The Origins of Halloween
Why we dress like ghosts, monsters, and everything in between to celebrate an ancient Celtic holiday.
The name Halloween comes from All Hallows’ Eve, which precedes All Hallows’ Day. Hallows being an old English word for Saints. On Nov 1 the Catholic church, and others celebrate all of the saints, both known and unknown.
Why do we celebrate the day before this day and what does dressing up as ghosts, monsters, and sexy nurses have to do with anything?
Gregory III (possibly) dedicated the oratory on November 1st. An oratory is a place set aside for divine worship. The exact history of this is pretty unclear, but it is possible, perhaps likely that is why the date became All Saints’ Day. Some argue that, and I believe, after reading a book on Celtic history the date was choosing because of it corresponding to Samhain in Ireland, as Ireland was deeply part of Catholicism.
An interesting fact is that most of the Celtic mythology was only passed on orally and not written down until Christianity was established. Because of the native mythology come to us deeply intertwined with Christian doctrine. But has been often the case, many pagan holidays end up getting incorporated into Christianity. I would guess that if you are trying in get people who believe local gods to convert, it’s much easier to do that if they get to keep the holidays they are used to celebrating. It is believed that Samhain likely has origins dating back even further than the Celtics.
Celtics (people based in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany in France) believed during Samhain the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead became thinner and more perforable. The spirits that would come threw were appeased with feasts. The dead were thought to visit their old homes in this life. As a acknowledgement to this people would dress up as the dead and walk from house to house, reciting versus in exchange for food.
Sometimes pranks would be played as people were dressed up in costumes. I think it goes without writing how we got from that to what we now think of as Halloween. If you are interested in a lot more about Samhain, and Celtric mythology in general, there is a good book called Celtic Mythology: An Entrallling Overview of Celtric Myths, Gods and Goddesses by Billy Wellman, not known for his brevity in book title, but a good author nonetheless. There’s a rich world of different creatures and entities described in the book, from Gods to Leprechauns.