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    Halloween Reading

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    mariel.hottel
    Halloween traditions originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The Celts carved faces into vegetables to ward off ghosts and wore masks to disguise themselves from spirits. These traditions were incorporated into the Christian holidays of All Saints' and All Souls' Day and evolved into modern Halloween celebrations of carving pumpkins, wearing costumes, and trick-or-treating. While Halloween remains biggest in the United States, its traditions have spread globally and continue to blend with local customs in other countries.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Halloween Reading

    Uploaded by

    mariel.hottel
    5 views3 pages
    Halloween traditions originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The Celts carved faces into vegetables to ward off ghosts and wore masks to disguise themselves from spirits. These traditions were incorporated into the Christian holidays of All Saints' and All Souls' Day and evolved into modern Halloween celebrations of carving pumpkins, wearing costumes, and trick-or-treating. While Halloween remains biggest in the United States, its traditions have spread globally and continue to blend with local customs in other countries.

    Original Description:

    Una lectura especialmente diseñada para realizar en Halloween. Nivel B1-B2

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    Halloween traditions originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The Celts carved faces into vegetables to ward off ghosts and wore masks to disguise themselves from spirits. These traditions were incorporated into the Christian holidays of All Saints' and All Souls' Day and evolved into modern Halloween celebrations of carving pumpkins, wearing costumes, and trick-or-treating. While Halloween remains biggest in the United States, its traditions have spread globally and continue to blend with local customs in other countries.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    5 views3 pages

    Halloween Reading

    Uploaded by

    mariel.hottel
    Halloween traditions originated from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain celebrated on November 1st to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. The Celts carved faces into vegetables to ward off ghosts and wore masks to disguise themselves from spirits. These traditions were incorporated into the Christian holidays of All Saints' and All Souls' Day and evolved into modern Halloween celebrations of carving pumpkins, wearing costumes, and trick-or-treating. While Halloween remains biggest in the United States, its traditions have spread globally and continue to blend with local customs in other countries.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    ACADEMIA ARTURO SORIA

    C/ Asura, 41. 28043, Madrid

    www.academiarturosoria.com 91 759 81 49 / 646830297 [email protected]


    ACADEMIA ARTURO SORIA
    C/ Asura, 41. 28043, Madrid

    The origins of Halloween


    If you think of Halloween, you probably think of scary carved pumpkins, all kinds of fancy dress
    and children asking for sweets. And if you think of a country that celebrates Halloween, you probably
    think of the United States first. Americans and Canadians have adopted Halloween in a big way, but
    Halloween traditions actually come from 16th-century Ireland, Scotland and England.

    The tradition of Halloween on 31 October comes from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.
    Samhain was the Celtic New Year and they celebrated it on 1 November because that was the end of
    summer and harvest time (life) and the beginning of winter (death). It was also the time for ghosts to
    return to earth for a day. People lit a big fire, wore special clothes made of animal skin and hoped to
    be safe from the ghosts and the winter. In AD 609, the Catholic Church put the Christian celebration of
    All Saints Day on 1 November. In AD 1000, the church added All Souls Day on 2 November, and All
    Hallows Eve – or Halloween – moved to the night of the 31st.

    Pumpkins
    The Celts carved faces into vegetables like turnips, potatoes and squash (a pumpkin is a kind
    of squash) to scare the ghosts and other spirits and make them go away. It was sometimes called a
    jack-o’-lantern because of an Irish story about a man, Jack. He played a trick on the devil and then had
    to walk the earth for all time as a punishment. Irish people who came to live in the United States in the
    1800s found pumpkins much easier to carve, and the tradition became the one we see today.

    Fancy dress
    The Celts were afraid of the ghosts that came on Samhain. If they went outside after dark, they
    covered their faces with masks. They hoped any ghosts they met would think they were ghosts too and
    would leave them alone. In early America, the Native Americans and the first Europeans celebrated
    the end of the harvest, but not Halloween. When Irish people arrived, the harvest festival started to
    look more like Halloween and it became popular across the country. In the late 19th century, people
    tried to make Halloween less about ghosts and religion and more about celebrating the season with a
    party for neighbors and family. That’s why Americans today wear all kinds of Halloween costumes and
    not just scary things like witches and ghosts like in other countries.

    www.academiarturosoria.com 91 759 81 49 / 646830297 [email protected]


    ACADEMIA ARTURO SORIA
    C/ Asura, 41. 28043, Madrid

    Trick or treat
    This is another tradition that began in Europe, this time in England. When the church introduced
    All Souls Day, rich people gave poor people ‘soul cakes’, a small cake made with spices and raisins. It
    replaced the Celtic tradition of leaving food outside houses for the ghosts. ‘Going a-souling’ was
    popular in England for hundreds of years until about the 1930s. The Americans kept the tradition, but
    today children knock on people’s doors and ask for sweets. Going trick or treating is so popular that a
    quarter of the sweets for the year in the United States are sold for this one day.

    The rest of the world


    Halloween has become the United States’ second-biggest commercial festival after Christmas.
    Halloween is also celebrated in other countries, but it’s not as big as in the United States, even in the
    countries where the traditions began. Mexico celebrates the Day of the Dead from 31 October to 2
    November and some of its traditions, like giving gifts of sugar skulls, are starting to mix with Halloween.
    In this way, the celebration of Halloween continues to change as new traditions join the oldest of the
    Celtic ones.

    www.academiarturosoria.com 91 759 81 49 / 646830297 [email protected]

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