When we think about fall, usually we think about Halloween. Fall comes with picking pumpkins and apples, pumpkin spice flavored everything, drinking hot apple cider, eating cinnamon apple cider donuts, watching spooky movies in a comfy hoodie, and of course, candy. Sounds relieving right? But back in the day, Halloween was celebrated much differently.

As a matter of fact, history.com says that this spooky season was originated from the Celtic festival of Samhain, pronounced sow-in. The festival began during the night of October 31st and ended during the night of November 1st. This day marked the end of summer and harvest, but the beginning of the cold dark winter – a time that is often associated with human death.

On the night of Samhain, it is believed that anomalies of the afterlife returned to earth and the Celts thought that the presence of these anomalies made it easier for Celtic priests, or Druids, to make predictions about the future. Prophecies like this were an important source of comfort and direction during the long winter for the people to which celebrated this festival.

The way the people would commemorate the event was that Druids built huge sacred bonfires where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, primarily consisting of animal heads and skins while attempting to read each other’s futures. Sounds like something you’d want to do right? But that’s not all.

When the celebration was over, they relit their hearth fires from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

Since costumes were brought up, let’s talk about them. Usually when we’re little, girls like to dress up as princesses like Cinderella or Aurora and boys like to dress up as superheroes like Superman or Spider Man. But as it was said, these weren’t exactly the costumes people would wear to celebrate Halloween in the past.

Honestly, the costumes they wore then were corny. We’re talking back-to-the-basics like witches and skeletons and devils and ghosts. But later on, popular culture held up with the Mummy and Dracula and Frankenstein and things like that.