V
Villan Of The North
Guest
As I just posted in the "annoyed" thread, nothing about Hallowe'en is American, all they have done is popularise it. In fact the only really modern creation is the dropping of the apostrophe in the contraction itself.
I guess it could be argued that the American tendency to dress in pretty much any fancy dress costume rather than something depicting the occult is their creation but that part seems to have not been adopted in Europe anyway with everyone dressing up as ghosts, vampires and other "horror" icons.
Most scholars agree that it is most definitely not an American tradition, quite the contrary with the celebration having its roots in the Celtic British Isles with many believing that it is in fact a Christian festival but others linking it to the pagan past. Also, the concept of dressing up, wearing masked and going door to door for treats is also Celtic/Northern European in its origin. All the Americans have done is embrace it and as a result it has regained/is regaining popularity in Northern Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
I guess it could be argued that the American tendency to dress in pretty much any fancy dress costume rather than something depicting the occult is their creation but that part seems to have not been adopted in Europe anyway with everyone dressing up as ghosts, vampires and other "horror" icons.
Most scholars agree that it is most definitely not an American tradition, quite the contrary with the celebration having its roots in the Celtic British Isles with many believing that it is in fact a Christian festival but others linking it to the pagan past. Also, the concept of dressing up, wearing masked and going door to door for treats is also Celtic/Northern European in its origin. All the Americans have done is embrace it and as a result it has regained/is regaining popularity in Northern Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
