From scary stories to scowling pumpkins, Halloween has pagan roots

  Halloween these days calls pumpkins to mind, cackling witches, teenagers pulling pranks, and scream masks. You probably know that all this derives from All Hallows’ Eve, the night before the Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day, the time when the dead are remembered.

  But Christianity itself appropriated the tradition from pagan ancestors. And so the night which is, in the secular and commercial world, Halloween and in the Christian calendar, All Hallows’ Eve, has its roots in the pagan Wheel of the Year and the festival of Samhain.

Halloween isn’t about candy and costumes for modern-day pagans – witches mark Halloween with reflections on death as well as magic

  For members of the minority religion of Wicca and witchcraft, part of contemporary paganism, Halloween has never been primarily a children’s holiday. As a sociologist doing research on contemporary pagans for over 30 years, I have observed how it is marked as a sacred day known as Samhain in which death is celebrated.

  This Halloween they might have something to teach us – both about the acceptance of death and staying safe.