Frank Ahmad, age 8, of Utica, N.Y., for his question:
WHY DO WE CELEBRATE HALLOWEEN?
Halloween, which we celebrate on Oct. 31, developed from ancient new year festivals and festivals of the dead.
In the A.D. 800s, the church started All Saints' Day on Nov. 1 so that the people could continue to celebrate a festival they enjoyed before becoming Christians. The Mass that was said on this day was called Allhallowmas. The evening before this important holiday became known as All Hallow E'en, or Halloween.
The Celtic festival of Samhain is most likely the source of the present day Halloween celebration. More than 2,000 years ago the Celts lived in what is now Great Britain, Ireland and France. They celebrated their new year on Nov. 1 with a festival that began the night before, or on the last day of . It was at this time that they honored Samhain, the Celtic lord of death.
The festival also marked the start of the season of cold, darkness and decay. It quickly became associated with human death. The Celts believed that Samhain allowed the souls of the dead to return to their earthly homes for this one evening.
On the evening of the festival, the druids, who were the teachers and priests of the Celts, ordered the people to build new year's bonfires of oak branches. Then they burned animals, crops and sometimes even human beings as sacrifices.
During the celebration, the people sometimes wore costumes made of animal heads and skins. They told fortunes about the coming year by examining the remains of the animals that had been sacrificed.
When the Romans conquered the Celts in A.D. 43, they combined two Roman autumn festivals with the Celtic festival of Samhain.
After the people became Christians, they kept many of the Celtic customs. All Saints Day made the old pagan customs part of this Christian holy day.
Lots of today's Halloween traditions can be traced to ancient times.
Hollowed out pumpkins, called jack o' lanterns, can be traced back to the people of Ireland and England who carved out beets, potatoes and turnips to use as lanterns on Halloween. They were named for a miser named Jack who could not enter heaven and played jokes on the devil.
The tradition today of wearing costumes goes back to Celtic times. And so does our trick or treat tradition. The ancient Celts in Ireland included begging for food in a parade that honored one of their gods.
Bobbing for apples in a tub of water probably started in England many hundreds of years ago as part of a harvest festival.