What do the Pope, Beer, and Halloween Have in Common?
October 2024
As we approach this famous, or in some cases infamous, holiday you may find yourself asking a variety of questions. Why do witches have cauldrons? When has anyone ever tricked instead of treated? And what is the history of Halloween in the first place? In order to find some answers, I consulted history.com and irishmyths.com.
Lets begin with how halloween originated, and the different names it's taken along the way. The Celts of Ancient Gaul (modern day France) had an end of year celebration they called Samonios, after their first month of the year. For them, the holiday was one that came with many superstitions, as they believed it would reflect on the year ahead and that the veil between living and dead was thin - something that remains consistent in all the interactions of this holiday.
The first recorded evidence of this holiday is from the 3rd century. However, its earlier spread to Ireland indicates that it was celebrated before this. Though it is unclear exactly when, somewhere between 5,000 and 100 BCE the Celts of ancient Gaul invaded Ireland and spread their new year celebration. The people of Ireland then changed the name of the holiday to something a little more Irish: Samhain. They further developed many traditions for the holiday, such as setting ceremonial fires and consuming alcohol.
They did this until 835 CE when Pope Gregory III “rescheduled” All Hallows' Day or All Saint's Day to coincide with Samhain as part of the Christianization of Ireland. All Hallow's Day then turned into Halloween. Due to the protestant majority in America and their negative outlook on anything involving the dead, it took until the 19th century for Halloween to become popular in the United States. This was largely due to the great number of Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine and bringing the holiday with them.
On to some of the how some of the other spooky parts of Halloween became attached to the holiday. It was during All Saint's Day in the Middle ages that trick or treating became popular as a promise to pray for someone's relatives in exchange for a sweet; though at this time it was known as “souling” due to the popularity of soul cake as a sweet they might receive. Though trick-or-treating and particularly the costumes into the traditions we know today during the 1950s, with the industrial revolution bringing about individually wrapped candies and manufactured costumes as easily accessible in stores.
Haunted houses became popular in Europe from the 19th century on, as Marie Tussaud's Wax museum came up with an exhibit called the “Chamber of Horrors.” The United States, however, took until the great depression in the 1930s to catch on to the idea.
Due to the superstitious nature of this holiday, it is unsurprising that witches were somehow brought into the mix. If I were to ask you to picture a witch, you might imagine a woman with a big pointy hat and a cauldron. But where does this image come from? According to Smithsonian Magazine, people have been drinking beer for centuries and brewing it was a woman's task, up until the 1500s. Prior to the 1500s brew masters were almost exclusively women who decided to make a little money on the side from their families extra beer. They would brew their beer in a pot or cauldron and wear a large pointy hat so that people could spot them in a crowd, and know who to buy beer from. Men started to realize how profitable being a brewmaster was, and in the 1500s if you wanted to get rid of a woman, or a group of them, you only needed to utter one word: WITCH!
On a final note, it was the media in the 1980s that popularized the idea of people putting poison in candy. So if you plan to trick-or-treat, be careful and don't consume anything that looks like it's been opened.
So if someone asks you the history behind this holiday, a witch captures you and you need something to distract her with, or you just feel like being a bit pretentious and showing off, refer back to this helpful article and have a happy Halloween!
So if someone asks you the history behind this holiday, a witch captures you and you need something to distract her with, or you just feel like being a bit pretentious, refer back to this helpful article and have a happy Halloween!
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