Samhain and the Origin of Halloween

Halloween has it’s origins in the ancient Celtic holiday called “Samhain.” Samhain was originally a fall festival, which marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of the dark half of the year. It was believed that on the night of October 31st, the veil between the realm of the living and that of the dead would weaken, and the dead would return to the world of the living. The Catholic Church made attempts to sanitize or erase Samhain, which resulted in it’s morphing into Halloween and appealing to a wider range of people.

Sources:
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain

https://www.history.com/news/halloween-samhain-celts-catholic-church

https://www.history.com/news/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Samhain

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/samhain-0014478

http://kespwriting.blogspot.com/2015/10/hist-myth-samhain-goddess-tlachtga.html

Stingy Jack - https://www.history.com/news/history-of-the-jack-o-lantern-irish-origins

http://kespwriting.blogspot.com/2015/10/hist-myth-samhain-goddess-tlachtga.html

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/samhain-0014478

https://www.worldhistory.org/Samhain/

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1456/history-of-halloween/

https://www.worldhistory.org/Hill_of_Tara/

http://kespwriting.blogspot.com/2016/06/hist-myth-aos-si.html

Halloween Comes to America (p664) https://books.google.com/books?id=GYFPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA664&dq=history+of+halloween++pope+boniface&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG8ong1rLsAhWLhHIEHSqgDcYQ6AEwCXoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=history%20of%20halloween%20%20pope%20boniface&f=false