Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Then you’ve got something to talk about while going from door to door!
Ooohoohooohooo!
Sorry — I’m not quite sure how to actually spell the classic ghost sound, but you get the point!
As we’ve reached the end of October, Halloween is here once again – so get ready to walk your kids from door to door while listening to the “trick or treat” chant over and over again.
Of course, the kids will spend most of their time comparing the candy they just got, so you’re probably not going to have many chances to actually say anything. But if a moment of silence does appear now and then, why not impress the young ones with some Halloween facts?
Or maybe you can impress your co-workers, other parents — pretty much anyone willing to listen!
And trust me: these facts are pretty interesting!
It’s eight times as old as the USA
Modern Halloween is mostly associated with the United States, but the tradition is much older than the country itself.
It actually originates from the Celtic festival Samhain, which marked the transition into winter.
The Samhain celebration is more than 2,000 years old — meaning it’s over eight times as old as the USA, which is not even 250 years old yet!
Carved pumpkins are a brand-new thing
Today, we associate Halloween with scary faces carved into pumpkins, but that’s actually a fairly new part of the tradition — at least when it comes to using pumpkins.
Originally, people used other root vegetables like turnips and potatoes to carve frightening faces meant to scare away evil spirits.
Irish and Scottish immigrants brought the tradition with them to the United States, but over time they discovered that pumpkins were the perfect replacement for turnips and potatoes — because they’re larger and much easier to carve.
Zombies are real — in nature
When you think of zombies, you probably imagine corpse-like humans rising from the dead. They obviously don’t exist (as far as we know …), but zombieism is actually a real thing in nature.
The Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus is a parasite that infects ants and takes control of their bodies. It forces the ants to leave their nests and climb to a humid spot, where the fungus makes them stay still — while it feeds on them.
Once the fungus has consumed the ant, it releases spores to infect its next victim.
Bobbing for Apples used to be a love ritual
This might sound weird, but it’s actually true!
The fun Halloween game where participants try to grab apples from a bowl of water using only their teeth used to be a kind of romantic fortune-telling ritual in European traditions.
Some variations involved writing or carving the names of potential suitors onto the apples. The goal was to bite the apple with the name of your future love.
According to superstition, biting into the apple on the first try meant you’d have a favorable relationship with the person whose name was on it.
The colours have meaning
Unsurprisingly, black symbolizes death — but not in the literal sense. Instead, it represents the “death of summer” and the darkness of night, as the darkest season (winter) approaches.
Orange, on the other hand, represents autumn, harvest, and the changing colors of the leaves.
Other colours like green and purple are also common in Halloween decorations, and they have meanings too:
- Purple symbolizes spirituality and magic.
- Green represents the grotesque or the spooky.
This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, who may have used AI in the preparation
