15 Spooky Halloween Traditions
and Their Origins
Trick-or-treating,
Jack-O'-Lanterns, and creepy costumes are some of the best traditions of
Halloween. Share these sweet facts with friends as you sort through your candy
haul.
1. CARVING HALLOWEEN JACK-O'-LANTERNS: Jack-O'-Lanterns, which originated in Ireland
using turnips instead of pumpkins, are supposedly based on a legend about a man
name Stingy Jack who repeatedly trapped the Devil and only let him go on the
condition that Jack would never go to Hell. When he died, however, Jack learned
that Heaven didn’t really want his soul either, so he was condemned to wander
the Earth as a ghost for all eternity. The Devil gave Jack a lump of burning
coal in a carved-out turnip to light his way. Eventually, locals began carving
frightening faces into their own gourds to scare off evil spirits.
2. SEEING GHOSTS: Celtic people believed that during the
festival Samhain, which marked the transition to the new year at the end of the
harvest and beginning of the winter, spirits walked the Earth. Later, the
introduction of All Souls Day on November 2 by Christian missionaries
perpetuated the idea of a mingling between the living and the dead around the
same time of year.
3. WEARING SCARY COSTUMES: With all these ghosts wandering around the
Earth during Samhain, the Celts had to get creative to avoid being terrorized
by evil spirits. To fake out the ghosts, people would don disguises so they
would be mistaken for spirits themselves and left alone.
4. GOING TRICK-OR-TREATING, THE
PAGAN WAY: There is a lot of debate
around the origins of trick-or-treating. One theory proposes that during
Samhain, Celtic people would leave out food to placate the souls and ghosts and
spirits traveling the Earth that night. Eventually, people began dressing up as
these otherworldly beings in exchange for similar offerings of food and drink.
5. GOING TRICK-OR-TREATING, THE
SCOTTISH WAY: Other researchers
speculate that the candy bonanza stems from the Scottish practice of guising,
itself a secular version of souling. In the Middle Ages, soulers, usually
children and poor adults, would go to local homes and collect food or money in
return for prayers said for the dead on All Souls’ Day. Guisers ditched the
prayers in favor of non-religious performances like jokes, songs, or other
“tricks.”
6. GOING TRICK-OR-TREATING, THE
AMERICAN WAY: Some sources argue that
our modern trick-or-treating stems from belsnickling, a tradition in
German-American communities where children would dress in costume and then call
on their neighbors to see if the adults could guess the identities of the
disguised guests. In one version of the practice, the children were rewarded
with food or other treats if no one could identify them.
7. GETTING SPOOKED BY BLACK CATS: The association of black cats and spookiness
actually dates all the way back to the Middle Ages, when these dark kitties
were considered a symbol of the Devil. It didn’t help the felines’ reputations
when, centuries later, accused witches were often found to have cats,
especially black ones, as companions. People started believing that the cats
were a witch’s “familiar”—animals that gave them an assist with their dark
magic—and the two have been linked ever since.
8. BOBBING FOR APPLES: This game traces its origins to a courting
ritual that was part of a Roman festival honoring Pomona, the goddess of
agriculture and abundance. Multiple variations existed, but the gist was that
young men and women would be able to foretell their future relationships based
on the game. When the Romans conquered the British Isles, the Pomona festival
was blended with the similarly timed Samhain, a precursor to Halloween.
9. DECORATING WITH BLACK AND
ORANGE: The classic Halloween colors
can also trace their origins back to the Celtic festival Samhain. Black
represented the “death” of summer while orange is emblematic of the autumn
harvest season.
10. PLAYING PRANKS: As a phenomenon that often varies by region,
the pre-Halloween tradition, also known as “Devil’s Night”, is credited with a
different origin depending on whom you ask. Some sources say that pranks were
originally part of May Day celebrations. But Samhain, and eventually All Souls
Day, seem to have included good-natured mischief. When Scottish and Irish
immigrants came to America, they brought along the tradition of celebrating
Mischief Night as part of Halloween, which was great for candy-fueled
pranksters.
11. LIGHTING CANDLES AND BONFIRES: These days, candles are more likely than
towering traditional bonfires, but for much of the early history of Halloween,
open flames were integral in lighting the way for souls seeking the afterlife.
12. EATING CANDY APPLES: People have been coating fruit in sugar
syrups as a means of preservation for centuries. Since the development of the
Roman festival of Pomona, the goddess often represented by and associated with
apples, the fruit has had a place in harvest celebrations. But the first
mention of candy apples being given out at Halloween didn’t occur until the
1950s.
13. SPOTTING BATS: It’s likely that bats were present at the
earliest celebrations of proto-Halloween, not just symbolically but literally.
As part of Samhain, the Celts lit large bonfires, which attracted insects. The
insects, in turn, attracted bats, which soon became associated with the
festival. Medieval folklore expanded upon the spooky connotation of bats with a
number of superstitions built around the idea that bats were the harbingers of
death.
14. GORGING ON CANDY: The act of going door-to-door for handouts
has long been a part of Halloween celebrations. But until the middle of the
20th century, the “treats” kids received were not necessarily candy. Toys,
coins, fruit, and nuts were just as likely to be given out. The rise in the popularity
of trick-or-treating in the 1950s inspired candy companies to make a marketing
push with small, individually wrapped confections. People obliged out of
convenience, but candy didn’t dominate at the exclusion of all other treats
until parents started fearing anything unwrapped in the 1970s.
15. MUNCHING ON CANDY CORN: According to some stories, a candymaker at
the Wunderlee Candy Company in Philadelphia invented the revolutionary
tri-color candy in the 1880s. The treats didn’t become a widespread phenomenon
until another company brought the candy to the masses in 1898. At the time,
candy corn was called Chicken Feed and sold in boxes with the slogan
"Something worth crowing for." Originally just autumnal candy because
of corn’s association with harvest time, candy corn became Halloween-specific
when trick-or-treating rose to prominence in the U.S. in the 1950s.
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