Wednesday, October 26, 2016

The History Behind Halloween

Penguin is back after getting up really early! (Which I absolutely hate.) I just figured out that this week will be warm, next week will be average, but the week after that my town will be having winter-like weather. That got me happy! Alright, but, moving on from my weirdness. For today's morning post, we're talking about something interesting. The history of Halloween! I've gotten my information from History.com, which is also a really cool TV channel.  Now, let's begin.

An ancient celtic festival, called Sowen, was celebrated nearly 2,000 years ago. On the night before Sowen, people believed that the dead returned as ghosts. Food and wine would be left on people's doorsteps to keep all of the spirits at bay. Once they left the house, they'd wear masks so the "ghosts" would mistake them for fellow ghosts. Then the Christian Church turned Sowen into All Saint's Day. The night before it became all Hallow's Eve, which was later renamed Halloween. Secondly, the history behind the "trick or treating" part of Halloween started when people were souling, or guising, which originated in Medieval Britain. On November 2nd, the poor people would beg for food at people's doorsteps and get pastries called soulcakes. In return, they'd pray for that family's dead relatives. This was souling. Guising was when younger people dressed up in costumes and got food, money, wine and other treats from people's doorsteps. However, in exchange, the people n costumes had to tell jokes, sing, or give any treat they could to the people to get their prize. Many years later, the Irish revived these traditions. But it wasn't until the 1950's that it became based on kids and candy. 

Alright, guys, (Old Julian2 reference) that's pretty much all I have for this post. I hope you enjoyed it, and you learned something new. I'll see you guys during the afternoon post!

1 comment:

Swirlshine said...

Oh, that's pretty cool! :o