Of all the holidays, Halloween just might be the most unique.
A celebration of the macabre, it's the one time of year that being a ghost, werewolf or vampire is not only permitted, it's encouraged. And exploring the sinister side of things? Well, it's a rite of passage.
But what is the history behind Halloween and all of its unusual traditions? Why do we trick-or-treat, carve pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, dress up in costumes and try to scare each other silly?
To find out the answers to these questions and more, TODAY.com spoke to a pair of experts to help break down the origin of the spooky holiday, how it got its name, the meaning behind Halloween's many rituals, including how wearing costumes may have roots in an old Christmas tradition called “belsnickeling,” and what the holiday has to do with All Saints Day.
You'll also learn about Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival thought to be the origin of modern-day Halloween, as well as the reason why black and orange are the hues that have come to symbolize the spooky celebration.
So, get ready to become a bona fide Halloween expert with these intriguing trivia facts. By the time you're done, you'll remember all the reasons why Halloween is truly the most wonderful time of the fear, ahem — year.
Why do we celebrate Halloween?
Many people believe that Halloween originates from an old Druid festival called Samhain. But according to at least one expert, that might not necessarily be the case.
“Scholars, especially folklorists, for the last hundred years or so, have been associating it with ancient Celtic times, saying that there was some festival of the return of the dead on October 31, but that turns out to be bogus,” Henry Ansgar Kelly, research professor specializing in medieval and renaissance studies at UCLA tells TODAY.com.
According to Kelly, Halloween took root in the U.S. sometime around the 19th century, when the Irish immigrated to America, bringing their traditions and celebrations, including All Saints’ Day, with them.
“All Saints’ Day was a feast day on the Catholic calendar,” says Kelly. “November 1 was the day on which you celebrate all the people that have gone to heaven.”
Kelly explains that the night before All Saints’ Day, people would hold vigils for the souls that hadn’t yet gone to heaven and were trapped in purgatory. In essence, it was night to pray for the dead — and thus Halloween was born.
Lisa Morton, author of “Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween,” views the history of Halloween timeline somewhat differently, citing Christian missionaries who came to convert Irish Celtics and discovered them celebrating Samhain (pronounced SAH-win), a festival celebrating all about ghostly stories and moving into a darker time of year.
“If you look at the Celtic lore that they recorded, some of it is genuinely very scary,” Morton tells TODAY.com. “Even now, some of the stories that the Celts told each other at Samhain are really, really creepy.”
However, she doesn’t totally disagree with Kelly’s thinking. In fact, Morton says that the Halloween we celebrate today is likely a mix of both Samhain and All Saints' Day.
And while Halloween has been celebrated in the U.S. since at least the late 1800s, Morton says it really took off in the 1900s after retailers began mass producing Halloween cards, decorations and costumes, pushing the holiday into the mainstream.
How did Halloween get its name?
Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as the eve of All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day, the origin of the word “Halloween” has evolved over time.
According to Kelly, the name is a combination of the Scottish words “hallow,” which loosely translates into “saint” or “holy person,” and “een,” which means “evening.”
In essence, Halloween means “holy evening,” which makes sense given its Christian ties. Around 1773, the Scots began combining the two words and referring to October 31 as “Hallow-e'en.”
However, it was Scottish poet, Robert Burns, who put the words together in his 1786 poem, “Halloween,” that ultimately sealed the deal and the name stuck.
Why do we pass out candy on Halloween?
Fun costume parties and trick-or-treating have become synonymous with Halloween, but according to Morton, that wasn't always the case.
For many years, she says Halloween was a night devoted to tricking or pulling pranks on unsuspecting people. By the 1930s, the pranks turned into full-blown vandalism, resulting in millions of dollars of damage to major U.S. cities.
“[People] were smashing light fixtures and setting fires and tripping people on sidewalks, and, in 1933, vandals did so much damage it became known as ‘Black Halloween,’” says Morton.
After Black Halloween, many cities contemplated banning the holiday altogether, but instead decided to adopt a popular Canadian tradition. “The idea seems to have been that if you offer treats, the kids won't go around and play tricks,” says Kelly.
According to Kelly, the idea picked up speed in the United States in the ‘30s and ‘40s resulting in today's Halloween ritual of ringing doorbells and shouting “Trick or treat” in hopes of scoring candy.
Why do we dress up on Halloween?
Halloween is an open invitation to dress up and play pretend. But where did the concept of wearing Halloween costumes come from?
While many people attribute the practice to the ancient Celts and Samhain, Morton begs to differ, pointing out costumes are a somewhat very modern tradition.
The reason why we don costumes remains somewhat of a mystery to both Morton and Kelly.
In the 1920s, magazines featured kids draped in sheets pretending to be ghosts, however, Morton says it's possible that costumes were worn well before then.
In fact, wearing costumes might actually be linked to Christmas and an old custom called “belsnickeling,” where costumed children would perform plays for their neighbors in exchange for treats, not unlike modern-day Halloween.
Why do we carve pumpkins on Halloween?
Carving jack-o'-lanterns can be traced back to Ireland and the concept stems from the old tale of a man named “Stingy Jack.”
“Jack was a legendary trickster,” Morton tells TODAY.com, noting that there are hundreds of variants of the “Jack” folktales all over the world.
As folklore goes, Jack — a drunkard and evil-doer — cheated death three times throughout his life by tricking the devil out of taking his soul.
When he finally died, Jack was barred from heaven and refused entry into hell by the angry devil. Sentenced to walk through the dark worlds of good and bad for eternity, Jack carries a carved-out turnip with a glowing ember inside to light his way.
Sound familiar? Jack-o'-lantern.
According to the Library of Congress, the “Stingy Jack” story likely inspired the Irish to carve faces into turnips in an effort to ward off evil spirits.
“When the Irish and Scottish came to America, they found these gorgeous native pumpkins and (they) were even better than turnips,” says Morton. Not to mention their size made them easier to carve.
However, the custom of carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns is still relatively new, says Morton.
“It's a bit of misconception to say that the Irish and Scottish were carving pumpkins 200 years ago,” she explains. “They didn't have pumpkins 200 years ago. Those are strictly new world fruits that they found when they came here.”
Why are Halloween colors orange and black?
Much like Christmas is associated with red and green, Halloween has its own signature color scheme: Black and orange.
According to Morton, that's likely because their origin is inspired by the holiday itself, surmising that orange represents pumpkins and black pays homage to the night and other objects commonly associated with Halloween, including black cats and bats.
“Black and orange is recent,” she says. “If you look at (catalogs) from the very early part of the 20th century, they say that brown and yellow are the colors of Halloween.”
Over time, Morton says that decorating companies latched onto the orange and black color theme, “and that seemed to be very popular.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Sarah Lemire
Sarah is a lifestyle and entertainment reporter for TODAY who covers holidays, celebrities and everything in between.
