It’s that time of year again and whether you accept a trick or offer a treat, opinion in the UK is divided on whether Halloween is just another annoying American import or a fun distraction for the children over the half term holidays. Whatever your opinion trick-or-treating at Halloween is a relatively recent and increasingly popular phenomenon in the UK. In the US however they have been celebrating Halloween for decades and its roots can be traced back to Irish immigrants bringing the tradition with them from the old country. Halloween, or ‘’Samhain’’ (pronounced sow-an) in Irish Gaelic, is thought to originate from the Celtic festival celebrating the end of the harvest and beginning of winter. On this day it was thought the spirit and living worlds were closest so spirits were more likely to roam the earth on this day.

The tradition of dressing up stemmed from this belief. Good spirits and bad spirits were equally free to roam the earth and people were terrified of a visit from a bad spirit. They would then dress up as something scary to ward off these bad spirits and avoid harm to themselves, their family or their crops for the next year. Nowadays, children and adults alike dress up as spooky beings with witches being the most popular costume of choice. Furthermore it is estimated that a spooktacular £64 million (that’s £64,000,000) will be spent on Halloween costumes alone in 2014 – quite frightening indeed.

Trick-or-treating or going door to door collecting sweets and cookies (these days) or apples and nuts (in times gone by) was thought to have started by the Catholic Church approving an event called ‘’souling’’. This event entailed beggars knocking on doors and asking for food (mainly oatcakes or barley biscuits) in exchange for prayers for the soul of a recently deceased loved-one. The prayers were supposed to shorten the time the soul spent in purgatory and make it more likely for the soul to go to heaven. The people who knock on your door at Halloween would appreciate sweets more than oatcakes and will not pray for a soul. However it is very important to remember that trick-or-treat is a question not a statement – the absence of a treat will lead to a trick. Scrooges are warned!

There are other traditions associated with Halloween including the placing of gifts in the Barm Brack. This is a traditional Irish custom in which coins, rings or other objects are placed in a tea loaf batter and baked. When the loaf is cut whoever receives the gift will be blessed with wealth (if it is a coin) or love (if it is a ring). A tradition you may be more familiar with is that of pumpkin carving. It originated, like many Halloween traditions, in ancient Ireland where turnips were carved into candle-holders with scary faces on to scare away evil spirits. The turnips orange cousin was introduced when large amounts of Irish men, women and children immigrated to America during the potato famine of the 1840s and wanted to carry on their traditions of vegetable carving. In this new land they found pumpkins – which were easier to carve than turnips as they were hollow. Today the custom is widespread and retail giant Sainsbury’s expects to sell more than 1.5 million pumpkins this year.

Halloween has many different customs originating from many different cultures. Apple bobbing started when the Romans invaded Britain and brought apple trees with them. They then merged two of their won festivals with Samhain. Like cutting Barmbrack, the purpose of apple bobbing was to determine who would be married soon. The first to bite an apple would be the next one to marry. Thankfully, today apple bobbing is not taken so seriously and children have a great time dunking their heads in fruit-filled bowls.

For many years Halloween has just been a fun event for children with no politicising by Pagans or Christians. The name ‘’Halloween’’ comes from all hallows eve – hallow meaning holy or saintly and All Saints Day is thought to have been moved from May 13th to November 1st in order to canonise the Celtic festival whilst the Church was trying to Christianise Ireland. Christians today still try to politicise a seemingly harmless festival.

So this Halloween, whatever your opinion on the festival, be sure to have fun and give a thought to the people thousands of years ago who probably did not imagine carving a turnip or planting an apple tree would become a multi-million pound industry with two out of every three Britons celebrating the festival to celebrate the start of winter.