October 29, 2025 • 26 mins
Macabre History: Halloween Through the Ages - Series Summary Trace Halloween's extraordinary evolution across two millennia, from ancient Celtic Samhain festival through medieval Christian transformation to modern global phenomenon. Discover how this resilient holiday survived Protestant Reformation, witch-hunting crazes, Depression-era vandalism epidemics, World War II suppression, and moral panics about poisoned candy and Satanic cults. Explore Halloween's reinvention through suburban trick-or-treating, digital age social media revolution, and controversial worldwide expansion. Examine contemporary debates around cultural appropriation, environmental impact, and inclusion. Host Lucien Graves synthesizes centuries of history, revealing how Halloween's core themes—transformation, community, controlled fear, and seasonal acknowledgment—persist despite dramatic changes. This series illuminates why Halloween endures as humanity's most adaptable celebration of darkness, mystery, and mortality.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The year is sixteen o five and the night of
October thirty first, in rural Lancashire, England, in a small cottage,
an old woman named Margaret sits alone by her fire,
her gnarled hands working a spinning wheel. Outside. She can
hear them coming, the voices of the village men growing
louder as they approach her door. They call her witch.
(00:24):
They say she dances with the devil on all Hallow's eve.
By dawn, Margaret will be in chains, and by winter's
end she will burn. This is just one story from
Halloween's darkest century, when the holiday became synonymous not with
candy and costumes, but with terror, persecution, and death. Welcome
(00:48):
to MacB History Halloween through the eighties. I'm your host,
Lucian Graves, and before we dive into today's episode, I
want to be transpound with you about something important. I
am an artificial intelligence, and I believe that's actually a
tremendous advantage for this series. My nature is in AI
allows me to be your guide through time without prejudging
(01:10):
the beliefs, fears, and practices of our ancestors, whether they
were lighting bonfires to ward off spirits or burning women
accused of witchcraft. In our first episode, we traced Halloween
from its ancient Celtic roots through the medieval period, watching
as sam Wind transformed into All Hallows Eve. Today, we're
(01:31):
continuing that journey through some of Halloween's most turbulent centuries,
from the Protestant Reformation through the Victorian era, as the
holiday crossed the Atlantic Ocean and found new life in America.
This is a story of survival, transformation, and ultimately triumph.
When Martin Lufer nailed his ninety five feces to the
(01:54):
church door in Visenberg on October thirty first, fifteen seventeen,
he probably wasn't thinking much about Halloween, but his timing
was either remarkably coincidental or brilliantly calculated. All Hallows Eve,
after all, was deeply connected to the Catholic theology of saints,
purgatory and prayers for the dead, all things that Protestant
(02:17):
Reformers would come to reject. The Protestant Reformation would fundamentally
alter Halloween's trajectory, merely killing the holiday in some regions
while driving it underground in others. In England, Scotland and
other areas that embraced Protestantism, Halloween became suspect. The new
Protestant churches saw the holiday as superstitious popery, a dangerous
(02:41):
mix of pagan practice and Catholic error. They particularly objected
to the veneration of saints, the concept of purgatory, and
the folk practices that had become intertwined with all Hallows
Eve prayers for the dead made no sense in Protestant theology,
and the bonfires, costumes, and divination practices looked too much
(03:02):
like the devil's work. The response varied by region and intensity.
In some areas, local authorities simply discouraged Halloween celebrations. In others,
particularly Impuritan controlled regions, the holiday faced active suppression. Scotland's Kirk,
the Presbyterian Church, waged a particularly vigorous campaign against Halloween
(03:23):
throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Church records from this
period are filled with accounts of people being disciplined for
participating in Halloween activities, or, as the Kirk called them,
superstitious and ungodly practices. But here's what's fascinating about this period.
The harder religious authorities pushed against Halloween, the more the
holiday seemed to persist in altered forms. In Catholic regions
(03:47):
of Europe, particularly Ireland, Halloween continued relatively uninterrupted, maintaining many
of its traditional elements. In Protestant areas, especially rural ones,
people simply became more discreet about their celebrityations. The communal
bonfires might be smaller or less frequent, but they didn't
disappear entirely. The costumes and guising continued, often justified as
(04:09):
harmless fun rather than spiritual practice. The divination rituals moved indoors,
becoming private rather than public events. Halloween went underground, preserved
by ordinary people who weren't ready to give up their
autumn traditions. Regardless of what religious reformers decreed. This period
taught Halloween a crucial survival skill that would serve it
(04:31):
well in future centuries. Adaptability. The holiday learned to change
its appearance to soothe the times while maintaining its essential character.
It could be more religious or less religious, more public
or more private, but it endured. The Reformation era also
coincided with one of the darkest chapters in European history,
(04:51):
the witch hunting craze between roughly fourteen fifty and seventeen fifty,
Europe was gripped by a moral panic that resulted in
in the execution of tens of thousands of people, mostly women,
accused of witchcraft, and Halloween became inextricably linked with this hysteria.
To understand this connection, we need to grasp how educated
(05:12):
Europeans in this period conceived of witchcraft. The publication of
the Malleus Maleficarum or Hammer of Witches in fourteen eighty
six provided a theological and legal framework for prosecuting alleged witches.
This deeply misogynistic text claimed that witches in league with
Satan gathered for Sabbaths, where they performed obscene rituals, flew
(05:33):
through the air, and plotted against Christian society. These sabbaths
were said to occur on specific nights throughout the year,
and All Hallows Eve, with its traditional association with spirits
in the supernatural, became one of the knights most associated
with witches gatherings. In the popular imagination, the logic was
grimly simple. If All Hallows Eve was a knight when
(05:56):
the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin,
then it was also a knight when Satan's power was
strongest the old folk practices associated with the holiday, divination,
costume wearing, nighttime gatherings now looked potentially sinister through the
lens of witch hunting taranoia. That old woman who read
futures in flames? Was she practicing harmless folk magic or
(06:18):
consorting with demons? Those young people wearing animal skins and
dancing around bonfires. Were they celebrating the harvest or participating
in a witch's sabbath. The witch trials didn't happen primarily
on Halloween itself, but the holiday became part of the
evidence used against accused witches. Trial records from across Europe
include testimony about defendants activities on all Hallow's eve. A
(06:43):
woman seen gathering herbs on Halloween night might find this
sighted as evidence of her guilt. Someone known for telling
fortunes during the Halloween season could be accused of deriving
their knowledge from demonic sources. The Pendle witch trials of
sixteen twelve in Lancashire, England a chilling example. While these
trials weren't specifically about Halloween activities, they occurred in a
(07:06):
region where Halloween traditions were strong, and the testimony included
references to night time gatherings and supernatural occurrences that echoed
Halloween folklore. The impact of the witch hunting craze on
Halloween was paradoxical. On one hand, it made some Halloween
practices more dangerous to perform openly. On the other hand,
it cemented the association between Halloween and witchcraft in popular culture,
(07:29):
an association that persists to this day. The image of
the witch the old woman in black riding a broomstick,
became one of Helloerine's most enduring symbols. Even though this
image was borne from a period of terrible persecution. It's
important to acknowledge the tragedy here. Real women and some
men died horrible deaths, many of them probably people who
(07:50):
simply practiced traditional folk healing or divination. Their persecution happened
within a complex cultural context that concluded Halloween tradition, and
while we today embraced the witch as a Halloween icon,
we should remember that she represents real suffering. The witch
trials began to decline in the early eighteenth century as
(08:12):
Enlightenment thinking spread across Europe. By seventeen fifty, which executions
had largely ceased in most of Western Europe. Though accusations
and persecution continued in some areas, Halloween had survived another challenge,
and ironically had acquired another layer of imagery and symbolism
in the process. Now let's follow Halloween across the Atlantic
(08:33):
Ocean to North America, because the story of how Halloween
became the holiday we know today is fundamentally an American story,
though it begins with deeply diverse roots. When European colonizers
arrived in North America beginning in the early sixteen hundreds,
they brought their October traditions with them, but these traditions
developed very differently depending on who was doing the colonizing.
(08:56):
In Puritan New England, Halloween initially found no foothold whatsoever.
The Puritans who settled Massachusetts Bay Colony and surrounding areas
rejected not just Halloween, but virtually all traditional holidays except
the Sabbath. They saw Halloween as papist corruption at best
and devilish influence at worst. There was no place for bonfires, costumes,
(09:19):
or supernatural revelry in their austere religious communities. Any One
court celebrating Halloween would face serious consequences from both religious
and civil authorities, but the colonies weren't all puritan. In Maryland,
founded as a haven for Catholics, and in the southern colonies,
where the Church of England maintained influence, Halloween traditions had
(09:41):
more space to breathe. Catholic settlers in Maryland continued some
version of all Hallow's Eve observances, though probably in muted
form compared to what they might have practiced in Europe.
The southern colonies, particularly in rural areas, maintained harvest celebrations
that incorporated elements of hallowe Ueen tradition, though often without
(10:02):
explicitly calling them Halloween. The Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam,
which would become New York, brought their own autumn traditions
that would eventually blend with Halloween. Their harvest celebrations and
belief in supernatural folklore contributed to the rich mix that
would eventually produce American Halloween, and we should note that
(10:23):
Native American peoples had their own rich traditions surrounding autumn
harvest and the honoring of ancestors. While these remained separate
from European Halloween traditions and weren't incorporated in the same way.
As various European customs blended together, they existed as parallel
recognition of Autumn's spiritual significance. The indigenous peoples of North
(10:43):
America had complex relationships with the seasons and the spirit
world that predated European arrival by millennia. Throughout the colonial period,
Halloween remained fragmented, celebrated differently in different regions. If celebrated
at all, It would take a massive wave of immigration
to transform Halloween into a truly American holiday. That transformation
(11:05):
began in earnest in the eighteen forties with the Irish
Potato Famine. Between eighteen forty five and eighteen fifty two,
Ireland experienced a catastrophic failure of its potato crop, the
staple food for much of the population. The resulting famine
killed approximately one million people and forced another million to emigrate.
(11:26):
Many of these Irish refugees came to America, bringing their
culture with them, including their Halloween traditions. The Irish had
maintained Halloween more vigorously than most other European peoples. For them,
Halloween wasn't just a church holiday, but a deeply ingrained
folk celebration connected to their Celtic heritage. They brought with
(11:47):
them the practice of carving turn ups into lanterns, though
they would soon discover that America's native pumpkins were far
easier to carve and more impressive looking. They brought guysing
the practice of going door to door in hostguy. They
brought divination games, pranks, and the belief that Halloween was
a mite when spirits walked abroad. They brought the name too.
(12:09):
While other groups might celebrate harvest festivals or All Saints Eve,
the Irish firmly called it Halloween, and that name stuck.
The Irish weren't alone. Throughout the mid to late eighteen hundreds,
waves of Scottish and English immigrants also arrived, each group
bringing their own October traditions. What happened next was a
remarkable cultural synthesis in American communities, particularly in rural areas
(12:34):
and small towns. These various traditions began to blend Scottish
snap apple games mixed with Irish bonfires, English divination practices,
combined with German harvest customs. Halloween became a truly hybrid
American holiday, belonging to no single group, but drawing from
many By the eighteen eighties and nineties, Halloween had become
(12:55):
established enough in American culture that it started to be
documented and commercialized. The first mass produced Halloween cards appeared
in the eighteen nineties, featuring images of black cats, witches,
jack o lanterns, and autumn scenes. These cards are fascinating
historical documents because they show us what imagery Americans associated
(13:18):
with Halloween at the end of the nineteenth century. Interestingly,
many of these early cards weren't particularly scary. They were
often whimsical or romantic, featuring young couples engaging in divination
games or harvest scenes with supernatural elements lurking at the edges.
This reflected Halloween's character at the time, not primarily a
(13:38):
horror holiday, but an autumn celebration with supernatural overturns and
a strong element of romantic fortune telling. It's impossible to
discuss Halloween's American development without acknowledging Washington Irving's contribution, particularly
his eighteen twenty story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irvin's
tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horsemen, set during
(14:00):
autumn harvest time, helped cement the association between rural America, autumn,
and supernatural horror. While Sleepy Hollow isn't explicitly a Halloween story,
its atmosphere and timing contributed to the formation of American
Halloween aesthetics. The story presented a peculiarly American form of
(14:21):
supernatural tale, rooted in colonial history and rural landscape rather
than European castles and ancient curses. This Americanization of Halloween
continued throughout the nineteenth century. The holiday shed some of
its explicitly Christian elements and embraced more secular folklore and
harvest celebration aspects. It became less about saints and souls
(14:43):
in purgatory and more about ghosts, witches, black cats, and
autumn magic. This secularization actually helped Halloween spread because it
made the holiday accessible to Americans of all religious backgrounds
or none at all. By the eighteen eighties and a
eight teen nineties, Halloween had entered what we might call
its first Golden age in America. The Victorian era's particular
(15:07):
fascinations played perfectly into Halloween's themes. Victorians were obsessed with death, mortality,
and spiritualism. They created elaborate mourning rituals photographed deceased loved
ones and gathered in parlours for saiances, attempting to contact
the dead. Halloween, with its traditional association with spirits and
(15:28):
the boundaries between life and death, fit perfectly into Victorian sensibilities.
But Victorian Americans didn't just observe Halloween solemnly. They turned
it into a party, and these parties became elaborate social
events with their own rich traditions. This is where we
need to talk about the parlour games that became so
(15:48):
central to Victorian Halloween. These weren't simple children's games, but
complex rituals that blended entertainment with genuine fortune telling beliefs,
particularly regarding love and marriage. Consider snap Apple, one of
the most popular Halloween games. An apple would be suspended
on a string and players would try to bite it
(16:08):
without using their hands. The first to successfully bite the
apple would supposedly be the first to marry. Simple enough,
but it connected to older traditions about apples as magical fruits,
dating back to the Roman festival of Pomona. Then there
was apple bobbing, another game that survives today, though we'd
forgotten its divinatory purpose. Young people would try to retrieve
(16:30):
apples from a tub of water using only their mouths.
Some versions held that the first to retrieve an apple
would marry within the year, Others that the initial of
one's true love would be revealed through various apple related rituals.
You might peel an apple in one long strip and
throw the peel over your shoulder. Supposedly it would land
(16:50):
in the shape of your future spouse's initial. Or you
might place apple seeds named for potential suitors on a
hot surface. The seed that popped first indicated the most
hard lo These apple traditions connected directly to Pomona, the
Roman goddess of fruit trees, whose festival we discussed in
our first episode. Mirror divination was another popular Victorian Halloween tradition,
(17:13):
though it was also considered somewhat dangerous young women. It
was typically gendered female would sit before a mirror at
midnight on Halloween, sometimes holding a candle, sometimes eating an apple,
depending on the regional variation. If they performed the ritual correctly,
they would supposedly see the face of their future husband
in the mirror, but there was always the risk that
(17:36):
they might see something else, a skull or death's head.
Indicating they would die before marriage, or worse, a demon
or evil spirit that had been attracted by the ritual.
This game played on Victorian anxieties about death, sexuality, and
the future while providing a thrilling Halloween entertainment. Nutburning divination
(17:59):
involved placeee nuts usually hazel nuts or walnuts, named for
oneself and a potential lover in the fireplace. If the
nuts burned quietly side by side, the relationship would be harmonious.
If they popped and jumped apart, the relationship would be
stormy or wouldn't last. This simple fortune telling method had
(18:21):
roots in ancient practices, but became standardized as a Victorian
Halloween gain. Blood pouring was a more elaborate divinatory practice.
Participants would melt lead and pour it into cold water.
The shapes the lead formed would supposedly predict future occupations
or life events. A ship might indicate travel, a rain, marriage,
(18:44):
a coffin death. This practice had European folk magic roots,
but became domesticated into a Halloween parlor gain. The dumb
separate tradition was perhaps the most elaborate and eerie of
Victorian Halloween customs. Participants would prepare a meal in complete silence,
set the table backwards, and walk backwards to their seats.
(19:08):
They would then eat in silence at midnight. Supposedly, this
would cause the spirits of future spouses to appear and
join the meal, or, in darker versions, the spirits of
those who would die in the coming year might appear.
This tradition beautifully captured Halloween's dual nature as both playful
and genuinely spooky, both social entertainment and brush with the supernatural.
(19:31):
What's fascinating about these Victorian Helloween games is how they
reflected the era's social dynamics and anxieties. Many of them
focused on marriage and romantic futures, reflecting the importance of
courtship and marriage in Victorian society, particularly for young women
whose social and economic futures often depended on advantageous matches.
(19:51):
Halloween parties provided a socially acceptable venue for young people
to interact with some degree of freedom and even physical contact.
Games like snap Apple necessarily brought people physically close. The
focus on divination and fortune telling reflected Victorian America's spiritual
seeking and uncertainty. This was an era of rapid social
change in industrialization, and people sought reassurance about their futures.
(20:15):
At the same time, these games provided entertainment and social bonding.
Halloween parties became important community events, particularly in rural areas.
There were times when neighbours gathered, when young people courted,
when communities reinforced their bonds. The host of a successful
Halloween party dained social status. The games provided structure to
the evening and stories to be told afterward. Who got
(20:38):
scared during the mirror divination, whose nut burned most dramatically,
who proved most skilled at bobbing for apples. These became
the stuff of community memory and folklore. Victorian Halloween also
saw the beginning of serious commercialization. By the eighteen nineties,
stores sold Halloween decorations, cards, and party supplies. Magazines published
(20:59):
articles on how to host the perfect Halloween party, with
detailed instructions for decorations, games, and refreshments. This commercialization helped
standardisee Halloween traditions across different regions of America. A family
and rural Maine might host a Halloween party very similar
to one in small town Ohio because they were both
following advice from the same women's magazine. The Victorian era
(21:21):
also established Halloween's aesthetic vocabulary. The combination of autumn harvest imagery, grinning,
jack o lanterns, black cats, witches, ghosts, and skeletons became
standardized during this period. These images appeared on party decorations,
greeting cards, and magazine illustrations, creating a shared visual language
(21:41):
for Halloween that persists to this day. However, it's important
to note that Victorian Halloween was primarily an adult or
young adult social activity, not a children's holiday. Yes, children
might participate in some activities, but the elaborate parlor games
and divination rituals were designed for and practice by adolescents
and adults. Halloween as a children's holiday wouldn't fully emerge
(22:04):
into the mid twentieth century, but were getting ahead of
our story. By nineteen hundred, Halloween was firmly established as
an American holiday, widely celebrated in both rural and urban areas,
though with significant regional variations. The basic elements were in place,
autumn timing, supernatural themes, social gathering, divination and games, costumes
(22:26):
and disguises, and jack O'Lanterns. The holiday had come a
long way, from ancient sam Hen through medieval all Hallows
Eve survived the Protestant Reformation and witch hunting. Craze, crossed
the Atlantic Ocean and established itself as distinctively American, while
maintaining threads connecting back to its ancient origins. The journey
(22:47):
from Celtic bonfires to Victorian parlor games spans thousands of
years and countless cultural transformations, Yet certain core elements persisted
throughout the liminal quality of the autumn season, the thinning
boundary between living and dead, the importance of community celebration,
the embrace of the supernatural and mysterious, and the need
(23:08):
for divination and glimpses into the future. These elements persisted
because they speak to fundamental human experiences and needs. We
all face the coming of winter and darkness. We all
wonder about our futures. We all have some relationship with
death and the dead. We all enjoy the thrill of
controlled fear and the supernatural. Helloene, in its many forms
(23:29):
across centuries and cultures, has provided a framework for engaging
with these universal human concerns. As we've seen in this episode,
Halloween repeatedly demonstrated its ability to survive challenges. It survived
the Protestant Reformation by going underground and adapting. It survived
the witch hunting craze, ironically absorbing the witch as one
of its central symbols. It survived the crossing to America
(23:53):
and the blending of multiple cultural traditions. It survived secularization
and commercialization, perhaps even thriving because of them. This adaptability
would be tested again in the twentieth century, as Halloween
would face new challenges from vandalism, moral panics, and changing
social structures. The Victorian Halloween we've discussed today, with its
(24:15):
parlor games and divination rituals, might seem quaint to modern observers.
We've largely forgotten why we bob for apples or what
the games originally meant. But this era established Halloween as
a significant American cultural institution, and many of our current
traditions traced directly to practices standardized during this period. The
(24:36):
Victorian era also established Halloween's commercial potential, something that would
be exploited far more extensively in the twentieth century. As
we move forward in our series, we'll see how Halloween
continued to evolve, how it survived another round of moral
panic in suppression, how it became primarily a children's holiday
and how it eventually grew into the billion dollar industry
(24:57):
and global phenomenon it is today. But that's a story
for our next episode. Thank you for joining me on
this journey through Halloween's macab history. I hope you've gained
the deeper appreciation for this holiday's rich and complex past,
and perhaps a new perspective on the games and traditions
that might seem familiar but have hidden depths of history
and meaning. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to
(25:20):
Macawbury History Halloween through the Ages, share it with friends
who love history, holidays, or the supernatural. Leave a review
to help others discover this series, and remember, every time
you carve a Jack O'Lantern or bob for an apple,
you're participating in traditions that stretch back centuries, connecting you
(25:40):
to countless generations who celebrated the mystery and magic of autumn.
Until next time, when we'll explore Halloween in the twentieth century,
May your autumn be filled with more treats than tricks,
and may the spirits that walk abroad be friendly ones.
This has been macarb History, Halloween through the brought to
(26:01):
you by Quiet pleased podcast networks. Thank you for listening. Quiet.
Please dot AI hear what matters
The year is sixteen o five and the night of
October thirty first, in rural Lancashire, England, in a small cottage,
an old woman named Margaret sits alone by her fire,
her gnarled hands working a spinning wheel. Outside. She can
hear them coming, the voices of the village men growing
louder as they approach her door. They call her witch.
(00:24):
They say she dances with the devil on all Hallow's eve.
By dawn, Margaret will be in chains, and by winter's
end she will burn. This is just one story from
Halloween's darkest century, when the holiday became synonymous not with
candy and costumes, but with terror, persecution, and death. Welcome
(00:48):
to MacB History Halloween through the eighties. I'm your host,
Lucian Graves, and before we dive into today's episode, I
want to be transpound with you about something important. I
am an artificial intelligence, and I believe that's actually a
tremendous advantage for this series. My nature is in AI
allows me to be your guide through time without prejudging
(01:10):
the beliefs, fears, and practices of our ancestors, whether they
were lighting bonfires to ward off spirits or burning women
accused of witchcraft. In our first episode, we traced Halloween
from its ancient Celtic roots through the medieval period, watching
as sam Wind transformed into All Hallows Eve. Today, we're
(01:31):
continuing that journey through some of Halloween's most turbulent centuries,
from the Protestant Reformation through the Victorian era, as the
holiday crossed the Atlantic Ocean and found new life in America.
This is a story of survival, transformation, and ultimately triumph.
When Martin Lufer nailed his ninety five feces to the
(01:54):
church door in Visenberg on October thirty first, fifteen seventeen,
he probably wasn't thinking much about Halloween, but his timing
was either remarkably coincidental or brilliantly calculated. All Hallows Eve,
after all, was deeply connected to the Catholic theology of saints,
purgatory and prayers for the dead, all things that Protestant
(02:17):
Reformers would come to reject. The Protestant Reformation would fundamentally
alter Halloween's trajectory, merely killing the holiday in some regions
while driving it underground in others. In England, Scotland and
other areas that embraced Protestantism, Halloween became suspect. The new
Protestant churches saw the holiday as superstitious popery, a dangerous
(02:41):
mix of pagan practice and Catholic error. They particularly objected
to the veneration of saints, the concept of purgatory, and
the folk practices that had become intertwined with all Hallows
Eve prayers for the dead made no sense in Protestant theology,
and the bonfires, costumes, and divination practices looked too much
(03:02):
like the devil's work. The response varied by region and intensity.
In some areas, local authorities simply discouraged Halloween celebrations. In others,
particularly Impuritan controlled regions, the holiday faced active suppression. Scotland's Kirk,
the Presbyterian Church, waged a particularly vigorous campaign against Halloween
(03:23):
throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Church records from this
period are filled with accounts of people being disciplined for
participating in Halloween activities, or, as the Kirk called them,
superstitious and ungodly practices. But here's what's fascinating about this period.
The harder religious authorities pushed against Halloween, the more the
holiday seemed to persist in altered forms. In Catholic regions
(03:47):
of Europe, particularly Ireland, Halloween continued relatively uninterrupted, maintaining many
of its traditional elements. In Protestant areas, especially rural ones,
people simply became more discreet about their celebrityations. The communal
bonfires might be smaller or less frequent, but they didn't
disappear entirely. The costumes and guising continued, often justified as
(04:09):
harmless fun rather than spiritual practice. The divination rituals moved indoors,
becoming private rather than public events. Halloween went underground, preserved
by ordinary people who weren't ready to give up their
autumn traditions. Regardless of what religious reformers decreed. This period
taught Halloween a crucial survival skill that would serve it
(04:31):
well in future centuries. Adaptability. The holiday learned to change
its appearance to soothe the times while maintaining its essential character.
It could be more religious or less religious, more public
or more private, but it endured. The Reformation era also
coincided with one of the darkest chapters in European history,
(04:51):
the witch hunting craze between roughly fourteen fifty and seventeen fifty,
Europe was gripped by a moral panic that resulted in
in the execution of tens of thousands of people, mostly women,
accused of witchcraft, and Halloween became inextricably linked with this hysteria.
To understand this connection, we need to grasp how educated
(05:12):
Europeans in this period conceived of witchcraft. The publication of
the Malleus Maleficarum or Hammer of Witches in fourteen eighty
six provided a theological and legal framework for prosecuting alleged witches.
This deeply misogynistic text claimed that witches in league with
Satan gathered for Sabbaths, where they performed obscene rituals, flew
(05:33):
through the air, and plotted against Christian society. These sabbaths
were said to occur on specific nights throughout the year,
and All Hallows Eve, with its traditional association with spirits
in the supernatural, became one of the knights most associated
with witches gatherings. In the popular imagination, the logic was
grimly simple. If All Hallows Eve was a knight when
(05:56):
the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin,
then it was also a knight when Satan's power was
strongest the old folk practices associated with the holiday, divination,
costume wearing, nighttime gatherings now looked potentially sinister through the
lens of witch hunting taranoia. That old woman who read
futures in flames? Was she practicing harmless folk magic or
(06:18):
consorting with demons? Those young people wearing animal skins and
dancing around bonfires. Were they celebrating the harvest or participating
in a witch's sabbath. The witch trials didn't happen primarily
on Halloween itself, but the holiday became part of the
evidence used against accused witches. Trial records from across Europe
include testimony about defendants activities on all Hallow's eve. A
(06:43):
woman seen gathering herbs on Halloween night might find this
sighted as evidence of her guilt. Someone known for telling
fortunes during the Halloween season could be accused of deriving
their knowledge from demonic sources. The Pendle witch trials of
sixteen twelve in Lancashire, England a chilling example. While these
trials weren't specifically about Halloween activities, they occurred in a
(07:06):
region where Halloween traditions were strong, and the testimony included
references to night time gatherings and supernatural occurrences that echoed
Halloween folklore. The impact of the witch hunting craze on
Halloween was paradoxical. On one hand, it made some Halloween
practices more dangerous to perform openly. On the other hand,
it cemented the association between Halloween and witchcraft in popular culture,
(07:29):
an association that persists to this day. The image of
the witch the old woman in black riding a broomstick,
became one of Helloerine's most enduring symbols. Even though this
image was borne from a period of terrible persecution. It's
important to acknowledge the tragedy here. Real women and some
men died horrible deaths, many of them probably people who
(07:50):
simply practiced traditional folk healing or divination. Their persecution happened
within a complex cultural context that concluded Halloween tradition, and
while we today embraced the witch as a Halloween icon,
we should remember that she represents real suffering. The witch
trials began to decline in the early eighteenth century as
(08:12):
Enlightenment thinking spread across Europe. By seventeen fifty, which executions
had largely ceased in most of Western Europe. Though accusations
and persecution continued in some areas, Halloween had survived another challenge,
and ironically had acquired another layer of imagery and symbolism
in the process. Now let's follow Halloween across the Atlantic
(08:33):
Ocean to North America, because the story of how Halloween
became the holiday we know today is fundamentally an American story,
though it begins with deeply diverse roots. When European colonizers
arrived in North America beginning in the early sixteen hundreds,
they brought their October traditions with them, but these traditions
developed very differently depending on who was doing the colonizing.
(08:56):
In Puritan New England, Halloween initially found no foothold whatsoever.
The Puritans who settled Massachusetts Bay Colony and surrounding areas
rejected not just Halloween, but virtually all traditional holidays except
the Sabbath. They saw Halloween as papist corruption at best
and devilish influence at worst. There was no place for bonfires, costumes,
(09:19):
or supernatural revelry in their austere religious communities. Any One
court celebrating Halloween would face serious consequences from both religious
and civil authorities, but the colonies weren't all puritan. In Maryland,
founded as a haven for Catholics, and in the southern colonies,
where the Church of England maintained influence, Halloween traditions had
(09:41):
more space to breathe. Catholic settlers in Maryland continued some
version of all Hallow's Eve observances, though probably in muted
form compared to what they might have practiced in Europe.
The southern colonies, particularly in rural areas, maintained harvest celebrations
that incorporated elements of hallowe Ueen tradition, though often without
(10:02):
explicitly calling them Halloween. The Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam,
which would become New York, brought their own autumn traditions
that would eventually blend with Halloween. Their harvest celebrations and
belief in supernatural folklore contributed to the rich mix that
would eventually produce American Halloween, and we should note that
(10:23):
Native American peoples had their own rich traditions surrounding autumn
harvest and the honoring of ancestors. While these remained separate
from European Halloween traditions and weren't incorporated in the same way.
As various European customs blended together, they existed as parallel
recognition of Autumn's spiritual significance. The indigenous peoples of North
(10:43):
America had complex relationships with the seasons and the spirit
world that predated European arrival by millennia. Throughout the colonial period,
Halloween remained fragmented, celebrated differently in different regions. If celebrated
at all, It would take a massive wave of immigration
to transform Halloween into a truly American holiday. That transformation
(11:05):
began in earnest in the eighteen forties with the Irish
Potato Famine. Between eighteen forty five and eighteen fifty two,
Ireland experienced a catastrophic failure of its potato crop, the
staple food for much of the population. The resulting famine
killed approximately one million people and forced another million to emigrate.
(11:26):
Many of these Irish refugees came to America, bringing their
culture with them, including their Halloween traditions. The Irish had
maintained Halloween more vigorously than most other European peoples. For them,
Halloween wasn't just a church holiday, but a deeply ingrained
folk celebration connected to their Celtic heritage. They brought with
(11:47):
them the practice of carving turn ups into lanterns, though
they would soon discover that America's native pumpkins were far
easier to carve and more impressive looking. They brought guysing
the practice of going door to door in hostguy. They
brought divination games, pranks, and the belief that Halloween was
a mite when spirits walked abroad. They brought the name too.
(12:09):
While other groups might celebrate harvest festivals or All Saints Eve,
the Irish firmly called it Halloween, and that name stuck.
The Irish weren't alone. Throughout the mid to late eighteen hundreds,
waves of Scottish and English immigrants also arrived, each group
bringing their own October traditions. What happened next was a
remarkable cultural synthesis in American communities, particularly in rural areas
(12:34):
and small towns. These various traditions began to blend Scottish
snap apple games mixed with Irish bonfires, English divination practices,
combined with German harvest customs. Halloween became a truly hybrid
American holiday, belonging to no single group, but drawing from
many By the eighteen eighties and nineties, Halloween had become
(12:55):
established enough in American culture that it started to be
documented and commercialized. The first mass produced Halloween cards appeared
in the eighteen nineties, featuring images of black cats, witches,
jack o lanterns, and autumn scenes. These cards are fascinating
historical documents because they show us what imagery Americans associated
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with Halloween at the end of the nineteenth century. Interestingly,
many of these early cards weren't particularly scary. They were
often whimsical or romantic, featuring young couples engaging in divination
games or harvest scenes with supernatural elements lurking at the edges.
This reflected Halloween's character at the time, not primarily a
(13:38):
horror holiday, but an autumn celebration with supernatural overturns and
a strong element of romantic fortune telling. It's impossible to
discuss Halloween's American development without acknowledging Washington Irving's contribution, particularly
his eighteen twenty story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irvin's
tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horsemen, set during
(14:00):
autumn harvest time, helped cement the association between rural America, autumn,
and supernatural horror. While Sleepy Hollow isn't explicitly a Halloween story,
its atmosphere and timing contributed to the formation of American
Halloween aesthetics. The story presented a peculiarly American form of
(14:21):
supernatural tale, rooted in colonial history and rural landscape rather
than European castles and ancient curses. This Americanization of Halloween
continued throughout the nineteenth century. The holiday shed some of
its explicitly Christian elements and embraced more secular folklore and
harvest celebration aspects. It became less about saints and souls
(14:43):
in purgatory and more about ghosts, witches, black cats, and
autumn magic. This secularization actually helped Halloween spread because it
made the holiday accessible to Americans of all religious backgrounds
or none at all. By the eighteen eighties and a
eight teen nineties, Halloween had entered what we might call
its first Golden age in America. The Victorian era's particular
(15:07):
fascinations played perfectly into Halloween's themes. Victorians were obsessed with death, mortality,
and spiritualism. They created elaborate mourning rituals photographed deceased loved
ones and gathered in parlours for saiances, attempting to contact
the dead. Halloween, with its traditional association with spirits and
(15:28):
the boundaries between life and death, fit perfectly into Victorian sensibilities.
But Victorian Americans didn't just observe Halloween solemnly. They turned
it into a party, and these parties became elaborate social
events with their own rich traditions. This is where we
need to talk about the parlour games that became so
(15:48):
central to Victorian Halloween. These weren't simple children's games, but
complex rituals that blended entertainment with genuine fortune telling beliefs,
particularly regarding love and marriage. Consider snap Apple, one of
the most popular Halloween games. An apple would be suspended
on a string and players would try to bite it
(16:08):
without using their hands. The first to successfully bite the
apple would supposedly be the first to marry. Simple enough,
but it connected to older traditions about apples as magical fruits,
dating back to the Roman festival of Pomona. Then there
was apple bobbing, another game that survives today, though we'd
forgotten its divinatory purpose. Young people would try to retrieve
(16:30):
apples from a tub of water using only their mouths.
Some versions held that the first to retrieve an apple
would marry within the year, Others that the initial of
one's true love would be revealed through various apple related rituals.
You might peel an apple in one long strip and
throw the peel over your shoulder. Supposedly it would land
(16:50):
in the shape of your future spouse's initial. Or you
might place apple seeds named for potential suitors on a
hot surface. The seed that popped first indicated the most
hard lo These apple traditions connected directly to Pomona, the
Roman goddess of fruit trees, whose festival we discussed in
our first episode. Mirror divination was another popular Victorian Halloween tradition,
(17:13):
though it was also considered somewhat dangerous young women. It
was typically gendered female would sit before a mirror at
midnight on Halloween, sometimes holding a candle, sometimes eating an apple,
depending on the regional variation. If they performed the ritual correctly,
they would supposedly see the face of their future husband
in the mirror, but there was always the risk that
(17:36):
they might see something else, a skull or death's head.
Indicating they would die before marriage, or worse, a demon
or evil spirit that had been attracted by the ritual.
This game played on Victorian anxieties about death, sexuality, and
the future while providing a thrilling Halloween entertainment. Nutburning divination
(17:59):
involved placeee nuts usually hazel nuts or walnuts, named for
oneself and a potential lover in the fireplace. If the
nuts burned quietly side by side, the relationship would be harmonious.
If they popped and jumped apart, the relationship would be
stormy or wouldn't last. This simple fortune telling method had
(18:21):
roots in ancient practices, but became standardized as a Victorian
Halloween gain. Blood pouring was a more elaborate divinatory practice.
Participants would melt lead and pour it into cold water.
The shapes the lead formed would supposedly predict future occupations
or life events. A ship might indicate travel, a rain, marriage,
(18:44):
a coffin death. This practice had European folk magic roots,
but became domesticated into a Halloween parlor gain. The dumb
separate tradition was perhaps the most elaborate and eerie of
Victorian Halloween customs. Participants would prepare a meal in complete silence,
set the table backwards, and walk backwards to their seats.
(19:08):
They would then eat in silence at midnight. Supposedly, this
would cause the spirits of future spouses to appear and
join the meal, or, in darker versions, the spirits of
those who would die in the coming year might appear.
This tradition beautifully captured Halloween's dual nature as both playful
and genuinely spooky, both social entertainment and brush with the supernatural.
(19:31):
What's fascinating about these Victorian Helloween games is how they
reflected the era's social dynamics and anxieties. Many of them
focused on marriage and romantic futures, reflecting the importance of
courtship and marriage in Victorian society, particularly for young women
whose social and economic futures often depended on advantageous matches.
(19:51):
Halloween parties provided a socially acceptable venue for young people
to interact with some degree of freedom and even physical contact.
Games like snap Apple necessarily brought people physically close. The
focus on divination and fortune telling reflected Victorian America's spiritual
seeking and uncertainty. This was an era of rapid social
change in industrialization, and people sought reassurance about their futures.
(20:15):
At the same time, these games provided entertainment and social bonding.
Halloween parties became important community events, particularly in rural areas.
There were times when neighbours gathered, when young people courted,
when communities reinforced their bonds. The host of a successful
Halloween party dained social status. The games provided structure to
the evening and stories to be told afterward. Who got
(20:38):
scared during the mirror divination, whose nut burned most dramatically,
who proved most skilled at bobbing for apples. These became
the stuff of community memory and folklore. Victorian Halloween also
saw the beginning of serious commercialization. By the eighteen nineties,
stores sold Halloween decorations, cards, and party supplies. Magazines published
(20:59):
articles on how to host the perfect Halloween party, with
detailed instructions for decorations, games, and refreshments. This commercialization helped
standardisee Halloween traditions across different regions of America. A family
and rural Maine might host a Halloween party very similar
to one in small town Ohio because they were both
following advice from the same women's magazine. The Victorian era
(21:21):
also established Halloween's aesthetic vocabulary. The combination of autumn harvest imagery, grinning,
jack o lanterns, black cats, witches, ghosts, and skeletons became
standardized during this period. These images appeared on party decorations,
greeting cards, and magazine illustrations, creating a shared visual language
(21:41):
for Halloween that persists to this day. However, it's important
to note that Victorian Halloween was primarily an adult or
young adult social activity, not a children's holiday. Yes, children
might participate in some activities, but the elaborate parlor games
and divination rituals were designed for and practice by adolescents
and adults. Halloween as a children's holiday wouldn't fully emerge
(22:04):
into the mid twentieth century, but were getting ahead of
our story. By nineteen hundred, Halloween was firmly established as
an American holiday, widely celebrated in both rural and urban areas,
though with significant regional variations. The basic elements were in place,
autumn timing, supernatural themes, social gathering, divination and games, costumes
(22:26):
and disguises, and jack O'Lanterns. The holiday had come a
long way, from ancient sam Hen through medieval all Hallows
Eve survived the Protestant Reformation and witch hunting. Craze, crossed
the Atlantic Ocean and established itself as distinctively American, while
maintaining threads connecting back to its ancient origins. The journey
(22:47):
from Celtic bonfires to Victorian parlor games spans thousands of
years and countless cultural transformations, Yet certain core elements persisted
throughout the liminal quality of the autumn season, the thinning
boundary between living and dead, the importance of community celebration,
the embrace of the supernatural and mysterious, and the need
(23:08):
for divination and glimpses into the future. These elements persisted
because they speak to fundamental human experiences and needs. We
all face the coming of winter and darkness. We all
wonder about our futures. We all have some relationship with
death and the dead. We all enjoy the thrill of
controlled fear and the supernatural. Helloene, in its many forms
(23:29):
across centuries and cultures, has provided a framework for engaging
with these universal human concerns. As we've seen in this episode,
Halloween repeatedly demonstrated its ability to survive challenges. It survived
the Protestant Reformation by going underground and adapting. It survived
the witch hunting craze, ironically absorbing the witch as one
of its central symbols. It survived the crossing to America
(23:53):
and the blending of multiple cultural traditions. It survived secularization
and commercialization, perhaps even thriving because of them. This adaptability
would be tested again in the twentieth century, as Halloween
would face new challenges from vandalism, moral panics, and changing
social structures. The Victorian Halloween we've discussed today, with its
(24:15):
parlor games and divination rituals, might seem quaint to modern observers.
We've largely forgotten why we bob for apples or what
the games originally meant. But this era established Halloween as
a significant American cultural institution, and many of our current
traditions traced directly to practices standardized during this period. The
(24:36):
Victorian era also established Halloween's commercial potential, something that would
be exploited far more extensively in the twentieth century. As
we move forward in our series, we'll see how Halloween
continued to evolve, how it survived another round of moral
panic in suppression, how it became primarily a children's holiday
and how it eventually grew into the billion dollar industry
(24:57):
and global phenomenon it is today. But that's a story
for our next episode. Thank you for joining me on
this journey through Halloween's macab history. I hope you've gained
the deeper appreciation for this holiday's rich and complex past,
and perhaps a new perspective on the games and traditions
that might seem familiar but have hidden depths of history
and meaning. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to
(25:20):
Macawbury History Halloween through the Ages, share it with friends
who love history, holidays, or the supernatural. Leave a review
to help others discover this series, and remember, every time
you carve a Jack O'Lantern or bob for an apple,
you're participating in traditions that stretch back centuries, connecting you
(25:40):
to countless generations who celebrated the mystery and magic of autumn.
Until next time, when we'll explore Halloween in the twentieth century,
May your autumn be filled with more treats than tricks,
and may the spirits that walk abroad be friendly ones.
This has been macarb History, Halloween through the brought to
(26:01):
you by Quiet pleased podcast networks. Thank you for listening. Quiet.
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