The History of Halloween
Halloween is a tradition celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. It is celebrated in parts of the Western world, though most commonly in the United States, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Puerto Rico, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated among the Celts in Ireland, Britain and France as the Pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. Irish, Scots, Calan Gaeaf in Welsh and other immigrants brought versions of the traditions to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.
The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows' Day" (also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldom used today, it is still a well-accepted label. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions, until Pope Gregory III moved the old Christian feast of All Saints Day to November 1 to give Halloween a Christian interpretation . Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.
Halloween is often associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches, Irish tales of the Sídhe).
Trick or Treat
The main event of modern US-style Halloween is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in costume disguises and go door-to-door in their neighborhood, ringing each doorbell and yelling "trick or treat!"
In Ireland, great bonfires were lit throughout the breadth of the land. Young children in their guises were gladly received by the neighbors with some "fruit, apples and nuts and of course sweets" for the "Halloween Party", whilst older male siblings played innocent pranks on bewildered victims.
In Scotland, children or guisers are more likely to recite "The sky is blue, the grass is green, may we have our Halloween" instead of "trick or treat!". They visit neighbours in groups and must impress the members of the houses they visit with a song, poem, trick, joke or dance in order to earn their treats. Traditionally, nuts, oranges, apples and dried fruit were offered.
In England, trick or treating does take place much, particularly in working class neighbourhoods. On the whole, however, it is frowned upon as a form of begging and as a negative part of American global culture.
Halloween Snippets
Halloween is also know by other names:
All Hallows Eve
Samhain
All Hallowtide
The Feast of the Dead
The Day of the Dead
Halloween in Welsh is 'Nos Calan Gaeaf'.
Halloween is correctly spelt as Hallowe’en.
Black cats were originally believed to protect witches' powers from negative forces.
A pumpkin is really a squash, and comes from the same family as the cucumber.
About 99% of pumpkins sold are used as Jack O' Lanterns at Halloween.
The biggest pumpkin in the world tipped the scales at a whopping 1,446 pounds. This gigantic gourd was weighed in October 2004 at a pumpkin festival in Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada.
The record for the fastest pumpkin carver in the world is Jerry Ayers of Baltimore, Ohio. He carved a pumpkin in just 37 seconds!
The very first jack o' lantern was made out of hollowed out turnips.
Ringing a bell scares evil spirits away.
If you see a spider on this night, it could be the spirit of a dead loved one who is watching you.
To meet a witch, put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night.
Halloween links
LiveScience.com - What Halloween is Really About
Homeowner's Mom Takes Down Controversial Halloween Display
Halloween guinea pig.
Old Haunts: Happy Blogoween!
Pumpkins on Flickr part of the Pumpkins pool
Halloween Puzzles and Worksheets for Teachers
How Do You Keep a Jack O' Lantern From Rotting?
Halloween Hangman
Pumpkin Stencils
Pumpkin Carving With Klingons. And a cat
1970's Halloween Makeup Kits
Scary Stories
Halloween - Theopedia. Various Christian views of the holiday.
Turing pumpkin
MAKE: Blog: Pumpkin computers!
Make Your Own Halloween Costume - Free Creative Halloween Costume Ideas
Instructions On How To Make A Pumpkin Computer
Halloween Pumpkins
Squirl: Jack O' Lanterns Collection
Halloween origins and customs
Tower of Terror, Haunted Mansion, and More!- at the Disney Experience.
Online Pumpkin Carving (via)
Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time (via)
13 REAL Haunted Places That Will Make You Cry for Mommy
Halloween Soda
Aurora Monster Models
Halloween's Occult Connection An extensive study of the roots of Halloween
Vintage-style paper masks
Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time
World’s Largest Pumpkin
Halloween Photography Tips
Phyllis Galembo: 100 years of Halloween costumes and masquerade
Creative Halloween Suits
U. S. Census facts about Halloween in the United States
Halloween Box
Pumpkin Carving and Free Pumpkin Patterns Patterns
Five Funny Halloween safety tips
ExtremePumpkins.com - Extreme Pumpkin Carving
Halloween Recipes
The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XVII. Make your own episode.
Devil's tramping ground. Great interactive Flash game.
Origami Pumpkin Face
Carve Your Own Halloween Pumpkin
Halloween: Around The World
Halloween History: the Real Origins
Halloween - Old Vintage Antique Postcard Postcards
Realistic plane crash Halloween display
Halloween Food Art with Pepperoni
Halloween Costumes for your I-Pod
Halloween Tattoos
Biblical Proof Indicating That Jesus Was Born On October 31st
How to Crash Satan's Birthday Party and Ruin Halloween
One from the archives Make Your Own Trick or Treat Star Wars Style Masks
A Successful Halloween Supper Party
"Bewitched" Mechanical Witch
Pumpkin Case Mod
Halloween Projects
Pet Costumes
Pumpkin Carving and Pumpkin Carving Patterns for Halloween
Building a Robotic Dalek Pumpkin (via)
Pumpkin Stencils
Jack-O-Lantern and Witch Models
Pickled jack-o-lantern
Pumpkin Carving Gallery
Vintage Halloween icon set
Halloween 99 on Castro Street
The History of Halloween
Bat Pop-up
Pumpkin Diorama and Witch hat. Click green forward arrow for the witch hat.
AT-AT Costume Halloween 2005 - a photoset on Flickr
Carve a Virtual Pumpkin
Halloween Hangman
Pumpkin Carving 101
National Retail Foundation statistics on Halloween includes the 2005 Top Kids' and Adults Costumes.
Mechanical Bat
WFMU's Beware of the Blog: An Aural Halloween Trinity: Scar Stuff, Arch Oboler, Reverend Frost. More free music.
Free full-length horror films on BitTorrent.com
Calling All Fiends - Halloween at Oddio Overplay. Free music.
'South Park' mocks Steve Irwin here is the video clip South Park: Steve Irwin Halloween Costume or the full episode South Park: 10x11, Hell on Earth 2006
Blogosfear. Turning German bloggers into zombies.
Simple Halloween Origami
Witch Pop-up
Late Extras
Halloween pic dump
Lego Minifig Halloween Costume
Top 10 Haunting Halloween Cocktails
Creating Ghostly Images
Halloween Squirrel
Worth1000 - Director's Mother's Cut (Making horror safe for kids)
Balloon Manor - An interactive haunted house, made completely from balloons (via)
Get in the Halloween Spirit with your very own Jobs-O-Lantern
Ghosts of Halloween: Extended Arms and Hands
Science of scare
Rotting Pumpkin Time Lapse Video
Old Time Horror Radio
The book of clones and possessed children
Google Halloween Logo 2006
YouTube - 1929 October Halloween dance (via)
If you can stomach any more Halloween then check out this link Halloween - Wikipedia which is where I got some of the text from for this post.
Thanks to Paper Forest, Boing Boing, Neatorama and Milk and Cookies amongst others for some of the links in this post.
0 comments:
Post a Comment