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The Story of Halloween

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays with origins going back thousands of years. The holiday we know as Halloween had had many influences from many cultures over the centuries.

Hundreds of years ago in what is now Great Britain and Northern France, lived the Celts. The Celts worshipped nature and had many gods, with the sun god as their favorite. The Celts celebrated their New Year on November 1st. It was celebrated every year with a festival and marked the end of the "season of the sun" and the beginning of "the season of darkness and cold." The Druids, the Celtic priests met in the hilltop in the dark oak forest and offered sacrifices of crops and animals. As they were dancing around the fires, the season of the sun was passing and the season of darkness used to begin. The November 1st festival lasted for 3 days. Many people used to parade in costumes made from the skins and heads of their animals. This festival would become the first Halloween.

During the first century the Romans invaded Britain. They brought with them many of their festivals and customs. One of these was the festival known as Pomona Day, named for their goddess of fruits and gardens. It was also celebrated around the 1st of November.

The next influence came with the spread of the new Christian religion throughout Europe and Britain. In the year 835 AD the Roman Catholic Church would make November 1st a church holiday to honor all the saints. This day was called All Saint's Day, or Hallowmas, or All Hallows. Years later the Church would make it All Souls Day and was to honor the dead. It was celebrated with big bonfires, parades, and people dressing up as saints, angels and devils.

But the spread of Christianity did not make people forget their early customs. Over the years the customs from all these holidays mixed. October 31st became known as All Hallow Even, eventually All Hallow's Eve, and then - Halloween.

The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.

Black Cats & Halloween

Today, black cats are as much a symbol of Halloween as are pumpkins, ghosts and witches. But this wasn't always the case. In fact, the black cat is a more recent detail.

Cats began to be associated with witches in the early Middle Ages. Some in the Church believed that witches became cats at night. Others associated cats with witchcraft because their eyes glow at night, a sign of evil. The powerful association between witches and cats, especially the "sneaky" black cat, persisted throughout the centuries. So when modern celebrations of Halloween evolved to include images of the wicked witch, the black cat was right behind her.