructive things, because the Devil gave them that force.
Halloween, instead, is the contraction of All Hallow’s Eve or Eve of the Innocents. This festival comes from the ancient celebration called Samman, where the Ireland, Wales, Scotland and French Celts commemorated the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter (let’s not forget that the Celts were in the Northern Hemisphere, so summer and winter begin on different days than in the Southern hemisphere).
The importance of that festival was that Celts believed that on that night a portal between the world of the living and the dead opened, and that the spirits of the dead came to seize the living and take them to the netherworld. That is why the druids, the Celt caste of priests, would pray for all the community and bonfires were lit to avert those spirits. Also, people left food and sweets at the doors, believing that the spirits would be contented with those presents and would leave without hurting the living. From here comes one of the outstanding features of this commemoration: the raids children, dressed in horrifying costumes (vampires, monsters) do, going from door to door crying “Trick or Treat” and expecting candy and other sweets from the owners of those houses, who have prepared in advance bowls containing all sorts of sweets to give the children who, obviously, represent those spirits we mentioned above but, contrary to popular belief, when they cry “Trick or Treat!” they are unknowingly rememorating a ghastly characteristic Celts believed the spirits had: they ate the newborn (the Innocents of the name) and the cry should actually be understood as “Trick (deception) or Treat (delicacy), because Celts believed that when they gave those presents to the spirits they were tricking (deceiving) them, to prevent them from eating the babies (treat, delicacy); in connection with this, another way to deceive the spirits into believing that they were taking infants and children was to bake gingerbread dolls that represented little children.
Finally the other outstanding feature of Halloween is the carved pumpkin with a burning candle inside. People call it Jack-o-Lantern. Where does this object come from?
According to tradition there was an Irishman called Jack. He was a mean man, a brawler and a swindler, but was very crafty and when the Devil came twice to claim his soul, Jack deceived him both times and made the Devil concede him more time to live. Jack, however, had to die eventually and his soul was not admitted by Heaven because he had been a really mean man. So Jack’s soul went to Hell, but the Devil would not accept it either because he thus had promised. Therefore, Jack’s soul was doomed to wander in the darkness forever. Jack complained that in the darkness he would not see where he was going, so the Devil tossed him a burning piece of coal to light his way back. Jack put it into a turnip to protect the coal from the wind and he also ate from that turnip, that was magic and no matter how much Jack ate, the turnip would grow again. When the first Irish immigrants came into North America they found pumpkins, which were larger and easier to carve and gradually replaced the proverbial turnips.
I hope you enjoyed the narration and, since Halloween also characterizes by telling horror stores, what do you say if you write a horror story of your own…?
And now, I go back to my crypt, eagerly awaiting for your stories that I’m sure will make my skin tingle…
Daniel Yagolkowski
