History of Halloween traditions

We all used to go all out dressing up and going trick or treating with our friends and family, but where did all these modern traditions come from? Black cat scares? Bobbing for apples? Dressing up in scary costumes? I found out the answers to all of these questions so you didn’t have to. 

    There are a lot of different theories of where the origin of trick or treating comes from, but there’s one theory we hear the most often. It argues that it stems from an America-German tradition called belsnickling. This is when the children would dress up and have their neighbors try to guess who it was, and if they couldn’t figure it out they would reward the child with food or candy. 

    Black cats are genetically the same as the rest of their cute cuddly friends except everyone says they’re bad luck, but why is that? According to https://www.catit.com/black-cats-considered-bad-luck/ it states, “In Celtic mythology however, a legend existed about a creature called the Cat Sìth.” They continue to explain that “The Cat Sìth was said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its chest. The Cat Sìth could steal a person’s soul before the gods could claim it by passing over a corpse before the burial.” Honestly hearing that’s what they believed in I would also be afraid of black cats. 

    I love being scared and going to haunted houses as much as the next, but why do we all have a tradition of dressing up on October 31st? The Celts believed if they dressed up they would look like the evil spirits. If they were dressed up good enough they thought the spirits would mistake them for other spirits and pass over them, so if you were scary enough you’d be saved from the evil spirits. 

    Bobbing for apples has always been a fun game for people of all ages. Apparently it originated from the Romans; it was a courting ritual to see whether or not the man and woman were fit for each other. Somewhere from then and now children are bobbing for apples every October. 

         Halloween has always been a super fun holiday but it’s also super random. We all have these traditions without knowing the origin of them. I did the research to put your curiosity to rest.