You've got to dig an awfully long way down before you find anything non-Christian, though - and those veils seem to be much more recent than you'd think.

This isn't the same as dealing with the specific Fakeloric assumptions that lie behind (say) Green Men & Ring-A-Roses, because the truly feral nature of Halloween is born of a far darker impulse, the nature of which will always be as much a bane to Folklorists as it is a topic of total bewitchment, almost literally.

How that interacts with 'popular culture' is difficult to say - but go into the Seasonal Aisle at ASDA, look at the decals & DVDs on offer; all indicate a deep cultural & psychological fascination that is no mere fabrication. On the contrary, the fascination engenders the commercialism which many Ethnographers see in Folkloric terms anyway, and quite rightly so. The immediacy is but a measure of the ancientness of it all.

The mechanism by which such pagan / pre-Christian / Celtic belief persists into modern times isn't for me to say, just point out, as many do, that it does - even Prof. Hutton will tell you as much. Maybe it is a deep reaction to seasonal reality and the effect that has on our lives; somewhat less so these days, of course, but the psychology of Darkness and the Onset of Winter is pretty profound & a good deal more fundamental than the odd case of SAD. Even I might reach for my sunlamp & Martin Denny LPs once December kicks in; talk about ritual inversion...

The generality of this belief is revealed by the indicators found in folklore. Of course if you asked any of the kids who come banging on your door tonight what the historic & folkloric significance of their guising might be, chances are they'll just give you blank looks (though no doubt in Chorlton the kids are more in tune with the academic side o' life and tell you about Celts & Samhain) - BUT this isn't to diminish the implication of a core source which is born out time & time again in the writings of a myriad of folklorists this past 150 years or so.

1885 is close year zero for Folklore; before that few took any notice of these rude, crude customs and they might be survivals of. The Golden Bough was first published in 1890. The study of Folklore is modern, but the underlying practices exist almost in defiance of time. Our days of the month are named after Pagan gods, likewise our months; so these things endure as more than mere superstition, they're an integral part of our cultural make-up, after which it's all down to the individual, as far as such a creature might be said to exist at all...