Well it is getting close, and I figured I would post some tidbits in the coming days about this event. Here is the first part.

Halloween originated in Ireland. It comes from the Gaelic words Oiche Shamhna or better known as Samhain Night. The Celts celebrated Samhain as the end Summer. It was an agricultural festival. They believed that this was the time when the dead revisited this world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to ward off evil spirits.

It was taken over by Christianity in the middle of the sixth century. Pope Gregory IV standardized the date on November 1 as All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day. Since Samhain falls on the night before All Hallows, it eventually became known as All Hallows' Eve. Eventually it was shorten to Hallowe'en and then to just Halloween.

In close to present present Day Ireland, adults and children often dress up as creatures from the underworld. They still have bonfires, and have fireworks displays. Children go door to door collection fruit, nuts and sweets for the festival the next day. Salt used to be sprinkled in the hair of children to protect against evil. They also have a traditional Halloween cake called the barnbrack. They put a coin, rag and ring in it. The rag meant your financial future is doubtful, the coin would mean a prosperous year, and a ring would signal romance or happiness.

Interestingly enough, the barmbrack cake is really something exactly like Irish soda bread (the kind with raisins in it). So that's still around. Also, there were some variations on the objects in the cake. A pea, a bean, a little piece of cloth (symbolizing a rag), a stick and a ring. If you got the rag, you were destined to be poor; the pea meant you'd be an old maid; the bean a batchelor; the stick a wife-beater and the ring meant you would be wed within the year. Must have been a bit confusing for children LOL.

Yikes! You'd think they'd put some good things in there. "Oh look, little Johnny (or insert appropriate Irish boy's name). You are going to be a wife-beater! Now eat your cake."

Ive always associated Celts with paganism or should i say earth bound religions. Is that wrong? Did they celebrate the earth like pagans or am i all wrong here? I haven't looked it up.

You are not wrong ...Halloween started out as a pagan harvest festival. Hence the time of the year.

Yeah the festival is called Samhain (pronounced Sow-in) and is Pagan New Year =] ~a lot of my friends are Pagan~