5 Interesting Halloween Facts!
Posted by VickyC on October 31st, 2009
With Halloween upon us, I’m sure most of you are busy decorating your homes, going out to buy some last minute candy or dressing up to go to a costume party. If not, maybe you are getting ready to disconnect your doorbell, so you won’t hear the trick-or-treating children coming to your home.
When you stop to think about the origins of this holiday, it’s difficult to believe that is has turned into such a consumer driven event. This halloween, take a moment to think back 2000 plus years, to what this holiday really meant to those who celebrated it.
Traditional Druid Halloween Ceremony
1. All Hallows Eve (or Halloween) dates back to the Celtic Druid religion in Ireland. It is one of the oldest celebrations as it dates back to around 200 BC. They believed that October 31 was the only night of the year where the spirit world and the living world could intermingle.
2. The Druid religion worshipped The Lord of Darkness – Samhain. Samhain reigned over the long, cold, dark winter months. His influence grew as the days got shorter, as he could only wander the earth in the hours of darkness. He would roam the earth looking for souls to take back to the world of darkness.
3. Pumpkin carving began as an Irish tradition. But instead of pumpkins, they would use turnips, potatoes, beets – basically anything that could be carved! Candles were placed inside the carved out vegetables to ward off evil spirits. When Irish immigrants arrived in America in the 1800′s, they discovered that pumpkins were easier to carve and also a lot bigger. Since then, pumpkins have been carved on Hallow’s eve.
4. People would light candles on All Hallows Eve to ward off the evil spirits that were roaming the earth. But the lights would also serve as a beacon to guide the spirits of loved ones back home.
5. Orange and black became the Halloween colours because orange is traditionally the colour of harvest and the fall (think carrot and pumpkin harvesting and golden leaves), and black is the colour of death.
With that being said, I wish you all an enjoyable Halloween! I’m off to watch Hocus Pocus and eat a ridiculous amount of candy!
!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE !!
Tags: Black, Candle, candy, carvings, celtic, Darkness, Druid, Eve, Halloween, Hallows, October 31, Orange, Origins, Pumpkin, Samhain, spirits
Excellent read, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile So let me rephrase that: Thanks for lunch!
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