Halloween

The historian Nicholas Rogers, who has studied the origins of Halloween,noted that, despite attempts to link its origin with the ancient Roman holiday of Parentalia, which was celebrated on February 13-21, the celebration of which lasted seven days- three days before and after Samhain himself on the night of October 31, a description of which appers in Old Irish literature since the X century. The name of this holiday comes from the Old Irish word Samhain, which meant "the end of summer" and later became the Irish name for the month of November. Thus, the similarity between the Celtic and Roman holidays is rather related to the common Indo-European origin of the Celts and Latins.

Most of the holiday symbols have a long histury. One of the most famous attributes is the pumpkin lantern, or Jack's lantern, which is a hollow pumpkin carved with an ominous grimace and a candle inside. It was believed that such a fruit, left on ALL Saints Day near the house, would drive away evil spririts and other evil spirits.The origins of this custom g back centuries, when the inhabitants of the British Isles carved faces on fruits during the harvest. Like many other pagan traditions, this symbol was Christianized and, according to the popular Irish belief about Jack (hence the name), Jack's Lamp represents "a soul not taken to heaven or hell":

On the way home, the drunkard Jack met the Devil, but he managed to twist him around hid finger- he asked the unclean one to climb the tree for fruit, and as soon as he perched on the spreading crown, Jack scrawled a cross on the trunk, thus captivating the Devil and bargaining for himseld privileges. After spending his life in drunkenness and sin, Jack was unable to go to heaven after death. According to this promise, the Devil also did not take Jack to hell, but only threw him a piece of coal from the hellfire. That cold night, Jack put a smoldering ember in an empty turnip to keep it from dying out. Since then he wanders the earth, never finding a place for himself.