Halloween: The Celtic Origins from Samhain to the Pumpkin

As night falls on October 31, a hollowed-out pumpkin glows on the porch, its orange grin flickering by candlelight. Tiny silhouettes dressed as ghosts and witches make their way up the path, bag in hand, and chant the ritual formula: trick or treat. The gesture seems purely American, commercial, almost childish. It is in fact the distant heir of a fire lit more than two thousand years ago on the hills of Ireland, to keep at bay the spirits of a night when the world of the dead touched that of the living.

Halloween is today a global festival, synonymous with costumes, candy and haunted houses. But behind the pumpkin and the marketing lies one of the oldest festivals in Europe, transformed over the centuries by the Celts, the Church, then America. To trace its history is to follow the long migration of an ancestral fear turned into celebration.

Origins: Samhain, the Celtic night of the dead#

Halloween descends in a direct line from Samhain (pronounced roughly "sow-in"), the great festival of the Celts of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Celebrated on the night of October 31 to November 1, it marked the end of the harvests and the beginning of the dark season, the entry into winter. For the Celts, it was the equivalent of a new year.

It was believed that at this hinge of the year, the boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead thinned, letting the spirits through. To protect themselves or appease them, people lit great fires, offered food, and sometimes disguised themselves to deceive or frighten the wandering souls. The roots of the Halloween costume and of the imagery of ghosts lie there, in this night of threshold.

Samhain was not a festival of horror but a festival of passage. The dead were honored as much as they were feared, in a world where death and life were never far from one another.

Christianization: from Samhain to All Hallows' Eve#

With the expansion of Christianity, the Church sought, following a frequent pattern, to overlay the pagan festivals with new meanings. In the ninth century, November 1 was set as All Saints' Day (All Hallows' Day), the day of all the saints, followed on November 2 by the day of the departed (All Souls' Day).

The eve of All Saints' Day, October 31, thus became All Hallows' Eve — "the eve of all the saints" — contracted over time into Hallowe'en, then Halloween. The word itself is the trace of this superimposition: a Christian envelope over a Celtic core.

For centuries, in the countryside of the British Isles, customs blending the two heritages survived: people went from door to door (souling) asking for "soul cakes" in exchange for prayers for the dead, or dressed up to claim food and coins (guising). The modern trick-or-treat is its direct heir.

Jack of the lantern: from turnip to pumpkin#

The most famous symbol of Halloween, the hollowed and lit pumpkin, the jack-o'-lantern, also comes from an Irish legend. It tells the story of Stingy Jack, a cunning man who trapped the devil several times. At his death, refused entry to heaven for his misdeeds and to hell by a spiteful devil, Jack was condemned to wander in the dark, with nothing to light his way but an ember placed in a hollowed-out turnip.

In Ireland and Scotland, people therefore carved turnips, beets or rutabagas, which they placed at their windows to ward off Jack and the other spirits. When Irish immigrants crossed the Atlantic in the nineteenth century, they found in America a vegetable far larger, softer and easier to carve: the pumpkin. The orange lantern was born.

America and the globalization of the festival#

It was thus the great Irish and Scottish immigration of the nineteenth century, fleeing in particular the great famine of the 1840s, that brought Halloween to North America. The festival was at first communal there, then spread widely from the end of the nineteenth century.

In the twentieth century, America transformed it profoundly. Trick-or-treating became popular in the 1930s-1950s as a way of channeling teenage mischief into a good-natured custom. The candy, costume and decoration industry seized upon it, and Halloween became a festival of colossal consumption, second only to Christmas in the United States for holiday spending.

Then cinema, television series and American pop culture exported Halloween to the whole world. The festival took hold, in a mostly festive and commercial form, across much of Europe and Asia, where it sometimes mingles with local traditions without replacing them.

Halloween today: between roots and reinvention#

The irony of history is that Halloween is often perceived as a recent American import, whereas it is one of the oldest living festivals in Europe. In Ireland, Samhain is now proudly claimed as the direct ancestor of the festival, and festivals celebrate this Celtic heritage.

Learning the history of Halloween is also learning English and its layers: hallow, eve, trick or treat, jack-o'-lantern are all words that, on their own, tell the story of the encounter between the Celts, the Church and America. Language, like the festival, is made of accumulated layers.

From the blazing Celtic hill to the pumpkin on the porch, a single night crosses the centuries: the one when, for the space of an eve, we agree to play with our fears and to salute, laughing, the world of shadows.

FAQ#

What is the origin of Halloween? Halloween descends from Samhain, the Celtic New Year festival celebrated on the night of October 31, which marked the end of the harvests and the night when the dead returned among the living.

Why is it called "Halloween"? The word is the contraction of All Hallows' Eve, "the eve of All Saints' Day," a Christian feast set on November 1 and superimposed on the ancient Celtic festival.

Why pumpkins at Halloween? The tradition comes from the Irish legend of Stingy Jack and his lantern, originally carved from a turnip. Irish immigrants in America adopted the pumpkin, which is larger and easier to hollow out.

Is Halloween an American festival? Not originally. It was born in Celtic Europe and was brought to America by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the nineteenth century, before being commercialized there and then exported to the whole world.

Photo credits: the images used in this article come from Pexels and Unsplash and are royalty-free.