Happy Halloween
Posted on Friday, October 31st, 2014 at 12:39 pmA brief history of the favorite holiday in Austin, TX.
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Halloween began as a Celtic celebration, with the first day of the year being on November 1. It was similar to our New Year’s Eve. It was originally called Old Year’s Night, and referred to as The Night of All Witches. It was a celebration of the midwives and their herbs and remedies, which were made to help survive the cold winter. It was a night of drinking and potions.
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Now the Roman Catholic Church took the New Year’s Day and made it All Saints Day. This was a common practice of the church, to take heathen celebrations and change them into Christian celebrations. Saturnalia became Christmas, May Day became Easter, etc. To encourage prayer coming into All Saints Day, which was renamed All Hallows Day to broaden the scope, Halloween was created as a PR spin. All witches were black to the church, so it was an easy adaptation to go from praising the midwives to condemning then in favor of Catholic doctors.
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Since then, we have added all sorts of things that go bump in the night. Hollywood hasn’t helped keeping their numbers down.