Whats the real story??10 pointer!?

Question

whats the history behind Halloween.First yr it started,why its started who started it etc..thanks

Answer 1

Halloween (Hallowe'en, Hallowtide, Hallowmas, Allhallow-even) is short for "All Hallows Even" which means "All Saints Eve". It is the eve before All Saints Day, a Catholic day to honor all the saints who do not already have a feast day of their own. All Saints Day was originally celebrated on May 13 when Pope Boniface IV rededicated the Pantheon in Rome to 'St. Mary and All Martyrs' in 609 A.D. It was moved to November 1 in the 8th century when Pope Gregory III dedicated St. Peter's Basilica to all the saints . In 998 A.D. All Souls Day was added as a day to pray for the souls in purgatory and attend a requiem mass.

Folk customs surrounding All Souls are the origin of the belief that the dead come back on Halloween. People would visit cemeteries, decorate relatives' graves, and leave food offerings for the dead. In some areas they would set a place at the table or arrange chairs around the fireplace for the returning souls of the dead. In Ireland people would also sometimes leave food for the fairies (divine or semi-divine beings who could be dangerous, and not the little creatures with wings that we think of today).

Samhain had an influence on Halloween in Ireland, and that is the version that turned into what we know as Halloween today. Samhain is mentioned in numerous medeival Irish sagas as a day of great importance. It was a day of feasting, games, drinking, great battles, heroic feats and interaction between mortals and the realm of the fairies (gods and goddesses). In Ireland the customs that are associated with Halloween are the same as the ones mentioned in the sagas as being part of Samhain: divination, partying, the belief that the fairies mingle with humans on this night. Today 'Samhain' is the Irish word for the month of November. Oiche Shamnha is Irish for Halloween; it means the "eve of Saman (Samhain)" or the "eve of November 1". The name is like July 4th in the United States in that it is both the name of the holiday and the date.

All Saints and All Souls celebrations in the Americas can be traced back to the arrival of the Spanish and French missionaries in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Native Americans adopted these traditions and combined them with their native celebrations. These feast days are still celebrated today as Mexico's Day of the Dead, the Zuni ahoppa awan tewa, the Odawa Ghost Supper, shuma sashti, and other native celebrations.

In the nineteenth century Irish and Scottish immigrants settled in the United States and brought their Halloween customs with them. Unlike the more solemn, purely Catholic observance of All Saints/All Souls Day typical in continental Europe, the Irish version was more of a fun harvest festival in nature. Victorian-era Americans quickly adopted this holiday as an excuse to throw parties, send greeting cards, and perform lighthearted divination spells to determine the identity of one's future spouse.

Halloween is now considered an American holiday, even though it is a bank holiday in Ireland. In many parts of Europe All Saints is still celebrated in its traditional Catholic form, in other places modern Halloween is celebrated side-by-side with All Saints, and in places like Mexico and South America it has become a separate and distinct holiday.

If you would like some of my sources just edit to ask and I will post them.  :)

Answer 2

the short answer is that it started a long time ago and was a festival of the druids.  it was a day on the calendar known as a "day of death" which was the first day of winter and they drove out spirits.

Answer 3

The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain).[2] The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes [3] regarded as the "Celtic New Year".[4] 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 October 31, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.[5][