Halloween
Typical festive Halloween activities include trick-or-treating , attending costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, playing pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films
The Halloween
holiday is commonly thought to have pagan roots, even though the etymology of
the word is Christian.Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of
Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in
the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead
called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic
festival of Samhain, derived from the Old Irish Samuin meaning "summer's end".Samhain was
the first and the most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Irish and Scottishcalendar and,
falling on the last day of autumn, it was a time for stock-taking and preparation
for the cold winter months ahead.There was also a sense that this was the time
of year when the physical and supernatural worlds were closest and magical
things could happen.The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes
on Samhain eve. To ward off these spirits, the Gaels
built huge, symbolically regenerative bonfires and invoked the help of the gods through animal and
perhaps even human sacrifice.In the Western Isles of Scotland the Sluagh,
or fairy host was regarded as composed of the souls of the dead flying through
the air, and the feast of the dead at Hallowe'en was likewise the festival of
the fairies.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar