Halloween is an autumn holiday that Americans cele

Halloween is an autumn holiday that Americans celebrate every year

. It means

Day. However

, it is not really a church holiday, it is a holiday for children mainly.

Every autumn, when the vegetables are ready to eat, children pick large orange

pumpkins. Then they cut faces in the pumpkins and put a burning candle inside.

It looks as if there were a person looking out of the pumpkin! These lights are

called jack-o'-lanterns, which means

The

children

also

put

on

strange

masks

and

frightening

costumes

every

Halloween. Some children paint their faces to look like monsters. Then they

carry boxes or bags from house to house. Every time they come to a new house,

they

say,

or

treat!

Money

or

eat!

The

grown-ups

put

treat-money

or

candy in their bags.

Not

only

children,

but

most

grown-ups

also

love

Halloween

and

Halloween

parties

because

on

this

day,they

can

disguise

themselves

as

personages

or

ghost as their imaginations will lead them. This bring them the satisfaction of

being young .

Halloween

is

an

observance

celebrated

on

the

night

of

October

31,

most

notably

by

children

dressing

in

costumes

and

going

door-to-door

collecting

candy. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in

the

United

States,

Puerto

Rico,

Republic

of

Ireland,

the

United

Kingdom,

Canada,

and

with

increasing

popularity

in

Australia

and

New

Zealand.

Halloween originated in Ireland as the pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain.

Irish,

Scots

and

other

immigrants

brought

older

versions

of

the

tradition

to

North

America

in

the

19th

century.

Most

other

Western

countries

have

embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The

term

Halloween,

and

its

older

spelling

Hallowe'en,

is

shortened

from

All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before

used by some older people. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints'

Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European

pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a

Christian interpretation. In Mexico November 1st and 2nd are celebrated as the

some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit.

In Australia it is sometimes referred to as

Halloween

is

sometimes

associated

with

the

occult.

Many

European

cultural

traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the

spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is

most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches).

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of?

And

how

did

this

peculiar

custom

originate?

Is

it,

as

some

claim,

a

kind

of

demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?

The word itself,

comes

from

a

contracted

corruption

of

All

Hallows

Eve.

November

1,

Hollows Day

saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on

October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year

.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had

died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies

to

possess

for

the

next

year

.

It

was

believed

to

be

their

only

hope

for

the

afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during

this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally,

the

still-living

did

not

want

to

be

possessed.

So

on

the

night

of

October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them

cold

and

undesirable.

They

would

then

dress

up

in

all

manner

of

ghoulish

costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive

as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not

to

discourage

spirit

possession,

but

so

that

all

the

Celtic

tribes

could

relight

their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the

Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was

thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other

accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century

AD,

Samhain

was

assimilated

into

celebrations

of

some

of

the

other

Roman

traditions that took place in October

, such as their day to honor Pomona, the

Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which

might

explain

the

origin

of

our

modern

tradition

of

bobbing

for

apples

on

Halloween.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized.

As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins,

ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

The

custom

of

Halloween

was

brought

to

America

in

the

1840's

by

Irish

immigrants

fleeing

their

country's

potato

famine.

At

that

time,

the

favorite

pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence

gates.

The custom of trick-or- treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish

Celts, but with a ninth- century European custom called souling. On November 2,

All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for

cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say

on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that

the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer

, even by

strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.

The Jack-o- lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is

told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster

, tricked

Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's

trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he

would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven

because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had

tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way

through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed- out turnip

to keep it glowing longer

.

The

Irish

used

turnips

as

their

lanterns

originall y.

But

when

the

immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful

than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit

with an ember

.

So,

although

some

cults

may

have

adopted

Halloween

as

their

favorite

rituals of Celts celebrating a new year

, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of

Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin

carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to

make it.

万圣节是纪念庆 祝

10

月

31

日晚，尤其是在服饰打扮儿童和挨家挨户上门收集

糖果。这是在庆祝西方世界很多，不过 大多数在美国，波多黎各，爱尔兰共和国

的共同，英国，加拿大，以及增加在澳大利亚和 新西兰的知名度。万圣节起源于

爱尔兰作为异教徒的凯尔特人丰年祭，

< br>Samhain

。爱尔兰，苏格兰和其他移民带

来的传统 旧版本北美在

19

世纪。大多数其他西方国家接受，作为美国流 行文化

在

20

世纪后期的一部分万圣节 。

万圣 节一词，其旧拼写万圣节，是由原来的全空洞的，甚至，因为这是前天晚上

“

”[1]

（也称为

“

万圣节

”

）

。在爱尔兰，这个名字是万圣节前夕，这个名

字仍然是一些老年人使用。

万圣节，

有时也被称为万圣节前夜。

这个节日是一个

宗教节日当天在各个北欧异教传统，直到它拨基督教传教士和基督教给予解释。

在墨西哥

11

月

1

日和

2

日是著名的

“

直径德洛杉矶穆埃

”

死亡之日。万圣 节之夜

也称为

Pooky

大概在命名后 ，普爱尔兰，一个顽皮的精神部分。在澳大利亚，

有时称为

“< /p>

恶作剧之夜

”

，由当地人。

万圣节，

许多欧洲的文化传统认为，

万 圣节是一年中阈限的

时代精神时，

其中一个世界上可以与现实世 界接触，

当是最强大的魔法

（例如关

于 女巫加泰罗尼亚神话）

。

万圣节 是一个一年一度的庆祝活动，

但到底什么才是真正的庆祝活动？又是如何

这一特殊习俗起源的？难道，

像一些人所说，

是恶魔崇 拜呢？或者它仅仅是一些

古老的异教仪式无害的痕迹？

这个词本身，

“

万圣节

”

，实际上是在天主教会 的起源。它来自一个万圣节前夕承

包腐败。

< br>11

月

1

日，

< br>“

所有空心日

”

（或