At the end of October and early November, many cultures celebrate this season or time of the year, and while it is known by many names, generally in the northern hemisphere across Europe and North America is a traditional time for celebrating a Harvest festival. This is the time of the year that marks the end of the growing season when all of the major crops will have been brought in from the fields and made ready for storage over the winter. This is also the time when livestock specifically raised for meat production are butchered and made ready for storage. Meat and fish was most often dried and smoked, hanging in smoking barns while smoking fires burned slowly in pits underneath.
Of note, here, is that the Autumn is the time not only of harvesting but also storage and preserving. This is the time to turn apples into cider, or to cellar it for winter storage. Cabbage would be pickled for long storage; roots like carrots, onions and turnips would be stored in cellars as well, to keep over the winter. One of the points here is that these vegetables wold have been in plentiful supply at this time of the year. A common agricultural society could afford to bob for apples and carve turnips into lanterns at this time of the year because they were so readily available.
This was also the time for putting the farm to bed for the winter. Straw was cut and stored for winter bedding, Fields were harvested and cleared of stubble to overwinter. Orchards were pruned and cleaned to prevent disease from overwintering and attacking healthy trees. And eventually, excess byproducts of the farm were composted over the winter or, importantly, burned in bonfires to return the nutrients (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium) to the soil.
So far, this is consistent with Samhain as well as many other harvest time/ Autumn festival seasons. We have apple games (bobbing for apples, apple peel diviniation), bonfires of agricultural by-products.
Other British Isles folk traditions. Two other folk traditions were practiced widely in the British Isles, that don't have any specific precursor in ancient Celtic Samhain rituals. The first is the story of Stingy Jack, who according to folk tales attempted to cheat the devil and as a result was doomed to walk the earth carrying only an ember of coal placed inside a carved turnip to light his way through the darkness. This unfortunate figure was known as Jack of the Lantern, shortened to Jack o' Lantern which came to America in the form of a carved pumpkin instead of a turnip, the former being more readily available and easier to carve.
The second British folk tradition was that of Mummering. This was the practice of dressing up in costumes or "guises" and traveling from door to door to ask for small rewards, sometimes in exchange for songs or dramatic performances. This tradition is most commonly associated with Christmas time and is probably the source of traditions such as Christmas carolling.
When mumming at Easter time, the practice was know as Peace- or Pace-Egging, involving short scenes of fighting monsters or villains who were then brought back to life. Eggs were sometimes offered as a reward to the players.
When practiced around All Saints Day, it was customary to offer songs or memorized prayers for the householder's departed loved ones in exchange for a Soulcake. This Souling tradition may be more directly responsible for the American tradition of "Trick or Treating."
However, neither of these traditions (Jack O Lanterns or Souliing) had their origins in the Celtic Samhain and are distinctly later folk traditions.
Other influences on the development of Halloween as it is currently practiced originate even further afield than the British Isles. While the association with the souls of the dead is of distinctly Christian, German influences introduced the themes of witches flying on broomsticks to meet in a great congregation on Bald Mountain in the celebration of Walpurgisnacht. The witches are sometimes accompanied by phantom hounds that can be distracted with cakes called Ankenschnitt. Common folk wear disguises to blend in among the witches as they make their way to the meeting.
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