History of
Halloween
• The Celtic people, who lived more than 2000
years ago feared the evening of Oct. 31 more
than any other day of the year. It was the eve of
their festival of Samhain. Samhain was a joyful
harvest festival that marked the death of the
old year and the beginning of a new one.
Charms and spells were said to have more
power on the eve of Samhain. Several rituals
were performed by the Celtic priests, Druids, to
appease the Lord of the Dead.
Happy Druid New Year !!
• Under the Catholic Church, the original
festival for the pagan Lord of the Dead
became a festival of Christian dead.
People went on expecting the arrival of
ghosts on Oct. 31st. Another name for All
Saint's Day was All Hallows' Even Which
was later shortened to Halloween.
• In the 10th century the church named
Nov. 2nd as All Souls' Day in memory all
all dead souls. Halloween, All Saints' Day,
and All Souls' Day come so close together
and are so similar that in some countries
they tend to merge together
Trick or Treat
• The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to
have originated with a ninth-century
European custom called souling. On
November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians
would walk from village to village begging for
"soul cakes," made out of square pieces of
bread with currants. The more soul cakes the
beggars would receive, the more prayers they
would promise to say on behalf of the dead
relatives of the donors.
• Things got nastier with increased urbanization
and poverty in the 1930’s. Adults began looking
for ways to control the previously harmless but
now increasingly expensive and dangerous
vandalism of the “boys.” Towns and cities began
organizing “safe” Halloween events and
householders began giving out bribes to the
neighborhood kids as a way to distract them
away from their previous anarchy. The term
“trick or treat,” finally appears in print around
1939!
Jack O’ Lanterns
• The Jack-o-lantern custom comes from Irish
folklore. “ A man named Jack, who was
famous as a trickster, tricked Satan into
climbing a tree and trapped the devil up the
tree. After Jack died, he was denied entrance
to Heaven and Hell because he had tricked
the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single
ember to light his way through the frigid
darkness. The ember was placed inside a
hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
• The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's
lanterns" originally. But when the
immigrants came to America, they found
that pumpkins were far more plentiful
than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in
America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit
with an ember.
Witches and Witchcraft
• Witches as figures of pure evil were
invented by the medieval Church.
“Witches” were usually local herbalists,
midwives, healers and fortune tellers, who
might sometimes be suspected of doing evil
magic, but who were thought of mostly in
terms of their crafts.
• Modern Day “Witches” are people who
practice a religion known as Wicca which is
a nature based religion, worshiping the
power of nature.
Vampires
• Vlad Tepes was born in the town of Sighisoara
in Transylvania in 1431. The word "tepes" in
Romanian means “impaler" - and Vlad was
named because of his love for impalement as a
means of punishing his enemies. Impalement
was a particularly gruesome form of execution,
wherein the victim was impaled between the
legs -- upon a large, sharpened stake the width
of a burly man's arm.
• Vlad especially enjoyed mass executions,
where several victims were impaled at once,
and their stakes hoisted upright. As they
hung suspended above the ground, the
weight of their bodies would slowly drag
them downwards, causing the sharpened
end of the stake to pierce their internal
organs.
• In order to better enjoy these mass
spectacles, Vlad routinely ordered a banquet
table set up in front of his victims, and
would enjoy a leisurely supper amid the
pitiful sights and sounds of the dying.
• Vlad was also known as "Dracula,“ which means
"son of the Dragon." Originally, this title came
about because his father belonged to the Order of
the Dragon. The elder Vlad went by the name
"Dracul" ("dragon" or "devil"). As the younger
Vlad's talent for torture became known, however,
the name Dracula came to be interpreted more and
more as the sinister "son of the devil."
• The legend of the vampire predates
Bram Stoker and even Vlad the Impaler.
Vampires Thru the Ages traces them
back to 1047 and a document referring
to a Russian Prince as "Upir Lichy" or
Wicked Vampire. Waves of vampire
hysteria swept through Prussia and
Hungary in the 1700s, fueled perhaps
by disease, ignorance and maybe a
psychotic serial killer or two.
Werewolves
In Mythology werewolves are entites
that are human but shape shift into
animal form during certain lunar
aspects which affect their DNA. (In
folklore and superstition) a human
being that has changed or been
changed into a wolf, or is capable of
assuming the form of a wolf, while
retaining human intelligence.
• During the medieval times, the fear of
werewolves took grip of Europe. Wolves
were known to attack man, as wolves during
those times had no reason to fear man. In
most of Europe, the fear of werewolves
included wolfmen ("berserkers") who wore
wolves skin and killed savagely. Germans,
however, viewed the wolf with honor. Names
such as Wolfgang and Wolfhard were
common.
Signs That You May be a Werewolf
• Having hairy palms is considered a sure sign of being a
werewolf. Real werewolves often shave their palms
leaving them rough. Rough palms are also considered to
be a sign.
•
Having a left thumbnail that is left uncut as to resemble a
claw.
• Tattoos , particularly that of a crescent moon.
• In human form, a werewolf usually has slanted
eyebrows that meet at the bridge of the nose.
• The werewolf might have a human face and
a wolf's body or vice-versa.
• A werewolf is physically exhausted after
his transformation and requires much rest.
•
A werewolf in human form exhibits the
wounds acquired from his lunar activities
Frankenstein
• The story of Victor Frankenstein and the
monster he created come from the
novel Frankenstein by Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley. What many
people do not know is that Victor
Frankenstein was based on the real-life
Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734), a
kind of 18th century mad scientist who
was born in 1673 in Germany at believe it or not - Castle Frankenstein
• Educated as a physician, Dippel set up
a laboratory at Castle Frankenstein
where he would be free to conduct his
bizarre experiments. Dippel (who often
went by the name Konrad Frankenstein)
spent a lot of his time with his hobby of
alchemy - - experimentation with the
elements - crazy chemistry - whose
ultimate challenge was to be able to
turn lead into gold.
• Like Victor Frankenstein, Dippel was
also fascinated by the possibility of
immortality through scientific means.
He really did use the parts of butchered
animals and exhumed human corpses in
his vain attempt to "engender life in the
dead," in his own words. He boiled
everything - skin, muscle, bone, blood,
hair and organs - in large vats.
• Shelley undoubtedly based her
novel on Dippel's antics, since she
visited Castle Frankenstein in 1814
when she eloped with Percy. The
ruins of Castle Frankenstein can
still be seen today.
The Mummy
• The prevalent image of The
Mummy as a monster also comes
from the movies, most significantly
the 1932 film, The Mummy, again
starring Boris Karloff. The film was
most probably inspired by the
sensational Egyptian finds made in
the early 1920s.
• English archaeologist named Howard
Carter believed that at least one tomb
of an Egyptian king lay untouched - the
tomb of King Tutankhamen.
• On November 4, 1922, Tutankhamen's
tomb was found, and it contained all of
the gold and alabaster treasures they
had long sought. But along with the
discovery, some believe, came a curse.
• On the day the tomb was discovered,
Carter's canary, which he had brought
with him to Egypt for luck, was
devoured by a snake.
• A few months later, Carter's financial
backer, Lord Carnarvon, died suddenly,
perhaps from an infected insect bite.
• When Carnarvon died, all the lights in
Cairo went out from a power failure.
• Although Carnarvon died in Cairo, back
at his estate in England, his favorite
dog howled and dropped dead.
JACK THE RIPPER
• Between the months of August and November,
1888, the Whitechapel area of london played key
witness to a series of horrific murders, which
remain to this day unresolved.
• The unknown assailant, formerly known as
"Leather Apron", later to be revered as "Jack the
Ripper", stalked the dimly lit, fog blanketed streets
of the East End with a single, brutal ambition......
MURDER MOST HORRID.
• With malice aforethought, undercover of darkness
he lurked within the shadows, awaiting his
prey...."the street women" of Old London Town.