Halloween All Hallows’ Eve · 2018-11-01 · trick or treat: On Halloween, children go from house...
Transcript of Halloween All Hallows’ Eve · 2018-11-01 · trick or treat: On Halloween, children go from house...
Halloween All Hallows’ Eve
Halloween: a holiday celebrated on October 31 in which people dress in scary costumes
Pumpkin: a large, orange vegetable associated with Halloween
to carve: to cut with a large knife
jack-o-lantern: Americans traditionally cut out scary faces in pumpkins and put a candle inside. These pumpkins with faces are called "jack-o-lanterns." Jack-o-lanterns are made to scare away evil spirits on Halloween.
Costume: scary clothing or disguises worn on Halloween
a costume party: a party where everyone dresses in scary costumes
trick or treat: On Halloween, children go from house to house and say "trick or treat." This phrase means "give me candy or I will play a trick on you." Families usually give the children candy. If the children don't get candy, they sometimes play mean tricks like breaking the house's jack-o-lantern or putting soap on its windows.
a skeleton: a body of nothing but bones
a ghost: the spirit of a dead person which appears again
a witch: a woman with magic powers (usually evil)
a warlock N. a man with magic powers (usually evil)
The Origins of Halloween
The origins of Halloween are very old.
In fact, this festivity started in Celtic Britain.
The Celts lived in the British Isles during ancient times.
The Celts were pagans.
l They believed in the gods of nature.
There were two important festivals on the Celtic calendar:
Beltane: [ˈbelteɪn] celebrated the
beginning of summer.
Samhain:[saun] the start of winter, on November 1.
Samhain was also the
first day of the year
on the Celtic calendar
The festival of Samhain started on October 31 and finished on November 1.
The Celts were afraid of winter.
The days were short and cold,
and the nights were very long.
They associated winter
with death and evil spirits.
The Celts believed that
on the night of October 31
the spirits of the dead
came out of their tombs.
The Celts made big fires to
frighten the ghosts
They also wore scary costumes.
The Celts played games on October 31 to bring good luck in the year.
The colours of Halloween are of Celtic origin.
Black was the colour
of winter and
long nights.
Orange was the
colour of the harvest.
The black cat is another symbol of Halloween.
l The Celts believed that the black cat had special powers.
After the Roman invasion in AD 43
the Romans combined Samhain
with their festival, Pomona [pəʊˈməʊnə].
Pomona was the Roman goddess
of gardens and fruit trees
and this festival celebrated the harvest.
Many years after the Roman invasion, Christian
practices substituted pagan ones.
On the first day of November, Christians celebrated All Saints’ Day
or All Hallows’ Day. The evening of October 31
was All Hallows’ Eve. This became Halloween.
The Druid religion continued for a long
time in Ireland and
Scotland, and people continued to celebrate Halloween
In the 19th century, Irish immigrants took their
Halloween traditions to the United States
Now Halloween is a very big
festivity in the United States and in many
other countries too.
The Story of the Jack-o-Lantern
Jack, it seems, was a bad man.
He kept all his money to himself.
He wouldn't help people
for all of his life.
When Jack died, he wasn't allowed into
Heaven because he was
such a miser
miser: [ˈmaɪzə] a person who wouldn't share his money.
It seems that Jack also had played tricks on the Devil
The Devil didn’t let him into hell, either.
Jack was stuck.
l He had to walk the earth, holding a lantern, until Judgment Day.
The Irish carved their turnips into the face of "Jack-of-the-lantern"
to remind themselves what happened to people who were misers
And in the fall, pumpkins are much easier to find than turnips.
So that's why Americans today
carve their pumpkins into
jack-o-lanterns.