Halloween has its roots in the Ancient Celtic festival of Sabian in Europe. Sabain is a religion people celebrate to honor many gods. They proceeded to call themselves the Sabians. Every November 1st people of Sabian would celebrate to welcome the end of the summer harvest. Everyone in Sabian would wear costumes and stand by a bonfire to ward off the summer ghosts. Pope Gregory II designated November 1st as its way to honor the saints. Somehow it shifted to the end of October 31st, which became All Hallows Eve. The world was changing when new traditions started to appear like Carving Jack-o-lanterns and trick-and-treating.

The people of Sabian created most of the traditions we have today. Each of these traditions has a backstory of how they came to be. Carving pumpkins came from this urban legend of a man named Stingy Jack. He was an alcoholic and would love to play tricks on the Sabian people, garnering much distrust and contempt. Every November 1st he would carve a turnip and trick the devil. He would capture him and make him promise that the devil wouldn’t drag his soul down to hell. This continued to happen til the day Stingy Jack died from alcohol poisoning. He went up to the gates of heaven and the gods rejected him because of his alcohol problem. Stingy Jack decided to go to the gates of hell. The devil rejected him because for so many years Stingy Jack would trap the devil and make the devil promise that he wouldn’t drag his soul down to the gate of hell. So the devil gave him a turnip to carve into the lantern so he could roam the earth for his punishment. 

There is much debate about how trick-or-treating became a tradition. The first theory is that the people of Sabian set out food and offerings for the spirits passing the earth at night. People start to dress up as the spirits to take offerings such as food and drinks. The second theory is that the people of Scotland would do something called souling. Souling would be something poor families would do to get money and food. They would do something to get food and other things. They would beg local people in return for a prayer to All Souls Day. That would be their version of “Trick-or-Treating.” The last theory is that Americans would dress up in costume and make their neighbors guess what they were. If they couldn’t guess the costume the young child was wearing, the child would be rewarded with prizes or just a piece of candy. 

Halloween is a tradition that will never be forgotten. It has been a tradition for 2000 years and every year it’s special in its very own way. Halloween is a day people can go and get candy from people and dress up. Most kids mostly go to parties and have fun. Parents go and take the younger kids trick or treating. Everyone has lots of fun on a spooky day like Halloween. Other places like Mexico and Italy celebrate Halloween in their unique way.