万圣节的资料英文版

万圣节的资料英文版

The

word

itself,

actually has its

origins

in

the

Catholic

Church.

It

comes

from

a

contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1,

day of observance in honor of 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,

made

out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more

soul

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.