Wattmag is back in our fourth issue! This October, we tackle Fantasy and Halloween with everything from the truth behind some of our favorite Halloween myths, awesome book reviews, and advice on how to kill off book characters! We've got you covered...
Halloween is a favorite time of year around my house, and it seems America agrees. It is the second largest commercial holiday after Christmas. What does that mean? It means a lot of people love Halloween and their empty November wallets prove it. Between candy, decorations, pumpkins and costumes, we're shelling out the cash and celebrating big time. But how we celebrate and why just may surprise you. In this article I take a stab at Halloween, the history, the traditions, and some crazy things you probably didn't know.
If you have Sanhainophobia--an intense persistent fear of Halloween--you just may want to skip this, because we're diving deeper than the apple bucket here and getting to the roots of 'Why Do We Do That?!'
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Halloween History
According to folklorist John Santino Halloween today is a combination of pagan and religious rituals with a spin. Halloween itself dates back to 4,000 bc which means it's over 6,000 years old (talk about history, someone throw me some candy corn!)
Halloween, for the most part came from came from the "All Hallows Eve" celebration by the Celtics at a festival held on Nov 1 of each year called Samhain (pronounced sah-win). This is when people gathered together to celebrate the end of the harvest season. It was believed it was a sacred day when the souls got to make the passage to other worlds allowing people a window of opportunity to communicate with them.
When the Irish flooded America they brought with them the Celtic tradition of Halloween and we still celebrate it today.
Trick
Halloween used to be all about the tricks. Youngsters tipped over outhouses, opened farmers gates to free livestock, and egged houses to get out their inner 'devils'. In the 1920's it got to be such a nuisance that people started handing out sweet treats to keep the youngsters from causing so much havoc. While tricking has become more popular on Oct. 30 now, (we in the states call this devil's night) it's lessened its hold on Halloween night thanks to the goodness of bribery!
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Treat
Did you know a quarter of all the candy sold in the US in a year is for Halloween? Now that's a sweet tooth! Trick or Treating in America dates back to around World War 2 when kids went out begging for food for the Thanksgiving feasts. According to history it's been around a lot longer than that and was called "souling" - which is where the poor disguised themselves, and would beg for food in exchange for agreeing to pray for the families that gave it to them. Usually the homeowners would give a sweet homemade bread called "soul cakes".
