Halloween is widely celebrated in many countries.It is a celebration that occurs on October 31 and is an old festival dating back to Celtic times. It is not a Christian festival and mainly has its roots in various regions across the world.There are various facts behind the Halloween festival. It was first made famous by Irish immigrants who settled in the U.S. Pumpkin carving is one of the old rituals of Halloween traditions. It is said that on Halloween night evil spirits come and roam the earth in search of the souls of people. To keep people safe, these evil spirits were offered treats to keep away from people. This is how the tradition of trick or treating first began.Halloween is an ancient Celtic festival that has been celebrated for many years as a way to honor the dead, often with bonfires lit to mark their arrival on earth. Various countries practice different customs to celebrate Halloween and the term Halloween comes from the term All Hallows Evening. Halloween can also be called All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Hallows Day. One reason behind the pumpkin carving is that the celebration coincided with the harvesting festival. Though it is highly popularized in the United States of America, it is not a native festival of the U.S.A. It was widely celebrated in Scotland and Ireland and in the 19th century when the Scottish and Irish people migrated to North America, they settled in New Hampshire where they widely celebrated this festival. This piqued the curiosity of locals who also started celebrating it. The trick-or-treating tradition is not how it was originally celebrated, Americans have adapted it to make Halloween more exciting.Over the years, Halloween celebrations have become a very important part of American celebrations and culture. After the Christmas and New Year celebrations in December, Halloween is the second most popular festival celebrated. Halloween costume parties are incredibly popular, as are decorating houses in spooky ways. Carving pumpkins and setting up skeletons are just some of the Halloween traditions many American households enjoy and indulge in every Halloween.If you like this Halloween article, be sure to check out our other fun facts articles about Halloween then and now and discover why we celebrate Halloween in America.What Is The Mystery Of Halloween?Celebrating Halloween is sometimes disputed among different sectors of people. Some say that it is fun, some believe that it is an ancient pagan tradition, and some believe that it can actually be a very dangerous practice that brings forward real occult energy.There are many stories behind Halloween. At first, the festival was celebrated on November 1 and Samhain was the first name of Halloween. It was called All Saints Day in England, where people would pray for the deceased souls in their families. They had the concept of a halfway journey, where the souls would go halfway into the afterlife, and then through prayers, would go smoothly crossing the Earth. In some regions, Halloween marked the end of the harvest season. Fruits were cut in the season, and animals were slaughtered in order to please the Gods of the tribe. Contrary to popular belief, pumpkins were never a part of ancient Halloween traditions. Before 43 AD, when Romans captured many parts of Europe, the Celtics lived in Ireland, Scotland, and the neighboring countries. They worshipped different gods passed down from their ancestors. Their new year started from November 1, so they would mark the end of the year on October 31.The Origin Of The Term ‘Trick or Treat’Halloween is synonymous with the term trick or treat today, but that was not always the case.The origin of the term ’trick or treat’ goes back to a practice in England called guising. Guising was where kids and adults would dress up as souls of the deceased. They would wear scary costumes and wander throughout houses in the neighborhood on the evening of Halloween. They would then proceed to perform a song, or a joke, or some tricks. And in turn, they were rewarded with soul cakes, money, or candy. Guising was mainly a Scottish and Irish tradition, which then passed onto England. The term guising actually means disguise, because people disguise themselves as evil spirits. The term trick or treat was invented in North America, after seeing their fellow European immigrants celebrate Halloween. It has no real base in Halloween history. It retains some of the original guising values but is mostly considered a fun activity allowing kids to dress up, people to decorate houses, and hand out candy. This tradition became popular in England in the ’70s when American television highly popularised the concept of trick and treat. Many movies and TV shows showed the custom in a new light. The movie ‘E.T’ is said to be one of the most influential movies for people adopting trick or treat as part of Halloween.Trick or treating as part of Halloween is now seen as a time of joy. Schools organize trick or treating competitions during the day and kids wear spooky costumes. On Halloween night, whole neighborhoods participate in trick or treating and kids are given candy by the neighbors when they knock on their doors. Tricks were traditionally played on people in olden times when someone did not give a treat but this doesn’t usually happen today, with most families participating.Some More Halloween RitualsHalloween might have originated in Europe, but over the centuries it has gained massive popularity and acceptance around the world.Every country has taken its spin on the traditional ritual and added something of its own. In Japan, a festival similar to Halloween is celebrated in August. It does not have the trick or treats element, but respects the deceased in a solemn way. Lanterns are lit and floated in the air with the name of the deceased person and people pray for their souls. In Korea, a similar festival for praying for the deceased happens and the tomb of the deceased is visited by relatives. They bring rice and wine to the tomb and pray for their forgiveness. This tradition usually happens on the anniversary of a family member’s death. Barmbrack is an Irish tradition that forces kids to eat a cake that is covered with muslin wraps. The Irish believe it will predict the future of kids. Another tradition in the United Kingdom involves telling kids to look in a mirror in a dark room at night. They should stare into the mirror until they see the face of the person they are going to marry. The story goes that if they are supposed to die before getting married, a skeleton would appear in the mirror, instead of the face of their future spouse! In Germany, a week before Halloween, people hide their knives so as to not accidentally injure any ghosts. Beef and turnip carving into scary faces are also popular traditions. Peeling apples during Halloween is customary in Scotland. They believe that the peeled apple slice will form the name of the person you are going to marry. The Mexican Day of the Dead has also some similar traditions, in which they decorate temples with colorful skulls, to commemorate the dead.Candy corn is a famous treat during Halloween, as medieval people used to have candy corn for trick or treating. Corn was rarely produced in olden times but the corn fall harvest was in November. Candy corn was seen as a rare treat. One more Halloween fact is about Jack the Smith, also known as the Stingy Jack, who is the original legend behind jack o lanterns. The jack o lantern comes from Irish folklore.Weird Halloween StatisticsMany people buy excessive Halloween candy at this time of the year. Statistics have shown a sharp rise in the consumption of sweet treats with Americans spending over $6.9 billion on sweets. During Halloween, there are often costume competitions held to see whose costumes can be the most innovative and unique. Whole families often dress up, not just kids with many adults taking part in Halloween parties. Many people also extravagantly spend on their pets. It is estimated that kids eat about 3.4 lb (1.5 kg) of candies during Halloween. Roughly about 5000-6000 calories are consumed due to the consumption of calorie-rich sweet treats. In the United States, in some places, kids over the age of 12 years are banned from trick or treating and it’s seen to be the ritual only for kids under the age of 12 years. Some places even impose a heavy fine of $1000 on the families of kids older than 12 who participate.A full moon on Halloween can make it scarier, but there’s not a full moon every year and the last full moon on Halloween was in 2020. It depends on the moon cycle.A famous song called ‘Monster Mash’ was released before Halloween in 1962 and immediately became a huge hit. The sale of jack o lanterns is also at an all-time high during Halloween.Weird Halloween SuperstitionsHalloween rituals come with their own set of weird superstitions.Some people believe that if you see a spider during Halloween, then it means that your deceased relative is looking after you. Some people advise others to wear clothes inside out if they want to see a real ghost. The jack o’lantern also has folklore behind it. It was said that a man called Jack who lived in Celtic times wanted to trick the devil. The devil was angry with him, and after Jack’s death, he was abolished from both the gates of heaven and hell and was left to roam the earth as a lost soul. He carved a turnip and put a burning lump of coal inside it which the devil had thrown from hell onto him. He used it as a lantern to help him wander the streets at night. Originally, turnips were used and this tradition was followed. Later on, when the Irish and Scots immigrated to North America and turnips were hard to come by, they used pumpkins instead. Some people believe that lighting up the jack o lantern will guide lost souls to the afterlife. Carving scary faces into pumpkins is a relatively new addition by people, thinking that it will scare off the real evil spirits on Halloween night.Black cats are also often used as decorations for Halloween parties. The reason behind it is that black cats are considered to bring bad luck to people. In the medieval period, a witch’s familiars were said to be black cats. Satan was also supposed to roam on Earth in the form of a black cat. Many places still consider the crossing of a black cat in your path as bad luck and avoid taking that path.People believe that bats are also a very ominous sign during Halloween. They were also said to be related to witches and considered their familiars. It is said that if a bat enters a house on Halloween night, that the house is haunted by ghosts or spirits. Another superstition is that bats circling a house three times during Halloween meant that someone in that house would die soon. The cauldron which is famously used for collecting candies also has a history of its own. An old witch named Crone was supposed to be a pagan goddess. The goddess had a face very similar to the ones we use for witches. Old, haggard, warts on the face with a long pointy nose. The pagan Celtics believed that she had a cauldron in which she would stir the souls of dead people. The old souls would wait to be reborn and reincarnated, while the new souls would come inside it. The witch Crone was also called Earth Mother, or the Old One. The cauldron represented the womb of the Earth Mother. Modern stories of witches have replaced this and made witches’ pots look like boiling poisonous stew.Weird Occurrences That Happen During HalloweenHalloween is often associated with eerie and creepy things, with many unusual occurrences happening during Halloween.In the past few years, many important and unusual occurrences have happened during Halloween. In New Jersey, in 1938, there was a strange announcement on the radio stating Martians had invaded Earth. Everyone heard it and the broadcasters had no clue how the message got transmitted or who was responsible. There was hysteria among people and some people strongly believed the message was true.The famous magician Harry Houdini was also found dead in one of the weird occurrences of Halloween night. Harry Houdini was a world-famous illusionist and it’s believed that he died in mysterious circumstances. The story goes that an overeager fan punched him in the appendix twice. At first, he only felt pain but it increased so much that he was later hospitalized. Houdini ended up dying from a burst appendix.Cabbage night is known as the night before Halloween. Candy makers start selling candies from this day to celebrate the Irish legend festival and kids start to steal candy and play tricks the night before Halloween in some places. Jack o lanterns are sold everywhere. Horror movies are also seen as part of a ritual in some families, along with various pranks and magic tricks. Halloween costumes are also very popular. In the middle ages, people just used to make something scary with animal skins used as masks, but not now. Specialized Halloween costumes are sold and exclusively made for Halloween parties.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Halloween weird facts, then why not take a look at how did Halloween start? Or check out our article on the purpose of Halloween?
Halloween is widely celebrated in many countries.
