HALLOWEEN IS A RICH, COLORFUL HOLIDAY (10-2002)

It’s Halloween—a time for handing out treats to the kids, dressing 
up in all manor of ghoulish apparel, and perhaps playing a 
harmless prank or two on a friend.

Halloween is an ancient observance, stemming from Celtic New Year 
celebrations.  The name derives from “All Hallows’ Eve,” because 
November 1 is All Hallows’ (Saints’) Day—a Catholic observance.  
It was brought to America in the 1840s by Irish immigrants fleeing 
their country’s potato famine. 

Today’s Halloween pranks, which are discouraged in all forms, take 
the form of soaping windows and tossing toilet paper rolls into 
homeowners’ trees.  In the 1840s the favorite pranks in New 
England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates. 

Although pranks are discouraged, the custom of allowing kids to go 
door to door to get candy and treats is still called trick-or-
treating, because of the custom of “tricking” the person who 
refused to give a treat.

The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not 
with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom 
called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians 
would walk from village to village begging for “soul cakes,” made 
out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes 
the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to 
say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it 
was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after 
death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul’s 
passage to heaven. 

Carving scary faces on pumpkins, which are then lit with candles, 
is also a very old tradition.  The Jack-o-lantern custom probably 
comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, 
who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into 
climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the 
tree’s trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal 
with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would 
promise to let him down the tree. 

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied 
entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also 
denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, 
the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the 
frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip 
to keep it glowing longer. 

The Irish used turnips as their “Jack’s lanterns” originally. But 
when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were 
far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America 
was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember. 

Costume parties, trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples, face 
painting, and more recently decorating your yard and house with 
ghosts, scarecrows, and Indian corn are traditional activities 
that both kids and adults can enjoy.

Although a segment of society refuses to celebrate Halloween 
because of its dark imagery and pagan roots, Halloween is just 
another fun holiday with a rich and colorful history.  Happy 
Halloween!