Ah Halloween free candy
Jack-o'-Lanterns costume parties it really is a random holiday when you think about it
And it's only getting bigger in 2016 in the United States alone
Consumer spending for Halloween is expected to break the [all-time] record of eight billion
Dollars spent which includes the two billion dollars expected to be spent on costumes [and] though
We might think of this holiday as just candy and costume parties
Halloween is actually deeply intertwined with religious themes some Wiccan and Modern paganism groups celebrate it most famously in Salem
Massachusetts
Where the Salem witch trials occurred in the 17th century and some Christian groups worried of heightened?
Demonic activity during this time but this holiday is also super interesting to scholars of religion
Demons witches and monsters as all facets of human mythology they all fall under the purview of religious studies
But what is the religious history of Halloween?
What cultures influenced the rituals that we still practice today? And why do we celebrate it on October 31st anyway?
The Celtic Festival Sal [win'] is believed to be the predecessor of our contemporary holiday Halloween and yes?
It's pronounced [sow] and despite that spelling [Salan] was a seasonal holiday that was celebrated in Pre-Christian Ireland
Which really wasn't [christianized] until about the fourth or fifth century ce II it was celebrated from the evening of October 31st
Until the evening of November 1st. Which was considered the start of the [winter] season in the celtic calendar now?
We don't have much firm historical evidence for the holiday of [Salvan] much of what we know comes from the Irish Sagas of Celtic mythology
Written down in the ninth to twelfth century ce II these sagas were written down by Christian Monks
centuries after they were first told being passed down
Generation after generation through oral tradition and even when these monks finally wrote down these sagas they kind of embellished them with Christian
Christian characteristics, so it's very difficult to determine what is original and what has been christianized
But scholars such as folklore expert Jack Santino believe that these Sagas contain enough
Historically useful information to tell us about life in Pre-Christian Ireland these medieval
Sagas describe [Salvin] as some sort of day of heightened spiritual activity a day when it was believed that spirits
Fairies and even souls of the dead could more easily pass between the otherworld in our world the 12th century
Saga the boyhood deeds of [Fiown] for example says for the fairy mounds of Ireland were always open around sal
1/4 on [Sawa] nothing could ever be hidden in the fairy mounds here and elsewhere these medieval Sagas talk about
Portals opening between the Fairy realm and our world these could have been hills or caves that were thought to be
Passages between these two worlds [one] of the earliest rituals associated with sal one seems to have been the lighting of huge
Bonfires, we don't exactly know what they were meant [to] do but some scholars
Hypothesize the fires were meant to guide the spirits coming into the world or possibly to ward away
Harmful spirits these fires might have also been used as sites of divination where people could gather around and try to tell the future
In fact originally it seems that [salan] had a lot to do with storytelling
prophecy and divination and the medieval Saga the book of lismore for example a female fairy would appear on Salwa and tell all kinds of
Secrets now
We shouldn't pretend that Halloween is
100% influenced by Celtic culture [it] is important to say that the holiday that we celebrate is halloween is a Patchwork of traditions
Especially traditions borrowed from Christian Europe cultural historian, Dr.. Nicholas Rogers in his exhaustive history of Halloween
[rites] if so when imported to Halloween a supernatural charge and an
Intrinsic liminality it did not offer much in way of actual ritual practices
Most of these developed in conjunction with the medieval holy days of all souls and all Saints day
And he seems to be right many of the rituals that we recognize in Modern celebrations of Halloween
seem to come from a much later period
when Christianity have become the dominant [religion] in Europe some as early as the medieval period But others from the early modern period
like the 16th 17th and 18th
centuries first of all our word Halloween
Comes from an [allusion] of the title all hallows eve because it was the evening before the holiday all hallows day or all Saints day
[as]
celebrated by the Roman Catholic
church on November 1st as the name suggests all saints day was a day set aside to celebrate all [of] the saints in Christianity and
taken together with its partner holiday all souls day on [november] 2nd these holidays were an opportunity to pray for Newly departed souls or
The martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Christianity now some people say that the Roman catholic church chose november 1st to help Christian?
I saw one maybe to help convert the people of Ireland
But it's a little more complicated than this you see basically all
Christian groups in late antiquity in the early medieval period Had an all Saints day
But not all groups celebrated it on november 1st by the year 800 you had some Christian groups celebrating it on November 1st
mostly from the British isles in Germany
But Christian churches in Syria and Greece were celebrating it around
Pentecost in spring and summer so we can't exactly say that all saints day was invented specifically to christianize [salad]
It seems like by the time Christianity was a big deal in Europe most
Christian Groups had already invented their own holiday to celebrate dead saints
However some syncretism between Sowhen and all saints day might have occurred in the British isles in Western Europe in general for example an old
Irish calendar Written by a Christian monk from the 9th century still refers to November 1st as sal [win'] so the celtic holiday
Probably did [influenced] all Saints day
but this
Influence was [felt] more on the west than compared to other Christian groups throughout Europe and it's here in western Europe that all Saints day
Started to take on this carnival-like atmosphere
That we're more familiar with in Halloween by the 16th century
people in Ireland Scotland
And wales were dressing in costume to celebrate all Saints day
Possibly to try to trick spirits that they thought were floating around on that night people in england practiced something called
[souling] going from door to door asking for food in return for a prayer for the dead which is possibly a direct precursor
To our practice of trick-or-treat
But instead of candy [soling] seem to have included passing out special bread called soul cakes
One author writes in 1880 the Children go round to the houses
Early in late on all Saints day not on all souls day and sing Monotonous lea [dog] [rule]
The Lines vary a little with the groups of children 3 to [6] in a group and some of these Soler's would carry around little
Lanterns carved out of turnips these early jack-o'-lanterns were possibly thought to ward away harmful spirits
Or maybe to help symbolize a soul trapped in purgatory, [so] over the course of history
October 31st evolved from a celtic holiday that celebrates the changing of the seasons [and] the harvest to a Christian holiday
celebrating Dead Saints
but one thing stayed the same the thought that
October 31st was a day of heightened spiritual activity whether that be the fairies of Celtic mythology?
Or the demons of Christian theology, and I find this process really interesting. It's not just a simplistic story of church authorities
Forcing a christianized holiday onto a pagan holiday
But it's a more complex process involving a lot of communities religious systems and cultures
Remember the historical context of 18th Century Europe is very different from the historical context of Pre-Christian Ireland
Yes, it does seem that halloween originated from a pre-Christian holiday called sow [win']
But it grew and flourished during christianized Europe in the 16th 17th and 18th
Centuries in fact Nicholas Rogers who I quoted earlier thinks Halloween is just as much influenced by the Rowdy
Celebrations of guy Fawkes day on November 5th [as] it's influenced by [Sal] 1 so like I said
Halloween is a Patchwork of traditions with a very long and complicated history and a history that's deeply intertwined with Human Mythology and religion
But what are your thoughts are there any rituals surrounding?
Halloween that I missed what do you think about the possible syncretism between [sal] [wynn] and all Saints day leave your comments below and as
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I'll see you next time and happy Halloween