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[[File:4070363966 64412a1e5a b.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|Figure 1. A reconstruction of a Samhain offering.]]

Halloween today is a fun holiday where kids and adults dress up and ask strangers and acquaintances for candy and (rarely) tricks. But what is the origin of this holiday? Like many other holidays, there were serious intentions in celebrations and cultural activities that took place at or around October 31st. It was seen as an important day that connected the dead, living and spiritual worlds in pre-Christian Europe.

====Early Origins====

Halloween itself, October 31, began to be associated with the day before the November 1-2 celebrations associated with the dead and saints. It was intended as the preparation period for the celebrations. People often dressed in black or dark colors on October 31st as a way to begin to remember the dead, with celebrations beginning on the night of October 31st. This meant that people also started carrying lanterns to light their way through the streets (Figure 2). Myths and beliefs about the dead haunting this world and needing to be placated never went away either; this meant that lanterns needed to be scary so that they could scare the dead spirits.

In France, Spain and likely other regions, people visited cemeteries on Halloween bringing their lanterns so that they could feed the dead through gifts of food or milk placed by their gravestones. People began to associate earlier stories and beliefs of Samhain with October 31st as the day the dead would roam the Earth as well, thus the need to continue to placate the dead. In the 12th century, churches would sometimes ring their bells on Halloween day to remember the souls that are still in purgatory or were still roaming this Earth because they had not been judged yet.<ref>For more on Medieval celebrations of Halloween, see: Cosman, Madeleine Pelner. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684171724/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0684171724&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=e34684707ee6a80156767ca147998ef2 Medieval Holidays and Festivals: A Calendar of Celebrations]</i>. New York: Scribner, 1981.</ref>