Please: the origin of Halloween in the US; what is the significance of Easter eggs? Thank you!

On October 31st of every year is the traditional western "ghost festival" - Halloween. October 31st is the eve of Halloween. It is usually called Halloween Eve. However, the atmosphere of this day is far from being as "creepy" as its name makes it sound. When Halloween comes around, children can't wait to dress up in colorful costumes, wear strange masks, and carry a jack-o'-lantern around the house, asking adults for gifts. Halloween's most recognizable symbols are these two - the bizarre jack-o'-lantern and the trick-or-treating.

Jack-o'-lanterns are adorable and extremely simple to make. The pumpkin is hollowed out and carved with smiling eyes and a big mouth on the outside, then a candle is inserted in the pumpkin and lit, so that people can see the smiling face from far away. This is the children's favorite plaything.

However, the main event of Halloween is still at the dinner table, where you have to prepare the food to entertain the trick-or-treaters, but also dress up your table for this special holiday. Don't let your guests underestimate you!

This night is the most "haunted" time of the year, with all manner of demons, pirates, extraterrestrials and witches. Before the time of Christ, the Celts held ceremonies at Summer's Eve to thank the gods and the sun for their bounty. Soothsayers of the time lit and practiced witchcraft to ward off the demons and monsters that were said to be roaming around. Later the Roman harvest festival, celebrated with nuts and apples, merged with the Celtic October 31st. In the Middle Ages, people dressed up in animal-shaped costumes and scary masks to ward off the ghosts and goblins of the night on Halloween Eve. Although Christianity later replaced Celtic and Roman religious practices, the early customs have survived. Nowadays, children wear costumes and masks as a joke to Halloween dances, which are often surrounded by papier-maché witches, black cats, ghosts, and skeletons hanging on the walls, and pumpkin lanterns with grimacing teeth and faces hanging in front of windows and doorways. Children often try to bite into hanging apples.

The first origin of Halloween

There are many versions of the legend of the origin of Halloween, the most common belief is that it originated in the pre-Christian countries of Ancient Western Europe, mainly Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where the Ancient Western Europeans were called the Druids. Druidic New Year in November 1, New Year's Eve, the Druids let the young people set the team, wearing a variety of strange masks, carrying a carved turnip lamp (pumpkin lamp system later custom, the earliest of the ancient Western Europe did not have a pumpkin), they wandered through the villages. This was actually a celebration of the fall harvest at that time; it was also said to be the "Ghost Festival", and legend has it that the souls of those who died that year would visit the world on the eve of Halloween, and it was said that people should let the ghosts of those who visited them see a successful harvest and present them with sumptuous hospitality. All bonfires and lights are used to scare the ghosts away, but also to light their way and guide them back.

In medieval central Europe, there was a history of Christianity destroying the pagans. But the ritual celebrations before New Year's Eve were never really eliminated, though in the form of witchcraft. That's why we still have traces of witches' brooms, black cats and spells in our current Halloween.

Two legends about the origin of Halloween:

The second

More than 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church in Europe designated November 1 as "ALL HALLOWS DAY". "HALLOW" means saints. Legend has it that since 500 B.C., the Celts, who lived in Ireland and Scotland, moved the holiday forward one day, to October 31st. They believed that the day is the official end of summer, that is, the beginning of the New Year, the beginning of the harsh winter. It was believed that on this day the dead souls of the deceased would return to their homelands to find life in the living and regenerate themselves, and that this was the only hope for regeneration after death. The living are afraid that the dead souls will come to take over their lives, so people will extinguish the fire and candles on this day so that the dead souls can't find the living, and they will dress up as demons to scare away the souls of the dead. Afterward, they would rekindle the fires and candles to start the new year. Legend has it that Celtic tribes also killed the living on October 31st to honor the dead.

The Romans, who occupied the Celtic territories in the 1st century AD, gradually accepted the Halloween custom, but stopped the barbaric practice of burning the living and sacrificing the dead. While the Romans celebrated harvest festivals in conjunction with Celtic rituals, wearing gruesome masks and dressing up as animals or ghosts and goblins, it was a way to chase away the demons that roamed around them. This is how Halloween came to be celebrated today by most people around the globe in a ghoulish getup. As time passed, the meaning of Halloween gradually changed, becoming more positive and happy, with festive connotations dominating. The idea of dead souls looking for replacements to return to the world was gradually discarded and forgotten. To this day, most of the images and drawings symbolizing Halloween, such as witches and black cats, have friendly, cute and funny faces.

The third

The Celts (Celtic) believed that the sun god helped them grow crops. However, every year the Sun God was attacked and imprisoned for six months by an evil force called Samhain, who also had two titles, "Lord of Dead" and "Prince of Darkness", and who came to the Celtic lands with a cold and dark winter.

The Celts feared the night of October 31 because they felt that a bunch of evil spirits lurked everywhere on that night. They built fires in their homes to get those evil spirits out of their homes (the last untranslated passage had a line about the flames scaring the ghosts away.) They believed it was Samhain that called the dead out, they also believed Samhain would change the dead into something else, like a cat. The Celts would put on scary disguises to drive the group of evil spirits away. (This is the archetype of Halloween)

Later Rome occupied Celtic lands and combined the Roman holiday with the Celtic festival of Samhain on Oct. 31, which became what is now known as Halloween.

Halloween Customs

October 31 is the Western Halloween, the streets of the United States can be seen all around the wonderful live performances, theaters staged illusion magic, realistic wandering corpses and ghosts, and a variety of horror movie screenings.

At night, the spiders are hurriedly set up and the actors responsible for the scares are helped to put on their makeup. The content of the haunted house, on the other hand, is mostly related to movie themes, such as: Legends of Gods and Ghosts, Legends of the Stars, Ghost Stories.... The setup, make-up techniques and costumes of these scenes are like real situations, which are sure to make people scream when they are not paying attention.

The origin of this carnival extravaganza is that in 500 B.C., people living in Ireland, Scotland and other places believed that the dead souls of the past lives would return to the place where they lived before being born on the day of October 31st and seek out the living spirits in the bodies of the living in order to have a chance of regeneration. Fearing that the ghosts would come to take their lives, the local residents would turn out all the lights on October 31st so that the ghosts would not be able to find the living, and would dress up as demons to scare the ghosts away.

As time passed, the meaning of Halloween became more festive. As a result, the monsters and pictures that symbolize Halloween have now become cute and quirky, such as the Goblin, the Witch, and so on. Americans, who love to be creative, dress up in spooky costumes on this day, making it a much more fun holiday.

Children's favorite holiday

Halloween is a good time for children to have fun. It is a holiday full of mystery in the eyes of children. When night falls, children can't wait to put on colorful costumes, wear strange masks, and carry a "jack-o'-lantern" to run out to play. "Jack-o-lanterns" look very cute, the practice is to hollow out the pumpkin, the outside carved with smiling eyes and big mouth, and then insert a candle in the melon, light it, people in a faraway place will be able to see this naive smiling face.

After cleaning up, a group of children dressed as demons and monsters carrying "jack-o-lanterns" ran to the door of their neighbor's house, shouting threateningly: "To play pranks or to give hospitality", "to give money or to give food! ". If adults do not treat them with candies and change, those mischievous children will do what they say: well, if you don't treat me, I'll play a prank on you. Sometimes they put soap on other people's doorknobs, sometimes they color other people's cats. These little pranks often make adults laugh and cry. Of course, most people were very happy to entertain these innocent little guests. That's why the children on Halloween night always have their bellies stuffed and their pockets full.

The most popular game on Halloween night is "Bite the Apple". In this game, an apple is made to float in a basin filled with water, and the children are asked to bite the apple with their mouths without using their hands, and the winner is the one who bites it first.

Trick or treat

One of the interesting aspects of Halloween is "Trick or treat", which did not originate in Ireland. It began in the Christian Church in Europe in the ninth century. At that time, November 2nd was called "ALL SOULS DAY" by Christians. On this day, believers traveled from village to village in the backcountry begging for "soul cakes" made of flour and raisins. It is said that the families who donate the cakes believe in the prayers of the monks of the church and expect to receive God's blessing for their deceased loved ones to enter heaven as soon as possible. The tradition of begging from house to house has evolved into a game in which children carrying pumpkin lanterns go from house to house begging for candy. When they meet, the children, dressed as ghosts and goblins, invariably threaten to "trick or treat," and the hosts, naturally, do not dare to slow down and say, "Please eat! Please eat!" At the same time, they put the candies into the big pockets that the children carry with them. There is also a custom that every family should put a lot of pumpkin lamps in each mouth, if not please eat (not give candy) , the children will trample one of his pumpkin lamps.

Carving empty pumpkins for masks

There is also the story of the pumpkins carved as lanterns. This again has its roots in ancient Ireland. The story goes that a man named Jack was a drunkard and a prankster. One day, Jack tricked a demon into climbing a tree, then carved a cross on the stump to terrorize the demon so that he wouldn't dare to come down, and then Jack made a pact with the demon, making the demon promise to cast a spell so that Jack would never commit a crime as a condition for letting him come down from the tree. After his death, Jack's soul could neither go to heaven nor hell, so his spirit had to rely on a small candle to guide him between heaven and earth.

In the old Irish legend, this small candle is placed in a hollowed out turnip, called "Jack LANTERNS", and the old turnip lamp evolved to today, is a pumpkin made Jack-O-Lantern. It is said that the Irish came to the United States soon, that is to say, found that the pumpkin whether from the source and carving are better than the turnip, so the pumpkin has become a Halloween pet.

Children's favorite holiday

Halloween is a great time for children to have fun. It is a festival full of mystery in the eyes of children. As night falls, children can't wait to put on their colorful costumes, strange masks, and jack-o-lanterns and run out to play.

After packing up, a group of children dressed as demons and monsters carrying "jack-o-lanterns" ran to the door of their neighbor's house, shouting threateningly: "Want to play a prank or to give hospitality", "give money or to give food! ". If adults do not treat them with candies and change, those mischievous children will do what they say: well, if you don't treat me, I'll play a prank on you. Sometimes they put soap on other people's doorknobs, sometimes they color other people's cats. These little pranks often make adults laugh and cry. Of course, most people were very happy to entertain these innocent little guests. That's why the children on Halloween night always have their bellies stuffed and their pockets full.

The most popular game on Halloween night is "Bite the Apple". During the game, people let the apple float in a basin filled with water, and then let the children bite the apple with their mouths without using their hands, and whoever bites it first is the winner.