Halloween: Its Roots and Traditions Around the World Halloween
is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31st.
Traditional activities include trick-or-treating, bonfires,
costume parties, visiting "haunted houses" and carving jack-o-
lanterns. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the
tradition to North America in the nineteenth century. Other
western countries embraced the holiday in the late 20th century
including Ireland, the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and
the United Kingdom as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known
as Samhain (pronounced "sah-win"). The festival of Samhain is a
celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture.
Samhain was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of
supplies and prepare for winter. The ancient Gaels believed that
on October 31st, the boundaries between the worlds of the living
and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life
and cause havoc such as sickn