Trick or Treat

1970 Words A festival at harvest time goes back nearly 3,000 years. October 31st was the last day of the year in the pagan calendar and there were three reasons for celebration. It was time to say good-bye to Summer, welcome Winter and remember the dead.

Every October 31st children in America dress up in macabre costumes and proceed ritualistically with their age old custom of “trick or treat.” Bobbing for apples at parties, carving out turnips and pumpkins to make lanterns and illuminating them with burning candles.

In recent years this children’s ritual has spread across the Atlantic to the UK and the Halloween celebrations seem to be getting more popular as each year passes. Orange and black are the dominant colors to decorate rooms at Halloween parties, reflecting the colors of the costumes worn.

But why do we associate these colors with October 31st and why do children celebrate as they do? Just how did this pagan ritual become such a celebration today and how did it all begin?
The American periodical Common Boundary dates the beginning of Halloween to between 1000 and 10 BC and the Celtic Druid priests. It was the time of the year when Baal, the Celtic god of Spring and Summer, ended his reign and that of Samhain, the feared Lord of the Dead, began.

This date has had many names. Samhain, November Eve, Nutcracker Night, so-called because youngsters put nuts in the hearth to see if their sweethearts were true to them ( if the nuts burned gently all was well but if they burst open the sweetheart was untrue) and now, in later years, Halloween (All Hallows Eve). But no matter which name is used the same ritualistic beginnings apply to them all.

Between Two Worlds

Celtic mythology that it is the time when the universe is suspended. The dividing line between the quick and the dead is removed, allowing all divine beings and spirits to move freely among men – to interfere in their affairs, sometimes with mischief and violence.

Samhain was known to the Druid priests as the god of the dead and on the evening of October 31st and during the day of November 1st he would control all spirits of the dead. He would allow them to lie peacefully at rest or make them frantic, frightening everyone in the world.

On the night of October 31st, Samhain would assemble all souls who had died that year and place them into the bodies of animals to punish them for their sins. The greatest sinners were placed were placed in the bodies of the lowest animals. Thus, during this time of the Druids festival, the spirits of the dead put great fear into the hearts of men and women.