Halloween Day is celebrated as a festival around the world.

Especially celebrated by the younger generation, this festival of All Hallowes comes about as a practice followed among the Christian population and has its origins as a Pagan Celtic festival – Samhain. It’s celebrated the night before the Christian Festival of All Saints Day. Adults create laterns for their children made from large pumkins which have been made into ghoulish faces. Children play ‘trick or treat’.

However, in the Nordic countries this is the evening when friends and relatives who have died are remembered. People often go to the cemetary and place lit candles in the snow. The sight of hundreds of candles burning in the dark, illuminated by the white snow is quite a sight.

Find out more about Halloween
Find out more about All Saints Day

Close on the heels of All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en) comes
All Hallows’ Day or Hallowmas; now known as All Saints Day. It’s a Christian festival of remembrance of all saints and martyrs, known and unknown. It has been in the Christian tradition since the 4th century but was celebrated during May. However, it was moved to November 1st during the 8th century and fell during the time of the Celtic holiday of Samhain. This Celtic festival had a similar theme to the Roman festival of Lemuria  in which the malevolent and restless spirits of the dead were pacified.   Liturgiologists base the idea that this Lemuria festival was the origin of that of All Saints Dayon their identical dates and on the similar theme of “all the dead”.

 

it is thought to have originated