Halloween
October 13, 2009 – 4:58 pm
Halloween is celebrated on 31st October as an annual holiday. Its roots lied in, All Saints’ Day, a sanctum day for christens, and Celtic festival of Samhain. Some people have squeezed strong emotions perceived religious overtones. During Ireland’s Great Famine of 1846, the Irish nomads carried the version of convention to the continent of North America.
Halloween has its origin in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Celtic feast of Samhain is celebrated as “Celtic New Year”. It is celebrated at the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. On this festival, the ancient Celtic pagans, stock their supplies, and kept them as massacred livestock for winter stores. The ancient Celts had a belief that on this day, the demarcation between this world and the other world disappeared, and the dead became precarious to the livings, by causing sickness to the living, and destroying their crops. On the festival of Halloween, bonfires were frequently implicated, and the bones of the massacred livestock were thrown in the fire. Many costumes and mask were worn on the festival of Halloween, on the account of imitating the evil, and conciliate them. In Scotland, young men’s wearing masks, with blackened faces and wearing white clothes try to caricature the evil spirit.
The word Halloween is the short form of, All Hallows’ Eve, which arose from the English word, eallra h?lgena ?fen, which has a meaning, “All Hallow’ Evening”. As Hallowe’en is the Eve of “All Hallows’ Day”, so, it is also as All Saints’ Day. Halloween is celebrated as a sacred festive day in various northern European pagan traditions, up to the time of Popes Gregory IV and Gregory III. They shifted “The All Saints’ Day” from May 13 (which itself had been the bate of pagan holiday i.e. the Feast of The Lemures) to the date, November 1. The ancient church of 9th century, measured the day as commencing at dusk. In the present time, The Saints’ Day is celebrated on the next day of the Halloween. However, the ancient time, both of them were celebrated on the same day.
On the day of Halloween, Trick-or-treating is accustomed celebration for the children. Children wear different dresses, move outside from their home, and ask for a treat, like candy, by saying these words, “Tricks or treat.” By the word “trick”, the children refer to some wreckage of property, to the homeowners. On the festival of Halloween, children love to dance and sing songs.
Halloween is celebrated as a tradition to startle the devils and evil spirit. So, the theme of dresses will be based on “horror”. So the dresses will be those of monsters, ghosts, skeletons and affiliated character.
Halloween parties are famous for their games. There are large numbers of the game played on this day. One of the common games is bobbing or dousing, in which participants try to remove the apple from the basin with their teeth. Another variant apple bobbing or dunking is also very famous. In this variant, the participant sitting on the chair, and holding fork in their mouth, tries to put that fork into the apple. Another communal game involves, hanging up donuts or treacle by strings, and then ingesting them without using, your hands. There are large numbers of game played as prophecy. A common game named Puicíní, is played in Ireland. In this game, the player is blindfolded, by tying a same cloth around his eyes, and then several saucers are placed on the table, in front of him. Then the saucers are shuffled, and he has to choose one saucer. The content in the saucer will conclude the future course of his life.
A festival is incomplete without food. Halloween is famous for taffy apples or caramel. This sweet is prepared by rolling the whole apple, in the adhesive sugar syrup. Baking of Barnbrack, is the custom that even prevailed in the modern Ireland. It is a light fruit cake, which is placed along with coins and rings, before baking.
With its origin in Celtic refinements, the festival of Halloween is not celebrated around the globe. It is celebrated in the countries following Celtic cultures, or by the countries, which have some convention or religious belief, attached to this festival. Nevertheless, Halloween is a great festival with its entire source in the religious and traditional beliefs.
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