Festival of Samhain, All Saints, All Souls and Halloween

At the end of Autumn and as the Winter darkness looms, the souls of the dead and the spirits of saints are celebrated in three festivals, Halloween, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. Together these three festival days are known as Hallowmas, and they are celebrated on October 31^st, November 1^st and November 2^nd.

All over the World people believe that  the dead have souls  that live on and that these become more active at Halloween and All Souls Day.

Halloween was an old Anglo Saxon and Celtic festival and marked the start of the Celtic new year The Celtic celebration was known as Samhain or Samain. Samhain was the Celtic Lord of the Dead.

During the festival, Samhain made his judgement over all the dead souls, so gifts were offered to him in the hope that he might judge the dead souls kindly and let them go home for the night.

Not all of the spirits were kindly spirits, some ghosts and demons would rise up from the dead on this day to create mayhem and turmoil, running around making mischief.

The Celts kept the spirits happy with fires, feasts, dancing, and offering gifts. In order to trick the malevolent spirits people wore   ghostly masks  , making the naughty spirits think that they were also spirits. The people wearing the masks would then lead the malevolent ghosts and demons to the outskirts of the town or village where they could do no harm.

Today this practice takes the form of what we know as Trick or Treating, especially in America where both young and old go about dressed in spooky costumes and masks, asking for Treats with the threat of some sort of mischief or Trick if a treat is not given, usually these days the treat is in the form of sweets or candy.

The modern day Trick or Treater can be dressed as almost anything, some still dress as witches or demons of some sort, but others dress as fictional or cartoon characters. In fact anything goes.

During my researching I have come across some suggestions for Halloween night:-

1. If treats are not given then when they close the door, you take something from their front garden and leave it in a garden further down the road.

2. A good trick or treater always carries extra masks, so if they find an over generous house they can change masks and go back over and over again.

3. Check the phone book for the homes of Doctors and Lawyers in the area, because the more they earn the bigger and better the treat might be. Be warned, avoid the houses of Dentists because they will only give you a lecture about how all the sweets and candy is bad for your teeth.

Although I have shown you some of the things I came across during my research this does not mean that I encourage you to do the same.

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