Halloween enjoys a rich pagan history, and weird and creepy traditions. Explore the October 31 spooky holiday with lesser-known six fast Halloween facts.

The ancient Celtic fire festival of Samhain, is believed to be the origin of Halloween. During Samhain (pronounced “sow-win”), people ushered in the harvest and dark period of the year – believing the barriers between the world of the living and the world of the dead weakened in this time period, allowing for cross over. 

In England and Ireland, even after Christian influence, people would set out gifts of food to please the spirits. They would even dress as ghouls and demons to in an attempt to “trick” the spirits into thinking they were one of them, and therefore not be kidnapped to the underworld. In the Middle Ages, children went around dressed in costume and knocked on doors asking for food and prayers for the souls.

But the phrase “trick or treat” didn’t become popular until Halloween came to America.

The earliest known reference to “trick or treat”, printed in the November 4, 1927 edition of the Blackie, Alberta Canada Herald:

Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.

Irish immigrants escaping the potato famine helped popularize Halloween in America during the mid 1800s and early 1900s. 

Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote a poem titled “Halloween” in 1785. Thus, kicking off the use of the word “Halloween” to describe the holiday of All Hallows Eve. 

The popular game had unwed women and girls write the names of bachelors on apples before putting them in the barrel. The name they drew would be their future husband. 

A local drunk named Jack managed to capture Satan one night up a tree by carving a cross into the bark. Jack made a deal with the devil, that he’d let him climb down if Satan would vow to never take his soul. 

Jack would go on to live like a fool and a cruel man the rest of his life. 

When he died, Heaven wouldn’t take him and the Devil threw a burning coal up at him. 

With no place to go, Jack put the coal in a turnip to use as a lantern and wandered the earth with no eternal resting place.

Click here to learn facts about The Jersey Devil.

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