Valme's English Corner: HALLOWEEN

Saturday, October 31, 2009

HALLOWEEN

Origins of Halloween
The Pagans who lived in Britain two thousand years ago celebrated their New Year on 1st November. Then the Christians came and people celebrated Hallowmas, a three day festival between 31st October and 2nd November. 31st October was called All Hallow's Eve and slowley name changed to Halloween.

In November, winter in near, and hundreds of years ago people thought that bad spirits, like ghosts, came in the winter. They wanted the bad spirits to go away, so they made fires outside and make jack o'lanterns. To do this, they took a big autumn vegetable - usually a pumnkin . and cut off the top. They made a big hole inside the pumpkin and cut a face in the side. Then they put a light inside the pumpkin ande put the top on again. People still enjoy doing this today.

Moreover, in order to keep the bad spirits away, people also dressed like witches and ghosts. Children still do this. People often put up decorations for Halloween parties and play games. These decorations are usually black (for dark nights and death) and orange (for the autumn vegetables).

In Canada and USA, and in some English speaking countries, children often go "TRICK OR TREAT". The children, dressed as witches or ghosts often go into a small group to the houses of people who live near them. When someone opens the door, the children say: " trick or treat?". Then the person in the house must decide. Either they give the children a treat - somthing nice, like fruit or chocolate - or the children play a trick on them. For a trick, the children do something bad like throw an egg or some flour at the house!

Origins of Christian holydays:

All Saints' Day was created by Pope Boniface IV in the 7th century CE. There were so many saints by this time that there were not enough days in the year to accommodate them. So, All Saints' Day was to recognize the saints who were without their own day, and to celebrate saints that the Church had failed to recognize. It originally was held on May 13, but was moved by Pope Gregory in 835 CE to November 1. This may have been done in order to distract Christians from celebrating Samhain.

Halloween was originally called All Hallows' Eve which means the evening before All Saints' Day. "Hallow" is an Old English word for "saint". This was shortened to Hallowe'en and finally to Halloween.

All Souls' Day was created for NOV-2 to honor faithful Christians who had died but were not saints. The three days from OCT-31 to NOV-2 was given the name Hallow Tide.

Webs related to Halloween