Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian
From: ncramer@bbn.com
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Halloween
Message-ID: 
Date: 1 Oct 89 01:09:12 GMT
Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu
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Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu


In article  conan@wish-bone.berkeley.edu writes:
>For what it's worth:  Halloween was originally a Christian holiday:  Hallowed
>Eve, the vigil of the feast of All Saint's day, which is November 1.  For some
>reason it was believed that ghosts and demons roamed the Earth that night--
>our traditions have evolved out of that.

The specific holiday of Halloween may have been of Christian origin, but
the time of the festival (~1NOV) has at its source one of the eight main
religious days of the year for the old solar religions.

Besides the two solstices and equinoces, the days midway between these
times were also celebrated.  Relics of these occasions survive into modern
times: ~1MAY (as Mayday), ~1FEB (the european Brigit, taken over as a feast
of Mary --furthermore as "the start of spring" this may have something to
do with Ground Hogs Day), ~1NOV (Halloween) and ~1AUG.

The point being that the Christian holiday may have taken over the *time*
of the earlier festival in the same sense that the *timing* of holidays of
Christmas and Easter may have supplanted, respectively, the festivals of
the winter solstice and the vernal equinox.

NICHAEL