Sunday, October 29, 2006
just came back from a
HALLOWEEN party at UAN.
quite cool actually.
but shan't bore y'all with my gushing.
instead, let me
educate y'all!
hahaha.
i'm gettin my info off google but i shall simplify it to spare all you anti-reading pro-pictures people.
so here goes:
Halloween has it origins from Celtic Ireland in the 5th century.
The word halloween is actually a simplified version of
All Hallows Eve.
1st of November, All Hollows Day (or All Saints Day) is a Catholic day of observance in honour of
saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland,
summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
One story says that, on that day, the spirits of all those who had died throughout the year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. Time and space were believed to
stop during this time, allowing the spirits to mingle with the living.
Naturally, the living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would dress up in all manners of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to
frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Sometimes, people who were believed to be possessed already would be burnt alive at the stake so as to teach the spirits a lesson.
The custom of
trick-or-treating originated from a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more
prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained roaming for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to
heaven.
The
Jack-
O-
lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named
Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to
Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to
Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally.
But later on, people found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
So put simply, Halloween is a day grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is
only as evil as one cares to make it.
so NOW you know..=D
oh.yea
and
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
in advance though.=)
so quick,
get your costumes
and do your thang hon!
but
for now,
g'night world.=)
yeni posted at 12:34 AM â¢
comment?
