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The 13 Most Bizarre Facts About Halloween
We bet you didn't know most of these, if any at all!
If there's one thing we can roll our eyes at as Halloween quickly approaches it's all the Urban Legends that come with it. I'm sure you've seen a plethora of posts warning parents to make sure they can identify if those gummy candies are made of marijuana instead of good old-fashioned gummy bears, right? Yeah, no, nobody is giving out edibles. Just like the chances of you finding pins, needles, or razor blades in the candy is extremely unlikely. In fact, those rumors date back to the 1960's yet while somewhere between 80 and 100 reports have been documented, virtually every single one turned out to be a hoax and the very few that proved to be true resulted in minor injuries at best.
Yet despite all the ridiculous Urban Legends about what you should be fearful of on Halloween, there are quite a few fascinating myths that are completely true! And some of the facts of the spooky Holiday are not well-known at all. Kind of makes you wonder why we waste so much energy every year warning parents about razor blades and trip-inducing gummy bears when the real mysteries and history of Halloween is so interesting!
1. Thank the Irish!
For a long time Protestant Americans abhorred anything remotely Pagan related, going so far as to ban Christmas for even the smallest connection to Pagan Holidays. Yet in the mid-19th century when America was flushed with Irish immigrants Americans took pretty kindly to their Sahmain traditions and it sparked the beginning of what we know today as Halloween!
Irish Central
2. Before trick or treating we just blew stuff up. 'Murica!
You think I'm kidding? There is no mention of trick or treating prior to the 1930's in America. Traditionally, we just focused on the tricks. Mischief behavior ranged from ding-dong-ditch to knocking over outhouses. However, one of the most popular and well-documented pranks occurred in 1913 in Sheffield, AL, when neighborhood kids planned to fill the town cannon with gunpowder and detonate it in the middle of the night. Of course being that they were kids they did a piss-poor job of measuring the gun powder (no surprises there,) and instead set of an explosion so loud the entire town was sure they'd just experienced an earthquake! The cannon they vandalized was thrown hundreds of feat from its foundation and all of the windows in the hotel across the street shattered.
WordPress
3. Turnip-O-Lantern
Jack-O-Lanterns come from Irish folklore and were originally carved into turnips! As the legend goes, "Stingy Jack" tricked the Devil and found himself banned from both Heaven (by God) and Hell (by the Devil,) and was doomed to roam the Earth indefinitely with nothing more than a burning coal to light his way the Devil gave him. Jack placed the burning coal into a hallowed out turnip and the Irish people left their Jack-O-Lanterns out to ward off Stingy Jack and other roaming spirits. When they immigrated to America they found a worthy substitute in pumpkins as they were more common place in Autumn than turnips.
Flickr
4. Apples of the future
As Sahmain was known for being the time of year when the veil between the living and the dead thinned, it was common place to believe this was the perfect time to tell fortunes. To take full advantage of this opportunity, women would pare an apple, throw the skin over her shoulder, and its resulting shape would indicate the initial of her future husband's name.
Vice
5. World War II? Better Cancel Halloween.
This actually makes perfect sense if you think about it. At the time, Halloween was a rather new celebration, caught perfectly between relentlessly seeking candy and playing pranks, it was a fairly wise move to say "not this year" in 1942 between the sugar rations and not finding much amusement in pranks and mocking the dead when so many were dying at war.
National Archives
6. The very first Halloween celebration took palce in Anoka, Minnesota
In an attempt to distract youth seeking mischief from roaming the streets, Anoka, Minnesota became one of the first cities ever to host a citywide Halloween celebration in 1920. Within ten years their celebration grew to attract some 20,000 spectators and today it is astronomically larger.
Minnesota Haunted Houses
7. It's Halloween? Better hide your knives from ghosts.
All over the world there are unique ways to celebrate this time of year. In Germany, they hide knives from ghosts. Mexico celebrates Dia de los Muertos and in Eastern Europe they leave doors open and empty chairs by the hearth for the ghosts of one's ancestors!
Flickr
8. Thanks, mosquitos.
Have you ever wondered why bats are so popular on Halloween? Bugs, that's why. Crazy, right? The origin of their iconic symbolism comes from the celebration of Sahmain where Pagans lit bonfires to ward of spirits. In turn, the bonfires attracted bugs and the bugs attracted bats... because bats eat bugs. Cool, right?
Mirror
9. A dark past
Witches are particularly synonymous with Halloween because this is the time of year when Christians went a bit buck wild executing them and that dark tale goes back centuries.
Ancient Origins
10. Lord of Misrule
The Lord of Misrule was appointed on All Hallows' Eve for the upcoming Christmas season. Basically, he got to be an all around jester of ridiculousness.
University of Leicester Staff Blogs
11. If you give a ghost a bean...
Although Halloween took most of it's origins from Sahmain, it also took bits and pieces from Lemuria. Lemuria was a day in which Romans attempted to calm the rowdy and malevolent spirits of their ancestors by taking off their shoes, closing their eyes, and spitting beans all over the house. As the head of the family wandered around getting beans everywhere, the rest of the family followed him around banging pots and pans together, hopefully expelling the ancestor ghosts.
Heavy
12. Before Captain America costumes we pretty much just cross-dressed.
While traditionally during the time of Sahmain people dressed in the skins and skulls of animals to ward of spirits, as Halloween approached and became a time of general mischief people began to simply do things in "opposites." Cross-dressing was an easy way to be mischievous back in the day.13. It's Halloween so get drunk and pay taxes.
Sahmain was a lot of things besides just a time in which the living and the dead came so dangerously close to colliding. Along with the harvest, it was the perfect time to stock up on winter meat by slaughtering their cattle, and became a great time to get super drunk. Which, believe it or not based on what you know about Irish stereotypes, was a rare occurrence! As this was also some sort of shift in the year, a new year perhaps, it was the ideal time to handle your business as well. So, people paid their taxes, settled their debts, and executed criminals. Halloween sure is different today, isn't it?
Flickr
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