Have you trivia hounds wondered where our Halloween traditions come from?
As Halloween nears, we’re preparing for our last weekend of the Haunted Hollywood Hunt, a five-year tradition at Out of the Box Events. And that’s made us wonder where the rest of our Halloween celebrations come from. We’ve seen some smiling faces, some great costumes, and we’re looking forward to our final weekend before turning our sights to our Thanksgiving Weekend Santa Monica hunts, our “Silver Bells and Golden Gossip” Rodeo Drive hunt amid the holiday decorations, and our privately booked holiday parties.
But no need to speed through the last few spooky, scary, Halloween-y days. Let’s take a look at the “spirit” behind this holiday!
Halloween has its roots in a Celtic celebration called called “Samhain,” a festival to recognize the end of summer. The Celts believed that the veil between this world and the next was thinnest at this time of year, and that the souls of loved ones could return to walk among the living.
These visiting souls could take human form and even dress as beggars to ask for money or food at your door. Those who turned them away empty-handed risked being haunted or cursed. Some people dressed up as ghosts and ghouls so that the deceased wouldn’t try to take their souls. These two Celtic traditions converged in the tradition of trick-or-treating.
The Jack-o’-lantern may have its roots in the Irish story of Stingy Jack, a man who, after he died, was turned away by both Heaven and Hell and forced to walk the earth for eternity. The Devil gave him a coal to light his way, which Jack put inside a turnip to make a lantern to guide his lost soul. When the Irish immigrated to North America during the Potato Famine of 1846, they were introduced to the pumpkin as a new-world turnip substitute.
In the Middle Ages, some people believed that bats could be witches’ familiars. They also believed that if a bat flew around a house three times, someone in that house would soon die. Also, if a bat flew into a house on Halloween, it was a sign that the house was haunted because the ghosts must have let it in.
The tradition of bobbing for apples is a fortune-telling game. Unmarried people would try to take a bite out of an apple either hanging on a string or floating in a pail of water. The first person to succeed in biting the apple was believed to be the next to marry.
Spookily yours
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