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((Since October 31st is drawing close, I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know how this great holiday started. It's a bit of a read but I hope most enjoy))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_and_folklore_of_Halloween

Halloween had its beginnings in an ancient, pre-Christian Celtic festival of the dead. The Celtic peoples, who were once found all over Europe, divided the year by four major holidays. According to their calendar, the year began on a day corresponding to November 1st on the modern day Gregorian calendar. The date marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The date marked both an ending and a beginning in an eternal cycle.

The festival observed at this time was called Samhain (pronounced Sah-ween or Sow-in). It was the biggest and most significant holiday of the Celtic year. The Celts believed that at the time of Samhain, more so than any other time of the year, the ghosts of the dead were able to mingle with the living, because at Samhain the souls of those who had died during the year traveled into the otherworld. People gathered to sacrifice animals, fruits, and vegetables. They also lit bonfires in honor of the dead, to aid them on their journey, and to keep them away from the living. On that day all manner of beings were abroad: ghosts, fairies, and demons—all part of the dark and dread.

Samhain became the Halloween of modern times when Christian missionaries attempted to change the religious practices of the Celtic people. In the early centuries of the first millennium A.D., before missionaries such as St. Patrick and St. Columcille converted them to Christianity, the Celts practiced an elaborate religion through their priestly caste, the Druids, who were priests, poets, scientists and scholars all at once. As religious leaders, ritual specialists, and bearers of learning, the Druids were not unlike the very missionaries and monks who were to Christianize their people and brand them as devil worshippers.

As a result of their efforts to wipe out "pagan" holidays, such as Samhain, the Christians succeeded in effecting major transformations in it. In 601 A.D., Pope Gregory I issued a now famous edict to his missionaries concerning the native beliefs and customs of the peoples he hoped to convert.[citation needed] Rather than try to obliterate native peoples' customs and beliefs, the pope instructed his missionaries to use them: if a group of people worshipped a tree, rather than cut it down, he advised them to consecrate it to Christ and allow its continued worship.

In terms of spreading Christianity, this was a brilliant concept and it became a basic approach used in Catholic missionary work. Church holy days were purposely set to coincide with native holy days. Christmas, for instance, was assigned the arbitrary date of December 25th because it corresponded with the mid-winter celebration of many peoples. Likewise, St. John's Day was set on the summer solstice.

Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion's supernatural deities as evil, and associated them with the devil.[citation needed] As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered evil worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The Celtic underworld thusly became identified with the Christian Hell.

The effects of this policy were to diminish but not totally eradicate the beliefs in the traditional gods. Celtic belief in supernatural creatures persisted, while the church made deliberate attempts to define them as being not merely dangerous, but malicious. Followers of the old religion went into hiding, branded as witches.

The Christian feast of All Saints was assigned to November 1st. The day honored every Christian saint, especially those that did not otherwise have a special day devoted to them. This feast day was meant to substitute for Samhain, to draw the devotion of the Celtic peoples, and, finally, to replace it forever.[citation needed] That did not happen, but the traditional Celtic deities diminished in status, becoming fairies or leprechauns of more recent traditions.

The old beliefs associated with Samhain never died out entirely. The powerful symbolism of the traveling dead was too strong, and perhaps too basic to the human psyche, to be satisfied with the new, more abstract Catholic feast honoring saints. Recognizing that something that would subsume the original energy of Samhain was necessary, the church tried again to supplant it with a Christian feast day in the 9th century. This time it established November 2nd as All Souls Day—a day when the living prayed for the souls of all the dead. However, once again, the practice of retaining traditional customs while attempting to redefine them had a sustaining effect: the traditional beliefs and customs lived on, in new guises.

All Saints Day, otherwise known as All Hallows (hallowed, i.e. sanctified or holy), continued the ancient Celtic traditions. The evening prior to the day was the time of the most intense activity, both human and supernatural. People continued to celebrate All Hallows Eve as a time of the wandering dead, but the supernatural beings were now thought to be evil. The folk continued to propitiate those spirits (and their masked impersonators) by setting out gifts of food and drink. Subsequently, All Hallows Eve became Hallow Evening, which became Hallowe'en—an ancient Celtic, pre-Christian New Year's Day in contemporary dress.

This was the conventional interpretation of the holiday's history, since the 19th century, however, more recent scholarship has called this into question.

Many supernatural creatures became associated with All Hallows. In Ireland, fairies were numbered among the legendary creatures who roamed on Halloween. An old folk ballad called Allison Gross tells the story of how the fairy queen saved a man from a witch's spell on Halloween.

O Allison Gross, that lives in yon tower
the ugliest witch in the North Country...
She's turned me into an ugly worm
and gard me toddle around a tree...

But as it fell out last Hallow even
When the seely [fairy] court was riding by,
the Queen lighted down on a gowany bank
Not far from the tree where I wont to lie...
She's change me again to my own proper shape
And I no more toddle about the tree.

Trick-or-treating

Trick-or-treating is the most widely recognized Halloween tradition. It is an activity for children in which they proceed from house to house asking for treats such as candy with the question, "Trick or treat?" Trick-or-treating is done with children donning Halloween costumes and it is one of the main traditions of Halloween. It has become socially required that if one lives in a neighborhood with children to purchase candy in preparation for trick-or-treaters.

Trick-or-treating declined in the late 1970s and early '80s with the tainted candy scare. Hospitals even got involved offering free x-ray scans of Halloween candy. This turned out to largely be an urban legend and trick-or-treating is making somewhat of a comeback.

Halloween decorations

Yard and house decorations, which once were the purview almost solely of the Christmas holiday, are greatly increasing as spending for Halloween continues to climb. Where once it was difficult to find outdoor decor for Halloween, these items are now commonplace. Sheets made to look like ghosts, jack-o'-lanterns, and other ghastly ghouls are favorites. The Halloween equivalent of Christmas lights, primarily in orange, are becoming increasingly a seasonal fixture. In addition, many more homes are now featuring haunted houses. It is no longer a rarity for homeowners to spend large sums of money on Halloween decorations.

Creatures traditionally associated with Halloween

Creatures that are traditionally associated with Halloween fall into three categories, although not necessarily into just one of them. There are the mythical creatures from folklore that have come to be connected with the holiday. Then there are creatures from fiction that are now thought of in relation to Halloween. Finally there are actual creatures that are related to Halloween, although often their relation is established through folklore.

One of Halloween's mythical creatures is a ghost. This is a creature that has a strong connection to the original pagan holiday of Samhain. Another is a ghoul. Ghouls are foul beings that haunt graveyards. Vampires are also prevalent. A vampire is an animated corpse, one of the undead. For it to continue to live it must drink human blood. A werewolf is a human who has been placed under a curse, usually by being bitten by another werewolf, and during a full moon they turn into werewolves. A Halloween witch is a female who engages in magic and casts spells. The male version is generally referred to as a 'warlock' or a 'wizard'.

Wow. Very informative. I saved it on word for any possible future projects for school I may conduct. It'll be a great help.

Back in Ireland they used to carve turnips. But after many moved to the United States, they were able to get their hands on pumpkins and found them to be much better to make jack-o-lanterns.

How interesting! Well written, too!

I'd read of Samhain one other time, I don't think I understood it very well though. This was very enlightening, also on the part of why Christmas is on the 25th, one of the most interesting parts of the article. Nice work!