Every year, on the night between 31 October and the first day of November, the now famous all over the world Halloween night is celebrated. The youngest dress up as ghosts, monsters and vampires, they wander around the neighborhood in groups and to those who open the door they utter the famous ritual phrase: "trick or treat!".
The landlord has no other solution than to be generous with sweets and sweets. Halloween, however, is a party not only for children: even the older ones do not disdain to dress up as monsters to celebrate in clubs or discos.
However, this festival is not just one of the many new fashions imported from the Anglo-Saxon world. Many xenophobes and traditionalists, the famous boomers (a term that is often used inappropriately to denigrate the wisdom of the most experienced but which on a few occasions fits as well as in this case) are used to turn up their noses, they see it as a party. relevant to the tradition of non-English speaking countries. To foment these prejudices are above all those belonging to Catholic circles who, wanting to have monopoly control of the holidays with a spiritual background, often try to approach this anniversary with Satanism.
Those who have at least a basic smattering of paganism know very well that these accusations are completely unfounded and in bad faith, in fact this celebration of Celtic origin was simply linked to the Samhain celebrations for the end of summer and the beginning of the new year. . When the Catholic Church settled in the Celtic territories, once of pagan religion, it thought well to replace that ancient tradition with the feast of All Saints. Even in ancient Roman Italy there was a similar festival: that dedicated to the goddess Pomona and the Parentalia (the feast of the dead).
From a purely neo-pagan point of view, Samhain is the ancient Celtic-pagan festival, celebrated between October 31st and November 1st; also often known as the Celtic New Year, therefore the main holiday of the Celts. It later also became a neo-pagan holiday, celebrated on the same days, particularly in Celtism and Wicca.
The Celts divided the year into two parts: winter and summer, and were mainly influenced by the lunar and star cycles that marked the passing of the agricultural year, which began precisely with Samhain, at the end of the crops, when the soil was prepared for the winter.
In Ireland it was customary to celebrate by lighting large bonfires: once lit, all the other fires were extinguished, and each family would take the new fire from the sacred bonfire located in Tlachtga, near the Hill of Tara. outside the temporal dimension and belonged neither to the old year nor to the new one; on that night, the wall that separated the world of the living from that of the dead vanished, and the two kingdoms could communicate.
Samhain is now taken up in neo-pagan culture. It is one of the main holidays in the Wheel of the Year for Wiccans, the one in which the God symbolically dies and the Goddess mourns his passing.
Why do you dress up as monsters on Halloween and go around asking for trick or treat?
During the celebrations on the night between October 31st and November 1st, Celts celebrated in the woods, dancing, eating and drinking around the lit fires. During these rites animals were sacrificed in honor of the deities
After these rituals it was customary to celebrate for 3 days, disguising themselves with the skins of the animals killed to scare the spirits who were still taking advantage of the momentary reunification of the world of the living with that of the dead. Therefore, the custom of walking around in masks on Halloween night derives from the belief that masks can scare evil spirits and keep them away from travelers who go around the houses asking for food offerings.
"Trick or treat" instead derives from the custom of lighting fires outside the doors of houses and leaving food and milk for the souls of the dead who intended to visit their families, so that they could be satisfied and refrain from playing tricks on the living.
Author of the post: Red Pendragon
