The Historic Origins of Halloween

As the nights draw in and the countryside glows with autumn colour, thoughts turn to pumpkins, lanterns, and spooky fun. Yet the festival we now call Halloween has roots that reach back thousands of years, to an ancient Celtic celebration known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in).

Samhain was one of the most important festivals in the Celtic calendar. Celebrated over 2,000 years ago across parts of Britain and Ireland, it marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter — the darker half of the year. Communities came together to share food, light great bonfires, and mark the turning of the seasons. It was a time of change, when, according to Celtic belief, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead grew thin. Families honoured their ancestors, left offerings of food, and lit fires for protection and warmth.

Tradition holds that people carved faces into turnips and placed candles inside them to ward off wandering spirits. This ancient custom would eventually evolve into one of the most recognisable symbols of Halloween — the glowing pumpkin. When Irish and Scottish migrants took their traditions abroad, they found pumpkins to be larger and easier to carve than turnips, and the practice spread and became popular across the English-speaking world. In England, pumpkins gradually replaced turnips in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming a bright and cheerful feature of autumn celebrations.

As Christianity spread through Britain, older festivals such as Samhain merged with the new Church calendar. All Saints’ Day (1 November) and All Souls’ Day (2 November) were established to honour saints and departed souls. The evening before, All Hallows’ Eve, later became Halloween. Many English folk customs continued alongside Christian observance. During the medieval period, people marked the season by souling — visiting houses to offer prayers for the dead in exchange for small cakes or coins. These local traditions, along with influences from Ireland and America, helped shape modern Halloween customs such as dressing up and trick-or-treating.

While many of today’s Halloween festivities — costumes, pumpkins, and sweets — may seem far removed from ancient bonfires and harvest offerings, they share a common theme: marking the passage from light to dark, and finding warmth, connection, and fun at a time of year when the days grow short.

At Chiltern Open Air Museum, we love exploring how ancient traditions continue to influence life today. Many of our autumn events, from lantern walks to storytelling evenings, echo the spirit of those early gatherings. When you carve a pumpkin or light a candle this October, you are joining a tradition that has been part of life in these islands for over two millennia — a celebration of change, remembrance, and community at the turning of the year.