Ever wondered where our Halloween traditions and superstitions come from? Have you ever wondered why we celebrate this holiday? After you know the background information you will never celebrate Halloween the same way again.

Originally known as all Hallows-eve, Halloween originated from the Celtic cultural festival, Samhain, summers end. The Druids later celebrated this holiday by dancing around bonfires to keep evil ghosts away. These people dressed up in costume to scare away the evil spirits. Today we dress up in costumes for the fun of being somebody else for the day, instead of scaring away spirits.

Trick or treating wasn’t always for children and candy. In medieval times, people made soul cakes, in honor of All Souls’ Day. Its original name was called “souling.” Young children would go around begging for cakes and in return the children would have to say a prayer for all the dead relatives of the cake-giver.

The biggest tradition of Halloween definitely has its “roots” in other gourds. Traditionally people carve pumpkins to decorate their homes, but did you know that originally people carved other gourds to scare away evil spirits. People didn’t start carving pumpkins until the legend of “Stingy Jack.”

In the Irish Myth, Jack invites the Devil to have a drink with him, and then refused to pay. Jack then tricked the devil on multiple occasions and made the devil promise not to claim his soul should he die. When Jack finally died, God refused to claim such an evil person into heaven. The devil kept his word and Jack was sent off into the night with only a burning coal. He then put the coal into a gourd, which people began calling “Jack of the Lantern,” later shortened to “Jack O’Lantern.”

In Ireland and Scotland, people began carving scary faces into the sides of potatoes and turnips to scare away the spirit of stingy Jack and other roaming spirits. When Irish immigrants began traveling to America, they noticed it was much easier to carve pumpkins, and our tradition of carving pumpkins was born.