EXPERT BIO
LISA MORTON
Lisa Morton is an American author with an obsession for all things spooky. As well as writing a number of historical works, including Calling The Spirits: A History of Seances and Ghosts: A Haunted History, she has also written novels and screenplays.
As the autumn leaves begin to fall and the nights grow longer, you may already have noticed a chill in the air. It’s the season when costumed creatures walk the streets and carved Jack O’Lanterns illuminate the fields. That’s right, Halloween is nearly upon us once again. According to Statista, around $10.1bn is spent by Americans on Halloween every year, with the average consumer spending at least $100 – $30 of this going on candy alone. Yet despite Halloween now being a multi-billion dollar industry with annual ‘scare events’ and huge festivals such as Universal Studios’ theme park horror nights, its history is equally as rich and as spook-tacular as the modern interpretation. From ancient Celtic festivals to Irish legends of pumpkin-headed spirits wandering the Earth, the most terrifying night of the year has an equally spine-chilling past.
THE ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN
The origins of Halloween are perhaps not as easy to pinpoint as one might initially expect, and a number of historical holidays are linked to All Hallows’ Eve. One festival often connected with the history of Halloween is the Celtic festival of Samhain. However, despite the popular writings of an 18th century scholar and engineer known as Charles Vallancey proclaiming this to be a festival to the Celtic (Reaktion Books, 2008), tells us. “They thought mischievous fairies (the sidh) could cross over and wreak all kinds of havoc, like bringing corpses to life or burning down palaces.” The spirits of dead loved ones were believed to return to the Earth, leading to customs such as leaving doors open and laying food on the table. A popular Samhain tradition was the telling of stories such as – a creepy tale of living corpses and fairy armies.
