What actually is Halloween, and why do we celebrate it?

It’s Halloween time – crisp air and crunchy leaves, the flickering of lighted pumpkins, scary movies, costumes, spooky houses and, of course, candy and trick-or-treating. But why do we do it? Is it just a fun excuse for kids to dress up and solicit sweets from strangers, or is there a deeper meaning behind the most frightening of holidays?

Halloween is widely thought to be a combination of many different cultural practices, but there are two that are probably the biggest influences: the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Catholic holiday of All Saints Day (or All Hallows Day).

Samhain was (and remains) a Celtic festival celebrating the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, according to Samhain, pronounced like “sah-ween” and meaning “summer’s end,” celebrated and honored the cycle of the seasons – the life and bounty of the summer, the slow dying and reaping of autumn, and the cold, deathly winter approaching next, according to Boston University.

On this day, straddling the seasons between a summer of life and the winter of death, the Gaels believed spirits were able to mingle with the living, and sacrificed animals and food to the souls of those who had died, according to folklorist Jack Santino. They would light bonfires to guide them back into the otherworld as well.

But later, around the eighth century, as Christian missionaries moved in to convert the Celts, they associated the ghosts and spirits of Samhain with demons and hell - the original tinge of spookiness that survives to this day, Santino explained. Later, the church assigned the holiday All Saints (Or All Hallows, as in holy) day to honor dead spirits and keep some aspects of the Celtic tradition. Rather than honor spirits and ghosts, it would honor the Catholic saints.

Thus, we come to the name “Halloween” – All Hallow’s Eve (on October 31), combined with Samhain (with “-hain” pronounced as “ween.”)

It’s not especially clear when people began wearing costumes for Halloween. Although people tended to wear costumes and perform in mummery shows around that time of years, the Celts did sometimes dress up as spirits by wearing white clothes and masks, reported Mental Floss.

Though costumes could have been a part of the Samhain festival, at least in certain regions, most scholars believe the origins of dressing up and trick-or-treating originated with the Scottish and Irish tradition of guising, where children would dress up and go to different houses to collect treats in return for a song or trick, History.com reported.

But that’s just one of many things that has led to the holiday we know today. Another was a tradition called “souling,” associated with All Saints Day, and later All Souls Day on Nov. 2, when children would wander the streets calling out for pastries called soul cakes in exchange for prayers, according to historic newspaper reports. References to souling can be seen in early American newspapers, as can the origins of the mischief associated with Halloween.

An 1861 edition of the National Republican in Washington D.C. reported that “Young America” had hijacked the tradition to instead “go round from house to house, and pelt with cabbages, turnips, etc, the luckless servant who may chance to come to the door.”

And in 1891, the San Francisco Morning Call referred to “All Hallows Even” as “a night of mystery,” wherein children partake in “mischief, fun, incantations, divination, charms and spells.”

The mischief eventually led to a more organized approach of community-sanctioned trick-or-treating as we know it, according to History.com.

This story was originally published October 31, 2017 at 6:29 AM with the headline "What actually is Halloween, and why do we celebrate it?."