What images does the word “Halloween” conjure up? Witches? Ghosts? Goblins? The Day of the Dead? Actually, Halloween has an astronomical origin--dating back to the Celts, who lived in pre-Christian Britain.
Halloween is a “cross-quarter day,” observed by the Celts, and by traditional Japanese Shinto societies. Both cultures recognized the equinoxes and the solstices as the middle of the season, and marked the beginning of the seasons by four cross-quarter days (the Celtic names follow): February 1, or Imbolc, May 1, called Beltane, August 1, Lughnasad, and November 1, or Samhain. The cross-quarter days fell between the quarter days marked by the Sun: the winter solstice, or the longest night of the year, the spring equinox, with equal night and day, the summer solstice, or the longest day of the year, and the autumnal equinox, with equal day and night. The traditional cross-quarter days are still observed, although now they’re called Groundhog Day, May Day, Lammas Day (celebrated on August 1, Lammas Day is a harvest holiday that’s not well-known), and Halloween.
The Celts called Halloween “Samhain,” or “summer’s end” and it was also their New Year’s Eve. By this time, the crops had been harvested, the animals brought in, and people had settled in for the winter. November 1 was All Saints Day, a time to remember the dead, and the night before was Halloween, or All Hallows Eve. The Celts believed that at this time, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was its thinnest, and that the departed, especially those who had died within the previous year, might return to their former homes for a visit. Villagers put out offerings of food and drink to aid these otherworldly travelers on their journey--a precursor to today’s trick-or-treat tradition. Many of the modern-day Halloween traditions, in fact, descend from ancient Celtic rituals used to commemorate this day, a day that originally marked the cycle of the seasons.