When is Halloween 2017? True story behind All Souls and All Saints, why we celebrate and terrifying facts
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Tucked between the cold nights of winter and the falling leaves of autumn we have Halloween - a time of celebration and superstition.
But where did the spooky day come from and why do we celebrate it?
The spookiest time of the year isn't just a time for kids to dress up and trick or treat.
It's thought Halloween started with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would wear costumes and roam to ward of ghosts, but it's down to Pope Gregory III's decree in the eight century that we celebrate it as we do.
Why do we celebrate Halloween?
Samhain (sow-in) marked the end of summer and the harvest and heralded in the colder months. Celts believed that on the night before the new year the boundaries between world of the living and the dead become blurred.
Traditionally people wore costumes, animal skins and heads and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. By 43 AD the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic territory and over the years of their reign they combined their festivals with the Celtic's.
The first was Feralia, a day late in October where Romans marked the passing of the dead. The second was Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruits and trees. The symbol for Pomona is an apple - and people see this as the reason "bobbing apples" became a tradition associated with Halloween.
It was in 609 AD that Christianity changed the festival to add praying for the dead.
The Pope designated November 1 as a time to honour the saints and martyrs, a holiday that became known as All Saints Day. The day took on some of the Samhain traditions. The evening became known as All Hallows Eve - Halloween.
The next day, November 2, is All Souls Day, when the dead are remembered. To Christians, All Souls Day is a time for people to pray for the dead. The tradition was based on the idea of purgatory - a stage between heaven and hell. It also begins 'the month of the dead', which takes place in November in the Christian tradition.
It was thought Christians were trying to make the day a sanctioned Church holiday but All Souls Day kept many of the Samhain traditions.
Over time it's become a secular festival best known for children donning costumes and masks to scare others witless and garner treats. Of course, the tradition made it's way to America. By the nineteenth century, with the influx of immigrants, Halloween took over most of the country. America's would visit neighbours and ask for food which later became known as "trick or treating".
(Image: Aldi)
While Halloween went out of fashion in the 1800s and was seen as a pagan belief, it wasn't long before it returned and became what we know and celebrate today.
Around the world, many countries have their own weird Halloween traditions - and some of them are downright bizarre - and there's no end of urban myths designed to freak you out.
We have rounded up some terrifying Halloween tales as well as the origins behind some of the most well known traditions on October 31.
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10 Halloween facts to spook you out
1. Dress up and scare off the evil spirits
(Image: Getty)
You might think putting on a mask is just for the kids, but it was actually adopted by pagans in the community during Samhain to scare off evil spirits.
What started out as animal skins and heads has turned into something a little less gruesome now.
It was hoped that wandering spirits seeing people in their weird disguises would assume they were also spirits - and let them go free.
2. Jack O'Lanterns were originally made from turnips
(Image: Museum of Country Life)
The British tradition of carving a scary face into a vegetable was originally done with turnips.
When Irish immigrants took the idea of the Jack O'Lantern to America, they started using pumpkins, because they were cheaper than turnips.
The legend of Stingy Jack inspired the carving.
He trapped the Devil, only letting him go on the condition that Jack would never go to Hell.
However, when he died, Jack learned that Heaven was out due to his devilish dealings, so he was condemned to wander the earth as a ghost for all eternity.
Gifted Jack a lump of burning coal by the Devil, Jack carried it round in a carved-out turnip to light his way.
3. Halloween decoration or a real live body - people have made mistakes
(Image: Getty)
You might think that the skeleton decorations are all a bit of fun, but in 2012, a postman thought a corpse was part of the Halloween display - but it was actually the resident of the house, who had died.
Dale Porch was coming back from working the overnight shift on November 2, when he collapsed on the porch steps.
The 46-year-old's family was distraught and felt the postman should have done something.
4. If you bite into a Halloween cake and hit a thimble, you'll be unlucky in love
(Image: Getty)
Part of the Halloween tradition in colonial America involved the baking of a Halloween cake.
Bakers would hide various things in the cake to tell the future. A thimble was a symbol of bad luck with the ladies or gentlemen.
Also, presumably, a sign that you've got a costly visit to the dentist in your near future.
5. 'Punkie Night' - Somerset's own deeply creepy Halloween celebration
The villages of Hinton St George and Lopen in Somerset have their very own twist on Halloween, and it's dead creepy.
Historically, the tradition involved children marching around with jack o'lanterns - or 'punkies' - begging for candles and money, and threatening those who wouldn't cough up. So far, so trick-or-treat, right?
Well, what makes it extra sinister, is the fact that this band of marauding youngsters is generally led by a Punkie King and Punkie Queen - and they sing a song.
The song goes:
"It's Punkie Night tonight
"It's Punkie Night tonight
"Adam and Eve would not believe
"It's Punkie Night tonight."
And here's how it sounds - as performed by Carl Turney and Brian Campbell from the band Clinic.
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Shudder.
6. Michael Myers' mask in the movie Halloween was the face of William Shatner
Since the film had an incredibly low budget, the prop department on horror classic Halloween had to dress serial killer Michael Myers in the cheapest mask they could find in their local fancy dress shop.
Turns out that was a mask of William Shatner, which cost them the princely sum of $2.
They modified it a bit, spray painted it white and made it a bit scarier and it became one of the iconic images of horror cinema.
The cheapo slasher went on to take $70m at the worldwide box office, more than 215 times its $325,000 budget. That makes it the most profitable film ever to feature William Shatner's face, beating Star Trek II and Miss Congeniality.
Shatner also claims to have gone trick-or-treating in the mask of his own face.
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7. If you're in Germany on Halloween, hide the knives
They celebrate Halloween in Germany, but as a time to honour and respect the dead.
One tradition is to hide all the knives in the house, for fear that returning spirits might injure themselves on any knives that are left out.
There are a number of logical problems with this tradition - not least of which is that ghosts tend to be dead already, so how much damage can a knife realistically do? But if you start applying logic to the idea of the dead walking the Earth...
8. If you're in Italy, you can enjoy the Beans of the Dead
In Italy they have a traditional Halloween recipe, which is kind of an oval cookie a bit like a macaron. It's called Fave dei Morti, which roughly translates as Beans of the Dead.
Beans of the Dead sounds like the great lost George A Romero zombie movie nobody's been waiting for.
poll loading Would you eat the 'Beans of the Dead' 0+ VOTES SO FAR Sure, they look like macarons The beans of the what now? Ew, no. I imagine they'll be all squishy and rotten No thanks, I'm trying to avoid carbs
9. Chances are, if your trick-or-treat sweets have been poisoned, a family member did it
There are all kinds of urban myths about the mean old crone or crazed madman in the tumble-down shack slipping poison or dangerous items into cakes and candy for the unsuspecting cherubs who knock on their door on Halloween.
In reality almost every case of Halloween candy tampering has been performed by a family member.
For example, there was the case of Ronald O'Bryan, who laced his son's sweets with cyanide in Texas in 1974. Or the case in Detroit in 1970, where 5-year-old Kevin Toston died of a heroin overdose after he found his uncle's stash of the drug. His family later sprinkled heroin over his Halloween candy to try and protect his uncle.
In the cases of foreign objects hidden in sweets - like needles or razor blades - all but a handful have been hoaxes, or the media jumping on a story which turned out to be untrue.
There was, however, the case in Manchester of a 23-year-old man who was giving out baggies of cocaine to kids instead of sweets - though he didn't hide it in any sweets, police said he'd given the items "in error."
10. Urban myths come from somewhere - probably your home town
Like the one about the poisoned sweets, urban myths are rife and Halloween seems the perfect time to share them.
A modern-day fairytale complete with nastiness, an urban legend is a form of modern folklore consisting of fictional stories with macabre elements deeply rooted in local popular culture.
The scariest urban legends
Mashable asked for the scariest urban legends in 140 characters or less, and they weren't dsappointed. Here are our favourites.