Halloween
Next: October 31, 2027
Lanterns lit, costumes on, sweets ready.
The story
Where it comes from
Halloween grew out of Samhain, the Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest and the start of winter on 1 November. On its eve, 31 October, the souls of the dead were believed to return home and other spirits to roam, so people lit bonfires and wore disguises. In the 8th century the Church moved All Saints' Day to 1 November, and the evening before it, All Hallows' Eve, gave the night its name. How much of Samhain survives in today's customs is debated. Irish and Scottish emigrants later carried them to North America.
How it's celebrated
Children dress up as ghosts, witches and favourite characters and go door to door trick-or-treating. The custom descends from medieval 'souling' and from Scottish and Irish 'guising', in which children sang a song or told a joke in return for fruit, nuts or coins. Windows glow with carved pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns, and in Ireland families still bob for apples and share a barmbrack, a fruit loaf.
Did you know
- Ireland's jack-o'-lanterns were carved turnips long before pumpkins: the National Museum of Ireland keeps a model of one sent in 1943 by a Donegal schoolteacher, who said the type was made locally around 1900.
- The earliest printed 'trick or treat' found so far appeared in a small Canadian newspaper, The Blackie Times of Alberta, in November 1927.
- Universal Studios Singapore held its first Halloween Horror Nights in October 2011, and later editions built haunted houses around Singaporean legends.
The greeting
Happy Halloween
Coming up next
- World Vegan Day · November 1, 2027
- Día de Muertos · November 2, 2027
- Culture Day · November 3, 2027
- International Day for Biosphere Reserves · November 3, 2027
- Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb · November 4, 2027
- World Tsunami Awareness Day · November 5, 2027