Where does the name Halloween come from?
The term Halloween, and its older rendering Hallowe’en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening of/before “All Hallows’ Day”[1] (also known as “All Saints’ Day”). The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European Pagan traditions[citation needed], until Popes Gregory III and Gregory IV moved the old Christian feast of All Saints’ Day from May 13 to November 1.
The word Halloween is a contraction of All-Hallow-Even, or All-Hallows-Eve, since October 31 is the evening before the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Day (“Hallows” comes from the Middle English word “halwen” meaning holy.) This feast, more commonly known as All Saints Day, was first celebrated on November 1 by Pope Gregory III (731-741), although it was not until a century later, under Pope Gregory IV (827-844), that the day became standardized throughout the Christian world. So how exactly do spooks and ghouls tie in with a sacred Christian festival? Good question, and one to which there is no definitive answer. The end of October was an important time in the pre-Christian pagan calendar, marking the point at which autumn gave way to winter – the ancient Celtic festival of “Samhain,” for instance, or “summer’s end”, was held on November 1 (in Ireland Halloween is still known as “Samhain Night”) . The fact that these pagan rites were signaling the onset of cold and darkness, when
