Halloween is a Traditional Folk Festival

Halloween or Halloween (without determiner) is a festival that takes place on the night of October 31 to November 1. It is celebrated mainly in Ireland, Canada, Australia, Great Britain and the United States.

The best known tradition is that children dress in costumes that are scary or ridiculous (ghosts, witches, monsters, vampires, for example) and go ring doorbells in asking adults themselves often disguised candy , fruit or money with the formula: Trick or treat! (“Trick or a curse!”) Or simply “Halloween! . Other activities include masked balls, watching horror films, visiting houses, “haunted”, etc..

Halloween is a folk Anglo-Saxon , which lend a certain Celtic origin, based on the coincidence of the calendar 1 November, the period of ancient Celtic religious festival of Samhain . This tradition was carried into North America in the nineteenth century by the Irish, Scots and other immigrants.

The main symbol of Halloween is the pumpkin, sometimes replaced by a pumpkin from the Irish legend of Jack-o’-lantern: it is cut to draw on, in depth, a face, then place a candle in the center .

Origin

Halloween is a traditional folk festival which some attribute to a distant Celtic . During the Celtic prehistory, there was a holy day – Samhain in Ireland, Samonios Gaul – which took place under the authority of the Druids, for seven days (the day of Samhain himself and three days before and three days later). “It’s a celebration of the year closing and opening of the year.

The time of Samhain is one of Sid briefly confused with that of humanity. ” is the period of possible meetings between some men and mythical gods of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Celtic culture (and religion and festivals Druid) has disappeared from Ireland in the fifth century, with the evangelization hagiography of St. Patrick.

The Christian feast of All Saints, which is backed Halloween has been established that in the ninth century by Pope Gregory IV. The extensive medieval Irish literature, developed by the clergy between the eighth and twelfth, it mentions the sacred festival of Samhain.

The etymology is entirely within the English language, unrelated to the gaélique or any other Celtic language. Its current name is a corruption of All Hallow Even , which literally means “the evening of All Saints’, that is to say, before the Christian feast of All Saints (hallow is an archaic form of the word English meaning holy holy, Even is a normal form which has formed evening (evening)). Spelling Hallowe’en is still sometimes used in Canada and the United Kingdom , “e’en” is the contraction of even, become “een”.

The folk festival of Halloween was, finally, imported into the North American continent by the British Catholic immigrants.

Symbols

Originally, the symbol of Halloween had a turnip containing a candle to commemorate the legend of Jack-o’-lantern (Jack the lantern), condemned to wander forever in darkness between heaven and hell in lighting up a torch placed in a turnip .

The turnip was gradually replaced by a pumpkin, which is sometimes replaced by a pumpkin or other vegetable, it is cut to draw on, and hollow, his face grimacing, then place a candle in the center.

Even if there is a tradition in the British Isles consisting carving a lantern from a rutabaga, a fodder beet or a turnip, the practice was associated with Halloween in North America, where the pumpkin was larger and easier to carve.

The imagery surrounding Halloween is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself (season when the nights are getting longer and longer compared to the day), or almost a century of artistic performances (especially in movies U.S.), and a willingness mercantile market that relates to the dark and mysterious.

This usually involves death, magic, or mythical monsters. The characters commonly associated with Halloween are ghosts, ghouls, witches, vampires, bats, owls, crows, vultures, haunted houses, pumpkin-headed figures, black cats, spiders , goblins, zombies, mummies, skeletons, werewolves and demons .

Especially in North America, symbolism is inspired by classic horror film, with characters like Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Werewolf and the Mummy. Homes are often decorated with these symbols.

The orange and black are the colors traditionally associated with Halloween . In products and the more recent images, there are also purple, green and red. The use of these colors is partly due to their use in advertisements relevant to this festival for over a century.


Source: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

See Also: International Flower Delivery, Florist