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Samhain, All Hallows Eve, Halloween... WHAT is the purpose?

© Shannon McCracken-Barber

First things first, I would like to apologize for my long absense from this place called the net and, more specifically, my articles. We found out about five months ago that I am pregnant and, although a joyous thing, life has been a little more hectic since then between miscarriage scares, sleep and no shortage of it, and lots of work. Spirits willing, all seems to be going well, we got our ultrasound today and it made us very happy to see the baby moving around inside and measuring up to the appropriate size etc..

I appreciate people that have visited the site in the past and those to come. I hope everyone gets a little more vocal though... I have heard that a fair amount of people stop in but not many post... I hope that comes to change. ;)

Back to what we're here for, thanks for your time and support...

This month I have decided, in honor of my favorite and most holy Sabbat... to bridge the gap between Halloween as we know it today and Samhain in it's original form.

I am, in no way, a Historian. However, I do pick up pieces of info. here and there and, every once in a while I can put that information together and make sense of it... if I'm lucky.

I think that it is a shame that people get so into Halloween without researching even a little of it's history and meaning. I, personally, find it to be the most powerful night of the year!

Here's a list of a couple of things that we do nowadays to celebrate. See if you can guess the original meaning for it. Sound like fun?

1) Dressing up... what, if any, was it's purpose? 2) Jack-o-lanterns... why did we carve and light them? 3) Trick or treat... a new catch phrase or something old? 4) Witches... what do they have to do with this night? 5) Bobbing for apples... created by Milton Bradley?

Now, I hope you've though of some answers, who knows, maybe they'll be even more interesting than the real ones. ;) I'll keep it brief and you can go to one of the resources below to find out more... happy guessing!

1) Dressing up...

From what I have seen, read and heard. Dressing up was used in two ways, a) to scare away any unwelcome, (harmful), magickal beings that might happen across the veil and b) to cross dress for a day, (Mike Nichols is the first person that I've every heard make this argument but... ;)