Halloween, one of the most popular holidays of the autumn period, is celebrated the night before All Saints’ Day: this year too, on the evening of 31 October 2025 it will be traditional to display carved pumpkins and dress up in costumes that recall scary figures. In reality, despite what one might think, the origins of this celebration do not date back to the United States, but to Europe, and are linked to the feast of All Saints, introduced in the 7th century, and to some rites of the Celtic populations.
Not surprisingly, the word “Halloween” is a contraction of All Hallows’ Eve, literally “All Hallows’ Eve”: this is why it is celebrated every year on the night before November 1st. According to some studies, the traditions of All Hallows’ Eve would have been influenced by a Celtic holiday, namely the Samhain festival, which represented the end of summer and the beginning of the new year.
Today Halloween is a very popular occasion, especially in the USA and in recent decades it has spread, to a lesser extent, also to Italy and the rest of Europe.
History and origins of Halloween in the Celtic festival Samheim
According to several studies, the origins of “Halloween” and the celebrations for “All Hallows’ Eve” were influenced by a Celtic holiday, namely the Samhain festival, which marked the end of summer and the harvest period and the beginning of the new year. In particular, November 1st was considered the beginning of the winter period, as it represented the date on which the herds returned from the pastures and the land holdings were renewed.
During the Samhain festival, it was believed that the souls of the dead returned to visit their homes, and then returned to travel in the afterlife: for this very reason, the Celts used to light bonfires on the tops of the hills during this night to scare away evil spirits, even wearing masks and disguises to avoid being recognized by ghosts. The Romans, then, after conquering the Celts, also associated this festival with the celebrations dedicated to the goddess Pomona, i.e. the goddess of the harvest.
It must be said, in reality, that these hypotheses are not fully accepted by historians: what is certain is that the celebrations of All Hallows’ Eve began to be lost around the 15th century when, after the Anglican reform in England and the Lutheran one in central Europe, this holiday began to be opposed.
The meaning of Halloween and the symbols
As mentioned, the term “Halloween” was first attested in 1735 as a contraction of All Hallows’ Eveor “All Hallows’ Eve”. Its origins, therefore, also lie in the cults of the Catholic religion and in the celebration of All Saints’ Day, introduced by the Church in the 7th century AD and derived from the pre-existing cult of the martyrs, i.e. the Christians killed before Christianity was legalized by the Roman Empire. As already happens with other religious occasions such as Christmas or Easter, over the years the habit of keeping vigil during the previous night, waiting for the following day, spread among the faithful: starting from 1600, however, with the advent of Anglicanism and Protestantism, the tradition gradually disappeared, regaining value only in the United States where it arrived thanks to European immigrants.
Among the most famous symbols of Halloween there are certainly carved pumpkins: this tradition is associated with a seventeenth-century Irish legend, according to which a blacksmith named Jack (hence “Jack o’ lantern”, the pumpkin carved in the shape of a human face and equipped with a lantern) managed to deceive the devil, but after his death he was condemned to wander for eternity and to gain light only with a lantern.
Halloween, therefore, is not considered a devil’s holiday, but this association derives from its Celtic origins and fusion with Christian beliefs. Among other things, the custom of transforming vegetables into lanterns on the occasion of Halloween was born in the nineteenth century in Ireland and Scotland, where, however, pumpkins were not used, but turnips. It was the United States, once again, that launched the tradition of carving pumpkins, a celebration first attested in 1837.
How Halloween is celebrated today: the traditions
Although it was born in Europe, Halloween today owes its popularity to the cultural influence of the United States, which has made it a secular celebration accompanied by various traditions. Among these, the most widespread are:
- Trick or treat: this tradition mainly involves children, who go from house to house asking “trick or treat?” (from English trick or treat), and probably derives from the custom of the so-called soul cakes, that is, the cakes of the souls, to be offered to poor children who knocked on the door to ask for a sweet in exchange for a prayer for the deceased. At the same time, it could be a legacy of the Samhain festival, during which it was traditional to leave food for the dead.
- Disguises with scary costumes: wearing costumes depicting scary subjects such as skeletons, vampires or witches is one of the most common traditions during Halloween: the origin would be found in the habit of dressing in a scary way during All Saints’ Eve with the aim of warding off evil spirits.
