The Merry Rout of Halloween
Source: Article from 1897
We are all of us better for an occasional frolic and Halloween with its quaint customs and mystic tricks affords opportunity for much innocent merriment. Halloween, which falls tomorrow, will be celebrated tonight in thousands of homes.
Halloween is a relic of the roistering days of Paganism. However, just when the exact established observance commenced it is Impossible to say. It is known that the ancient -Druids performed certain rites on what is now known as Hallowmas eve. We are told that on this night, fires were lit deep in remote forests, upon the hilltops, and great plains, and mystic rites were performed.
It was the belief that on this night the powers of darkness held a sort of annual mustering within the domain of immortals, and that therefore care must be taken that the living were not brought under the evil influence. Within more recent times, the superstition has more or less died out giving way lo the much more pleasant nut cracking, apple ducking, etc.
In modern times Halloween has always been enjoyable because of the popular superstitions attaching to it as a night when any supernatural story might be believed, any charm tested, any frolic permitted -- a night when imagination might run riot, and any ceremony, however extravagant, be indulged in.
If you look into folklore and fairy lore you will find that in the days when princes and princesses were changed into wild beast in the evening of October 31 was an important one, for it was then for one brief night they were permitted to assume their natural form.
Halloween is a delightful combination of mystery and mirth; the night most eagerly anticipated of the whole year among children. Small boys go “nutting” weeks beforehand to gather their harvest for this occasion and in the north of England Halloween is still known as nut-cracking night.
