Flag Raising: 4D

By: GINA FRANCESCONI ARANGO

SOME MYTHS BEHIND THE HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

Halloween is generally related to spooky stories featuring ghosts, witches, monsters, evils and elves, but there are many myths behind this time of the year. The name Halloween means ALL HALLOWS EVE. The Celts who lived 2000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland , the United Kingdom and Northern France , celebrated their new year on November first. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year often associated with human death. They believed the night of October thirty first, the door between the worlds of the living and the dead opened and that ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

On the other hand, the “TRICK OR TREAT” expression always tight to Halloween probably has several origins, mostly Irish. A peasant practice called for going door to door to collect money, bread cake, cheese, eggs, butter, nuts, apples, etc., in preparation for the festival of St. Columbus Kill. Yet another custom was the begging for soul cakes, or offerings for one's self - particularly in exchange for promises of prosperity or protection against bad luck.

HISTORY OF THE JACK-O'LANTERN

Pumpkin carving has been a popular part of modern America 's Halloween celebration. In October, pumpkins can be found everywhere. The practice comes from an Irish myth about a man nicknamed Stingy Jack.

According to the story, Stingy Jack decided to play tricks to the Devil to avoid being taken to Hell. The first time, he invited the Devil to drink with him and pretending not to have money to pay, he convinced him to use his powers to turn himself into a coin. Once the Devil did it, Jack kept the money instead in his pocket next to a silver cross, which trapped the Devil. One year later, the Devil came back and this time Jack tricked him by having him climb a tree for fruit. Meanwhile, Jack carved a sign of the cross next to the tree so that the Devil could not come down. This time, the condition Jack established to free him was to be given ten more years in peace.

However, Jack died before the 10 years passed. He went to Heaven to ask for a place to stay, but God said he would not permit a soul with no salvation stay in his Paradise . Then, when he went to Hell, the Devil punished him by sending Jack into the dark night with a burning coal to light his path. Since then, he has been roaming the Earth. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as JACK OF THE LANTERN.

People in Ireland and Scotland began to make their own versions of Jack by carving scary faces into potatoes and placing them into windows and near doors to scare Stingy Jack and other evil spirits away. In the U.S. they soon found pumpkins, a fruit native to America , make perfect Jack O' Lanterns.