Interesting Facts About Halloween

The facts about Halloween are fascinating. Traditionally Halloween is celebrated on the last day of October with eerie ghost tours, colourful costume parties and crackling bonfires. 

The origin of Halloween can be traced to the Irish immigrants to North America who are credited to have brought with them their Halloween myths and customs.

Halloween is the time for reading spine chilling stories and watching Halloween horror movies. Towards the end of the late 20th century, other countries in Europe began to observe the festival as a holiday. It is celebrated with gusto also in Canada, UK, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and even in some regions of Australia.

The facts about Halloween go back to an ancient Celtic festival – Samhain. In Gaelic culture it is observed towards the close of the harvesting season and marked the Celtic New Year. This was the time when the pagans stored supplies, including slaughtered livestock, for the approaching cold months.

The Gaels had the belief that on this day of 31st October the fine boundaries between the living and the dead break down. It causes the dead to visit those who are alive and spell danger to them.

They spread disease and damage to the farm stocks. Thus crackling bonfires were lit and the flames were fed with sacrificed animals. The people put on masks and costumes to mime the denizens of the nether world to pacify them.

Halloween comes from the term meaning the eve of All Hallows Day or All Saints Day. Pope Gregory III and Pope Gregory IV shifted the Christian festival of All Saints Day held on 13th May to 1st November. The Feast of Lemures, another pagan festival was held on 13th May.

 Another tale behind the tradition of the pumpkin is that just before the Irish migrated to America there was a great famine in their homeland. In the New World during harvest time they found a surfeit of pumpkins and this called for a celebration. The pumpkin tradition took roots some time around the middle of the 19th century.

The facts about Halloween are related to fun, fear and frolic. The pumpkin is the most popular symbol. It is carved into a gruesome grinning face and is animated by the placing of a candle inside it. This is known as the Jack-O-Lantern. In Celtic days skulls were used instead of the pumpkin!

The name Jack refers to tales about a stingy Irish farmer who was also a greedy guzzler and reckless gambler. This daredevil Jack tricked the Devil to climb a tree and then kept him trapped there by notching a cross across the trunk of the tree.

In return the Devil cursed Jack saying that the fellow would eternally roam the face of the earth with the only source of light he had at that time – a candle inside a hollow pumpkin.

This story lives in the heart of Irish descendants and has become today a source of fun at Halloween time. The hard and realistic facts about Halloween are that jumbo-sized pumpkins are readily available in plenty in North America. It makes carving easy. Many keep the pumpkin monster on their doorsteps.

American filmmakers and writers quickly took on the idea of Halloween celebrations and soon stories wound around death, black magic and mythical monsters.

Halloween festival became dotted with ghosts and ghouls, witches, bats and vampires grappling with owls and crows for attention. Also in the fray were black cats, spiders with clawing nets, goblins with spells and a host of mummies, demons, rattling skeletons and cold cruel zombies. The facts about Halloween will send shivers down the spine.

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