Alright, welcome to the British History Podcast Halloween Special.

I won't lie to you, I love Halloween, and many of you will be going trick-or-treating,

visiting hot at houses, watching scary movies next week.

But have you ever wondered where it all comes from?

It's older than you might think.

And it's probably pretty obvious that I'm quite excited to tell you about it.

Now as you might imagine, since I'm doing an episode on it, Halloween has a lot of

British influence upon it.

In fact, the name itself comes from Scotland, where all Saints Eve, also known as All

Hollows Eve, was shortened in the 16th century to Halloween, and the name stuck.

But as you've probably gathered, originally the day was simply the day before All Saints

Day, also known as All Hallows or Hallumas.

And this might come as a shock to you, but All Saints Day was the day in which early

Christians commemorated all their saints.

And it still practice today.

But how did the day before All Saints Day become such a big holiday?

And what's with the costumes, candy, and jack-a-lanterns?

Well the origin of the holiday is widely associated with Sowing, which we have a record of existing

at least as early as the first century CE, and it almost certainly is much older than

that.

Sowing was an old Celtic holiday, marking the end of summer, and the beginning of winter.

The calendar was split into two seasons rather than four.

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