The message that prompted Judy to write this thread is here. Thanks for copying all this information out Judy, until now I hadn't seen much solid stuff about, let's say, the "northern route" (via Ireland) of Halloween.

I still have some problems with it. Bonfire isn't a Celtic word at all, it's a Germanic one. The Celtic traditions we know today have been kept in Ireland and some Western land's ends. The people who repopulated Britain, bringing with them the words bone and fire came from the Eastern shores of the North Sea (Northern Germany, Denmark, Norway) from about 300 AD. Celtic archeological remains in the continent date at least than 500 years before that and remain much further south and west. And at the time, Ireland had already become Christian, and probably had abandoned human sacrifices, although they may have kept a form of trick or treating.

So we haven't got two feasts on the same day - we've got three! A Celtic one, A Latin one that became Christian, and a Germanic one. They may have had common origins that would have to be even older. But older than celts, that's old. The only common feature I know of going that far back is the Indo-European family of languages... Anyone heard of something like Halloween in northern India?

Now about Halloween at home. In France the Toussaint and jour des morts are important religious feasts, it's one of the few days, along with Christmas and Easter, when people that usually don't bother turn up in Church. The 2nd of November is when they go and tend graves, bringing flowers (chrysanthèmes, what do you call them?). In Spain, it's even more of an event. When I was in Manchester a couple of years ago, I organised religious activities among Spanish and Latin-American students. Their respect for those feasts was tied up to traditions that are very romanised and christianised (although they probably do predate Christian times). It's the Southern route of importing Halloween into America, and brought nice little candy skulls to Mexico, with help from local folk.

So it looks like two separate traditions developed from feasts that took place on the same day. They are still very distinct: you don't give little candy skulls to the Children that ask trick or treat, or do you?

With all that, the new tradition that has come out of the American pot and is coming back into Europe is not more Celtic than it is Christian or Germanic. It's neither of those really, but since Celtic is what any self-respecting folk tradition ought to be at the moment, it might as well be :-)

Charles