You might think that Halloween was developed in the west so children could dress up for costume parties or go trick-or-treating.
But the festival has much darker roots. The Irish Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated Halloween as part of their new year celebrations on November 1.
However, back then it was not called Halloween.
It is the modern name for Samhain (pronounced sow-in), which was celebrated on the night of October 31, or All Hallows' Eve, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead visited the Earth. This day marked the end of summer and the start of the cold, dark winter when food became scarce.
Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the spirits of people who died over the past year would come back in search of living bodies to possess. This was their only hope for the afterlife.
According to the Celts, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred that night, allowing spirits to mingle with people.
So, on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes to make them cold and undesirable.
