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It's Halloween time of year. The next few days we'll share some Halloween history trivia.

Halloween is from an old Celtic tradition, the celebration of Samhaim, the pagan harvest festival. Halloween came over to America with the Irish. They believed this was one of the times of the year, in between the harvest and the coming of winter, when it was easiest for the spirits of the dead as well as other non-human spirits like demons and fairies to cross over into the living human world. The barrier between the two worlds was thinnest.

Now they actually welcomed the spirits of their deceased loved ones into their homes; they even set places at the dinner table for them.

But the non-human spirits, the demons and the fairies, were another matter. The Celts did things to keep these entities from bothering them and these became our American Halloween traditions.

First, let's look at costumes. Going back for centuries, the Celts dressed up like frightful demons so the real spirits would be confused and leave them alone. They also dressed up like the spirits of the dead in order to appease them so they would look favorably upon them from the other world.

The attached picture shows costumes from the early 1900s. Costumes were homemade and pretty creepy. They were supposed to be. But with time, Halloween became more "domesticated" and lost much of its original meaning.

In the 1930s, companies began to produce commercially made costumes. In addition to the usual monsters and werewolves, they also started featuring characters from cartoons and movies. Today we have everything from princesses and superheroes to Frankenstein's creation.

Included is also a picture from the RHS collection of local children in costumes in 1968.

History of Halloween customs, part 2. In part 1, we mentioned that Halloween is derived from old Celtic pagan customs and came to the U.S. with the Irish. We covered costumes.

Another tradition is the Jack o' Lantern. According to Celtic folklore, Stingy Jack tried to cheat both the devil and God, and when he died, neither would take him. He was doomed to roam the earth forever at night, with a glowing coal in a carved out turnip to light his way. He became known as Jack of the Lantern.

The Celts carved hideous faces into turnips, beets, potatoes and gourds to frighten away Jack and other evil spirits. An example of an original carved turnip from Ireland is attached.

When the Irish came to the States, they discovered that pumpkins were plentiful and much easier to carve. Hence, today's American tradition of jack o' lanterns.

Halloween history, part 3 – trick or treating.

Trick or treating also came to the U. S. with the Irish settlers. There are several old customs behind the practice. One is that people dressed up in costumes as deceased spirits (mumming or guising) around the time of the pagan harvest holiday Samhain, when the barrier between the spiritual and physical world was thinnest, and went door to door collecting gifts to appease and honor the dead.

Another old year-round custom is to leave out treats for the fairies so that this group of other worldly beings will not pull tricks on humans.

Fairy folklore is interesting. They are usually associated with England, Scotland and Ireland, but they occasionally make their way over to the U.S. One sign is fairy rings, mushrooms growing in an arc or circle. Sometimes they show up as a circle of unusually tall or thick grass, because the fungus is growing underground. Here are pictures of two fairy rings getting started in Beverly.

It is considered bad luck to destroy a fairy ring, believed to form by fairies dancing. Folklore says that if a human steps into a fairy ring, he/she could be caught forever, dancing.

Halloween – Part 4. Halloween on the Ridge 100 years ago. A few years ago, the RHS newsletter editor was looking through the old Morgan Park Post newspapers for something interesting to write about for Halloween for the Beverly Area Planning Association Villager, the free community newspaper.

Then she came across this little tidbit of information in the November 6, 1915 Post: “MR. and MRS. THOS. CUMMINGS entertained at a Hallowe’en party last Saturday evening at their home on Homewood Ave.“

These were her great-grandparents. Her great-grandparents had a Halloween party in Morgan Park 100 years ago. What might that have been like?

Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones in the U.S. by the beginning of the 20th century. By 1915, parties were the most common way to celebrate, and usually included decorations, costumes, games, and refreshments.

Prior to 1900, decorations had relied on natural items like corn stalks, symbolic of the harvest. Jack-o-lanterns, now made from native pumpkins, were customary. Then several companies, notably Dennison Manufacturing Company, began making paper products such as heavy cardboard die cuts; paper plates, cups, and napkins; crepe paper streamers, and the like. Decorations became much more sophisticated and commercial. Dennison published “Halloween Bogie” books from 1909 through 1934 that were basically catalogs but also included ideas, illustrations and instructions for decorations and parties.

Food suggestions included a sit-down supper with items like cream of celery soup, brown bread sandwiches and Waldorf salad, to a buffet including a variety of finger sandwiches (cucumber, salmon, jelly), stuffed celery, and orange sherbet. Gingerbread was popular in any form – cookies, cake with marshmallow frosting.

In addition to some of the old-fashioned games that were stand-bys, like bobbing for apples, fortune telling and other divination games were popular. Variations of a “mirror test” were mentioned often in articles of the day. One version called for a girl to sit before a mirror at midnight on Halloween, combing her hair and eating an apple, in order to see the face of her true love reflected in the glass.