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Hallowe'en
The modern term Halloween (and its alternative rendering Hallowe'en) is shortened from "All hallow even" as it is the eve or evening of "All Hallow's Day". The word comes from medieval England's All Hallows' eve (in Old English hallow meant saint) which explains why this occasion is also known as All Saints' Day.
Held every year on the eve of October 31, it was a day of religious festivities and observed with traditional games and customs. Bonfires were lit to ward off evil spirits and offerings were made of dainty foods and sweets. Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaels believed that on this eve the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. Witches and other evil spirits were believed to roam the earth playing tricks on human beings to mark the season of diminishing sunlight. People would disguise themselves as one of the roaming spirits to avoid demonic harassment.
However, many of these customs predate Christianity and may have their origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (pronounced sam-hine ... hine sounds like mine). Samhain was celebrated on Nov 1 which was the beginning of winter and sometimes wrongly thought of as the "Celtic New Year". The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture. In Ireland it is known as Oíche Shamhna (pron: ee-hah how-nah), literally "Samhain Night".
Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of this tradition to North America in the nineteenth century and survivals of these early practices can be found in countries of Celtic influence today, such as the United States and Canada where children go from door to door in costumes demanding "trick or treat."
Compiled from info taken from
Wikipedia, Dictionary.com and Reference.com
