It is not too uncommon for most people to associate Halloween with candy. Lots and lots of candy. And to be honest, that is a perfectly acceptable association. After all, the trademark of Halloween these days is just that, candy and costumes, innocent ‘pranks’ and horror films. We are bombarded by images and have been for the past month or so of Pumpkins, ghosts, skeletons, spiders, and dozens of costumes in cheap stores. I myself knew the halloween season was upon us when Matalan had a section full of Death costumes. Combine that with Iceland replacing its traditional sweets with orange and black ones, and you know you’re in season. But is Halloween really so shallow a tradition that it is just sweets and a chance for any true horror fan to dress a bit more in black and go out and watch horror movies. Surely these are activities that most people do on a daily basis anyway, which would make Halloween licensed excess, and little more. I was hoping that there was a great deal more to Halloween, and to see if that great deal more matched anything in our culture. After all, we often have confusing messages where commercialism can dominate what is in fact a very significant date. The birth of Jesus is probably not at its core about a man in a red suit that was invented by the Coca-Cola Company, the Easter Bunny was probably not the first thing that came to mind on Easter Sunday in days gone by. Is Halloween yet another overshadowed religious day that we choose to celebrate with food and fun rather than a bit of religious insight and reflection?The true short answer is that we do in fact have proper religious celebrations firmly in place just after Halloween, which means that technically Halloween has become our own playground to create in whatever way we wish. Candy companies and greeting-card companies have doubtless enjoyed making this into the Holy Day for Horror fanatics and little children (are the two not closely linked in their love of that which frightens?)  since that is the best way to get money out of a day like Halloween. Frightening though it may seem, God and the Devil play surprisingly little part in the making of Halloween, and we owe more to Boris Karloff than we do to any Cardinal or Pope. Some would argue that it was Pope Gregory IV and his predecessor of the same name who moved All Hallows Day, or All Saints Day as I know it, from mid May to the 1st of November. And as with all other such momentous days, the day before is considered as “Eve” of said day. So we had All Hallows Day on November 1st, and All Hallows Eve on the 31st of October. Some significance at least is shed on the name. Indeed for those who are interested in a bit of the etymology of the name, it is in fact Hallow, which as I understand it is a Saint, and Evening, which becomes abbreviated as Even or Evening. Enter Hallow Even, and shortened to Hallowe’en. Presto we have a name. Not much religious significance to attribute the name to the day before we celebrate all saints known and unknown, but at least the name is clear.

That begs the question, how significant to modern day Halloween is All Saints Day really? It is hard to say for sure to what degree influences over time have shaped this event, but there is very little beyond the commemoration of those that have died which speaks to the tradition of Halloween as we know it, in any form. Not surprisingly, the better answer as to why we have the traditions that we do is found outside of Christianity, in a set of pagan rituals and festivals. The first one which seems to have had some influence was the Lemuria or Feast of the Lemurs. This ancient Roman tradition comes from the need to purify ones house of evil spirits. First now do we see the emergence of some of the more familiar horror themes of the dead, feasts in their honor, and an attempt to scare the evil spirits away. Old Roman traditions, much like Setsubun in Japan, used Beans being thrown as a way of exorcising the evil spirits. When All Saints Day was instituted to coincide with this day, it was seen as an attempt to depaganize the old Roman feast.

This in turn lead to another mutation of tradition, moving All Saints Day and it’s accompanying pagan ritual to the date we have now, which was described earlier. Here too there are Pagan roots at play, as the pagan Celtic tradition of Samhain has stood for some of the more important aspects of what is now Halloween. Yet again we have a pagan tradition of exorcising, or at the very least inviting, the dead spirits of the houses. There is a repeated emphasis on the combination of the Pagan tradition of the ‘dark’ half of the year beginning, and the notion of honoring the dead.

Halloween it seems does have a somewhat storied religious (albeit pagan) overtone to it, even behind its mountains of sweets and costumes to frighten away the dead. The choice of costumes has inevitably changed, being as much influenced by modern horror culture as anything in any religious text. This year I am sure there will be dozens if not hundreds of Joker look-alikes knocking on your door, and there will be the usual array of witches, goblins, ghosts, and superheros all out to get their share of your treats. Sadly as much fun as it would be to end the story on the notion of Christian and Pagan tones in our modern Horror celebration, I’d kick myself if I didn’t include one slightly more modern reason for halloween.

As order seemed to struggle to keep a hold of our society at the start of the 20th century, the youth of the time, much like the youth of today some might argue, decided to take it upon themselves to use Halloween as a night for vandalism. The evening was less about honoring the dead, feasting, or remembering saints, and was more about breaking things and being someone in need of an ASBO. For Americans, that’s an Anti-Social Behaviour Ordinance. It was only thanks to the intervention of groups such as the Boy Scouts and other youth organizations that Halloween was reverted to a day for sweets rather than organized chaos. This “Beggar’s Night” as it were is the definitive precursor to the modern ideal of Trick or Treat.

So now all that remains is to keep in mind some of these little facts about our most favourite day as horror fans. I am sure it won’t influence your consumption of excessive amounts of sugar, or in your rewatching of the entire Halloween series. It does at least give pause for thought as to how much of your enjoyment is a need for sugar, and how much of it is in fact a morbid need to honor the dead. Food for thought, much like the sweets I ate in preparation for this article.