What is Halloween?
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Every year it's the same old story when the end of October arrives. Shop windows start to be decorated with fake cobwebs, pumpkins, witches or skeletons . And that's when we say to ourselves: "Oh yeah, but by the way, it's true that it will be Halloween at the end of the month!" You'll soon see people walking around the streets wearing original costumes !
Far from the traditional All Saints' Day, which the ancients scrupulously observed, this Halloween celebration advocates fun. I put the first part of this sentence in the past tense because I assume that most Catholics under 40 no longer go to the cemetery to lay flowers on their family's grave.
In this article, I'll explain how and where this Halloween holiday became global. I'll also tell you where it originated and why it looks the way it does today. I'll therefore provide answers to those who are wondering " What is Halloween? " 😊
Halloween is a Celtic festival from Ireland
Did you see how I killed the suspense just with that title? In fact, it's a big historical shortcut because the holiday has evolved a lot since then, but we have to clearly locate the starting point of Halloween .
Around 500 BC, a festival was celebrated by the Irish Celtic people who called it Samhain . I should point out in passing that the Celts were present in the United Kingdom as well as in France, Benelux, and Holland. The Celts of Ireland therefore had the custom of celebrating their dead for a day and a night.
It is worth noting that they believed they could communicate with their dead and thus elevate themselves spiritually, a bit like a kind of trance. According to them, relations with the afterlife were benevolent and it was a blessing to be able to communicate with deceased people.
It's an idea that might scare many of our contemporaries! However, we now understand Halloween and its references to the undead better.
In fact, the Celts had a significant event at each change of season:
- Spring, with nature awakening from winter, was celebrated with a festival called Imbolc
- The summer which marked the harvest period had its festival called Beltane
- Autumn and its trees losing their leaves and the cold that begins to arrive had an event called Lugnasad
- Winter and its icy cold punctuated by wind were therefore reserved for our famous Samhain festival.
The festival of Samhain marked the beginning of winter, which was also synonymous with New Year's Day for the Celts. For one night, the dead were allowed to communicate with their living relatives. The date was different each year because it was based on the lunar calendar, but it is estimated to have varied between late October and late November. Nowadays, if the date of Halloween changed every year, it would be commercially complicated...
I must point out that this Samhain festival was not optional. You could be punished with death if you thought of not wanting to attend! At the same time, given the festivities, you would have been wrong to want to deprive yourself of it because it was the occasion for a large banquet in each village around a huge fire. This may be reminiscent of the usual banquets in Asterix except that for the Celts, this festival was also the occasion for animal sacrifices.
The Celts sacrificed different animals depending on where they lived and their culture. In Ireland, it was mostly horses, while in France/Gaul the Celts preferred oxen. For Halloween , on the other hand, we tend to sacrifice packets of candy! 😁
In Celtic culture (and many others, for that matter) fire symbolized life, light, and warmth. In contrast, death was cold, inert, and in the dark. Villagers would let the fires in their homes burn out to let the dead come. The village druid would then light the large pyre in the center of the village. Once the festivities were over, each villager would take the embers from this hearth home with them to relight a new fire.
This ritual marked the welcoming of the dead for one night and a new beginning of life thereafter. It also symbolized the beginning of a new year, because remember that the festival of Samhain was also the New Year for the Celts. You can see that Halloween has picked up a few references here and there.
Christianization puts Halloween on hold
Everything went well for over 1,000 years until the Christianization of Europe became so widespread that it became the majority religion. To assert its supremacy at the time, one religion had to eradicate all others as much as possible. There was no question of tolerance for other beliefs, especially polytheists, whose adherents were considered pagans.
So in 610 AD, good old Pope Boniface IV declared that the Samhain festival was a pagan celebration. It was therefore banned, and our future Halloween was buried with it. More than 200 years later, Pope Gregory IV created a festival to celebrate their dead: the famous All Saints' Day. He created it in 835, but it wasn't until 1048 that its exact date, the first day of November, was determined.
The night of the last day of October was thus the eve of the holy night. In English initially "All hallow even" or even "All hallow's eve". Popular phrasing would eventually transform the expression into Halloween .
Halloween is coming to the United States
For almost 1000 years after the establishment of All Saints' Day , nothing much changed. The Irish had adopted the date of this new festival by force of circumstance but had still retained some traces of Samhain.
American history is a succession of waves of migration from different countries, particularly Europe. The country experienced a large influx of Irish and Scottish migrants during a great famine that decimated their population around 1840. As is often the case, people arrive with their traditions and customs, and Halloween was one of them. By default, communities also tend to remain grouped together in a new country, so some of their customs persist.
This is how Halloween took root on American soil. The Irish community had no trouble spreading this celebration, which is much more jovial than All Saints' Day, to the greatest number of people. Over the years, the original Celtic traditions adapted and evolved. The dead who came to visit the living were replaced by children. The dialogue between the world of the living and that of the dead ended up being reduced to "a trick or treat", " trick or treat" or simply the traditional Anglo-Saxon "Trick or treats", a mythical Halloween phrase.
It was initially to symbolize the dead that children were disguised by their parents. It is not for nothing that they are still today knocking on people's doors dressed as demons, monsters, vampires , witches, goblins, ghosts, etc. The dead, who were initially well-regarded, began to be frightening over time. This is why the more scary the Halloween costume , the better the reward can be!
Halloween in France
Needless to say, Gaulish is, by default, quite resistant to new things! 😆 The festival of Samain no longer has much to do with Halloween . It's quite funny, because the Celts of "France" also had this festival and seeing it return to their country as a commercial festival was not very well received.
Halloween arrived in the 1990s, but it took a long time to catch on. Even today, it's still far from being followed by the majority of people. This could be explained by two things:
- In the collective imagination, it's an American holiday. The chauvinist will say that it's a holiday from our distant ancestors that America has appropriated.
- It's a purely commercial holiday. Halloween means candy and sweets galore, decorations to buy, and an excuse to run special Halloween promotions.
However, this holiday is gaining ground every year. It's comparable to Black Friday, which was a huge flop when our retailers first launched it. Now, people are starting to get used to it.
If I'm being mean, I can even make the connection with... the Minitel!!! Younger people didn't know what it was, but it caused a delay in the French getting internet access. The Gaul is sometimes slow to catch on!
Yes, Halloween is a commercial holiday to encourage us to consume more over a given period, okay. But it's also an opportunity to see children having fun and joy lighting up their faces. Helping them dress up and do Halloween makeup is also part of the party. For the little ones, it can be a Halloween drawing or a Halloween coloring page .
Adults have also gotten into it, as I know several who organize a costume party for the occasion. There's still a big kid in all of us! Halloween is also a popular holiday! I don't know if you've noticed that Halloween is increasingly replacing Mardi Gras and allows adults to choose costumes that aren't necessarily scary.
As proof, the time of year when we sell our costumes the most is precisely Halloween . Here are a few:
The beer-themed suit with the 3-in-1: pants, jacket, and tie! Stay classy and show everyone your love of beer. Click on the photo to see it.
When we say "take a bottle," we can understand thinking we're a bottle! These two models are available by clicking on the photo.
You can swim in happiness, but you can also swim in beer and stay dry! Then dress up as a pint of beer!
For those who can't be bothered to wear a full disguise, just put your head in this beer mug balaclava!
Why pumpkins at Halloween?
In fact, it was our American friends who started this tradition because initially this cucurbit had nothing to do with Halloween !
If you've been paying attention (and I'm sure you have), Halloween comes from an Irish holiday. Irish immigrants came to settle in the United States with their tales and legends. One in particular was that of Jack-o'- lantern .
According to this tale, our good old Jack was a big, lazy girl who spent his time drinking and doing nothing else. One day, he had the brilliant idea of challenging the devil himself . The story doesn't say what happened to this challenge, but on the other hand, when Jack died, things got really complicated for him. Given the life he had led, no one wanted him in his death either.
Saint Peter had said no thanks, and so had Lucifer, aka Satan. As a result, he was banished from the only two places that could theoretically accommodate him! So Jack found himself having to wander like a poor soul in the limbo of nothingness.
But since Saint Peter is at least a bit nice, he granted him a candle so that he could have a minimum of light in his wanderings. To support this candle, he was given a turnip with its center emptied.
Halloween was an opportunity to make a reference to this legend and the tradition was established of digging turnips to place candles in them to guide him that night. But have you ever tried digging a turnip? There's something simpler, isn't there?! What could be better than a large vegetable like the pumpkin that grows in abundance in Uncle Sam's country!
Pumpkins also have the enormous advantage of being able to be carved and revealing faces or shapes thanks to the glow of the candle placed inside. The Halloween pumpkin has now become a must-have. Now you can show off at the next Halloween party by getting out your general knowledge!
Why skulls for Halloween?
Since the dawn of humanity, the human skull has been synonymous with death . As such, it is a source of inspiration and it is not for nothing that we see them appearing very regularly on old buildings, writings, pirate flags, etc. Death is frightening but also fascinating.
The parallel with Halloween was therefore obvious! A holiday that has a place with the dead? We'll have to find skulls, bones or skeletons! I'm also taking advantage of this article to present some of our products that highlight skulls. For everyday life it's great, but as a Halloween decoration it's totally perfect! 😍
Here are some of them:
This magnificent Viking Skull beer mug can be admired by clicking on its photo.
A beer mug with a helmeted warrior skull can be seen by clicking on its photo.
And what do you think of this sublime beer glass that is available by clicking on its photo?
If the catacomb spirit appeals to you, this beer mug is waiting for you.
Open your bottles with the teeth of this wall-mounted bottle opener skull
A doormat with a skeleton toasting the good life
Halloween is a joyful holiday
I think that's what we should remember about this holiday, beyond its purely mercantile and commercial aspect. We don't necessarily have many opportunities during the year to get together and have fun on a specific date. There's no harm in doing yourself some good, as they say! And if the laughter and joy that this holiday brings makes the dead feel a little alive, then so much the better for them!
Halloween 2020 was a huge disappointment due to the health crisis. Halloween 2021 should already be going much better, and let's hope Halloween 2022 goes perfectly!
And as for the Halloween movie , that's another story and I won't talk about it here!
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