Here Are Some Interesting Insights About Scary Halloween

This evening was believed to be haunted because of the visiting otherworldly spirits. Dressing up like scary ghosts, demons, and other spooky characters was a trick to disguise in front of the real spirits. As the Celts believed that the returning ghosts would cause mischiefs like damaging the crops, bonfires to sacrifice animals were practiced as a ritual to please the spirit worlds. However, the trick-or-treat tradition is very recent, where Halloween became more about dressing up in costumes and celebrating the night with food and bonfires. People, especially kids, dressed in scary costumes would go around houses singing and dancing to get treats in the form of food and sweets. 

The tradition of making lanterns by carving ghost faces on pumpkins is believed to be based on an Irish folktale of ‘Stingy Jack’. According to the mythological story, a mischievous man named Jack tricked the devil so many times that he was neither accepted in heaven nor hell upon his death. Instead, he was left to wander with just one burning coal to light up his turnip lantern. This was adopted by people making scary faces on turnips to create lanterns to scare the wandering Jack and other evil spirits during Halloween. When this tradition reached America through immigrants, the native fruit pumpkin became a widely used item to make Jack O’ Lanterns.