in the spirit of halloween

in the spirit of halloween i felt it fitting for a little history lesson. if youre not interested... youve been spared by this beautiful lj cut. but ive got to say its all very interesting. so click the link. :)


Samhain:
...was a 3-day festival created by the Celts (a people group based in what is now known as Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France) to commemorate the dead. The festival began on October 31st with The Eve of All Hallow's, followed by All Saints Day on November 1st, and ending with All Souls Day on November 2nd.

The Eve of All Hallow's(Halloween):
This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.

During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.

By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.

Another story...
Another story says that, on Samhain, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

All Saints Day:
The Feast of All Saint's Day was at first celebrated to honor all martyrs, later including all saints, known and unknown, and it now honors all those who died in the faith. The Catholic calendar is filled with names of saints and martyrs on the day when they died for their faith in Jesus Christ. Some were celebrated locally by observing the anniversary of their death, as a feast in honor of their birth into eternal life. The preservation of relics was a wide-spread custom. Devout Catholics would take the name of the saint on whose feast they were baptized and would celebrate their nameday every year. Over the centuries, as saints were added, a need for a common feast of all saints was becoming evident. It was first introduced in 610, when on May 13, Pope Boniface IV consecrated the ancient Roman Pantheon as a temple of the Blessed Virgin and All Martyrs ("Sancta Maria ad martyres"). Beginning with Gregory III the celebration of a feast of All Saints was commemorated at St. Peters on November 1. In 835 Pope Gregory IV extended this feast to the entire Church.

All Souls Day:
The Feast of All Souls over time became a celebration of the community and the extended family. All dead of a village will congregate for the "Geistermesse." All living members of a family try to return to their native village. In procession one moves to the graveyard and the graves, decorated and lighted with small lamps. The custom of decorating the graves makes the symbolic connection between the graveyard "Gottesacker" and the Garden of Eden, the lost paradise, where Adam and Eve were placed at creation. Now, the souls of the ancestors are to rediscover paradise after the difficult path through purgatory. Placing candles on the grave goes back to the idea that light is necessary for illumination and to see God.


i tried my best not to go too far into it. i think i did ok. research further and if theres something i didnt get right or something youd like to emphasize on... go for it.