Halloween

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dead souls, performing antics in exchange
for food and drink. This practice became known as "mumming". So to this
day, witches, ghosts and skeleton figures of the dead are among the
favorite costumes for Halloween.

The practice of carving pumpkins probably comes from Irish folklore.
A man named Jack, a notorious drunkard and trickster, had a trick gone awry
with the devil. So when he died he was denied access to Hell because he
had tricked the devil. Instead the devil gave him a single ember inside a
hollowed-out turnip to light his way through the cold darkness. Originally,
the Irish people used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns". But when the
immigrants came to America and actually brought the traditions of Halloween
to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips.
So the jack-o-lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with a
candle.

Deals with the devil, harvest holidays, and dead souls have little
relationship to today's Halloween ...

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