Know The Essential Facts About Halloween Traditions

There are few who are too curious to know from where Halloween tradition starts? You may be surprised to know people belonging to Celtic culture are attributed with initiating the process which led them to celebrate Samhain festival. In won’t be out of context to know, according to Celtic traditions it is being celebrated on October, 31, whereas, Christians are known to celebrate same event on November, 1.

If history records are to be believed, starting of halloween tradition originated from a time when Celtic people started celebrating this year end festival to mark end of harvesting season and padding up to welcome coming winter. It was also popularly called as ‘end of lighter days’ and ‘beginning of darker days’ in a year.

And the beginning of Halloween saw these customs and traditions being celebrated in many ways, for instance, with help of Costumes, Bonfires, Jack-O-Lanterns, Trick or Treating. To elucidate it further, for example, in Northern Ireland it was believed to be customary for Druids to indulge in performing ritualistic ceremonies that often used to be identified with sacrifices to pacify gods. As a rule, most Celts took initiatives to bring wood and then start their Samhain bonfire, or also popularly called as fire festival. They preferred hilltops to perform this act. This would be followed with scenes where these Celts would throw some bones of slaughtered cattle into the flames. It is really interesting to understand how these ‘bone fires’ were later on known as ‘bon fire’.

Of course, most Celtic people were of the view that bonfires and sacrifices were a guaranteed way to ensure sun would sun brightly after end of a long, dreary winter. So, if you ever happen to be in Ireland, you can gladly witness site of hundreds of traditional bonfires that are lit every year on Halloween Night.

At this stage, you might also ask, what about costumes these Celts used to wear to celebrate this event?  Most people, who dress each year in fantastic looking traditional outfits and dresses, perhaps do not know costumes too originated from Celts. The practice prevalent those days comprised of some amazing features. For instance, they used to make the customary bonfire, which saw people sit around it. Almost everyone present around the bonfire used to dress up in elaborate animal skins and heads just to guise themselves as demons and spirits. The idea was to dress in such a manner that real ones couldn’t distinguish them as being human. Besides dressing in such manner, ceremonies would often comprise of telling stories, dancing, and reading fortunes.

Similarly, traditional carving of jack-o-lantern too originated from the Celts. They used to carve our turnip and simply use it as a lantern to keep evil spirits away.