By María and Miriam
It was celebrated by the Celts living in France and Great Britain thousands of years ago, to commemorate the end of summer and the beginning of winter -the New year- on the first of November.
This was a time of darkness and mystery. This festival started the night of the 31st October and it lasted three days. It was called 'Samhain', that means the Knight of death and it was considered the most important festival of the year.
For one whole night there was no light at all. Fires at home were put out to drive away the evil spirits. People thought that the ghosts who had died along the year came back to Earth to visit their relatives.
People lit bonfires where horses and even human beings were sacrificed. It was believed that sins and sufferings were also wasted away. After one night, the druids carried "new fire" from the bonfires to the homes and a new cycle started. They carried turnip lanterns and when the Irish emigrated to America they found big pumpkins and they used them as lanterns.
It was believed that on that night the dead returned to their villages to ask people for food, but if they were refused, people were cursed and the dead cast spells on them, this is what is called "trick or treat".
When the Romans invades the British Islands, they imposed the Celts their own customs. They had a festival, called Pomona, in honour of the goddess of fruit and both celebrations, the Celtic and the Roman, (witches and fruit) merged. Samhain became Halloween.
On the 31st October people wear Halloween costumes (witches, ghosts, masks, etc) and they go out to frightening parties to celebrate and play jokes on their
friends.
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Another tradition is to leave food and drink outside as an offer to the spirits. We also like talking about the time called "the witch time" (0.00), when frightening stories about witches and bad spirits who haven't succeeded in going to the purgatory are told; it's believed that they come back to the Earth, being mingled the living and the
dead.
In Spain Halloween is something new. Due to the American influence on everyday life, it's been celebrating just for a few years, but we can't forget we have our traditional feast, called All Saints' Day, to commemorate the winter solstice in the old days and to remember our saints and dead nowadays.
Halloween has not an American root, it's a mixture of different traditions and religions: apples and pumpkins come from the Romans (Pomona), black cats and magic from the Celts, skulls and skeletons from the Catholics. In fact Halloween means: All of Saints' Eve.
