Trick or Treat?
‘Trick or Treat?’, I wonder how many websites and blog entries have that title today? Well it is Halloween so I thought I’d be topical too, but what is it all about? Why do we celebrate Halloween? Why do we dress up in ghoulish costumes and carve out pumpkins? Why do we play ‘trick or treat’ and why do we bob for apples. More importantly now that I’m a responsible parent do I want to encourage Morgan to go out and blackmail people into giving him treats?
To be honest with you I don’t know the answers to most of these questions. All I think I know is that Halloween is a Pagan festival and that the word itself is derived from ‘All Hallows Eve’, but that doesn’t really mean much to me either. So, with the power of the internet at my fingertips I shall do some research and see what I can discover.
Well, it seems I was correct as far as the derivation of the name goes and the fact that it was originally a Pagan festival. It is so called because it is the evening before ‘All Saints day’ (which is November 1st and an important date in the Christian calendar). The ‘All Hallows’ bit comes from All Hallowed Souls (Saints).
In Britain and Ireland in particular, the pagan Celts celebrated the Day of the Dead on All Hallows Day (1st November). The spirits supposedly rose from the dead and, in order to attract them, food was left on the doors. This goes someway to explaining the association with witches and ghouls and pumpkins left on the doorstep. To scare off the evil spirits, the Celts wore masks which explains the dressing up. Further connections with ghosts, evil spirits and all thing ghoulish comes from the fact that Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the “liminal” times of the year when the spirit world can make contact with the natural world and when magic is most potent.
But what of the traditions, in particular Trick or Treating? The origins of this activity come from the Celts who tried to appease the evil spirits: ghosts, goblins, and demons. They would leave out food, hoping that this would please the spirit world. If they did not leave a thing, then the spirits would play evil “tricks” on the living in that house. The Druids required human sacrifices, they would go door to door asking for the virgin daughters. If this was not obtained at the chosen homes, then a hexagram was painted on the door in blood to show the appointed evil spirits to cause all kinds of evil to fall on the home.
Trick or treating is much more popular in North America than it is on this side of the Atlantic, but as with many US cultural influences it is slowly gaining in popularity here. I remember doing it when I was younger and I’m sure Morgan will do it when he is a little older. Of course, shops and businesses have caught on to the tradition and at this time of year everywhere you look there are things packaged in black and orange and shops and supermarkets have costumes for sale. All of which I’m sure will help encourage Trick-or-Treating to grow. But is it something we want to encourage?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a killjoy and as long as it remains good healthy harmless fun then I am all for it. We certainly need something to help brighten these suddenly dark evenings, but it strikes me as the sort of activity which could easily be abused and become as sinister as some of the costumes. After all, in essence we are dressing up in scary, intimidating costumes and black-mailing people into giving us treats or else we’ll play a trick on them. I guess the important thing is that the trick remain harmless.
I know when we did it the most we would do would be spray some crazy-string at our victims. Although there was one year that we came up with the idea of leaving a note for the milkman saying ‘No Milk Today Please’ as our trick… Again, fairly harmless, but probably a little annoying for our victims when they were expecting some milk for their cornflakes the following morning!
Thankfully out here we don’t expect any problems from Trick-or-Treaters, but I could imagine in some places certain rogue elements will use it as an excuse for vandalism and general yobbish behaviour. Maybe that is one reason why it has never really caught on here. Perhaps deep down we all have a slight reticence about the whole idea and don’t really want to encourage such behaviour. For me as a new parent I’d like to think of Halloween as a celebration and a time to have some fun, dress up, enjoy ourselves play a few harmless tricks but not to cause anyone any harm or worry.
Maybe the Romans had the right idea. When they invaded Britain, they embellished the tradition with their own, which is both a celebration of the harvest and of honouring the dead. They honoured the dead with a festival called Feralia in late October. It honoured Pomona, their goddess of fruit trees who was often pictured wearing a crown of apples. During this festival, they ran races and played games to honour the “Apple Queen”. These Roman customs led to the now well establish Halloween game of ‘Bobbing for Apples’.
Personally, I quite like the idea of some kind of celebration at this time of year. Dressing up and playing games is always fun and that I’d like to encourage, Trick or Treating is fine as long as it is properly supervised and not intimidating or harmful. I’m quite looking forward to taking Morgan out to do such things in a few years time (if he wants to) and at least now when he asks why we do it or what Halloween is all about I’ll be able to tell him.
