Children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door for treats is a relatively modern tradition—but its origins can be traced to the Celts and even a long-lost Christmas tradition.
Halloween looked a little different in 2020: Rather than traditional trick-or-treating, kids received bags of candy that people sent down chutes to their doorsteps, or stayed home to decorate pumpkins and participate in online costume contests. But this October 31, Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical advisor, has said trick-or-treating should be safe.
While trick-or-treating has been a tried and true modern Halloween tradition, historians say the origins of kids begging their neighbors for food may date back to ancient Celtic celebrations or even a long-lost Christmas custom. And the phrase itself dates back to the 1920s, when Halloween pranks once set entire cities on edge. Here’s how trick-or-treating evolved.
The origin of Halloween
Halloween is thought to date back more than 2,000 years to Samhain, a Celtic New Year’s Day that fell on November 1. Demons, fairies, and spirits of the dead were thought to walk the Earth the night before when the separation was thin between the worlds of the living and the dead.
The Celts lit bonfires and set out gifts of food, hoping to win the favor of the spirits of those who had died in the past year. They also disguised themselves so the spirits of the dead wouldn’t recognize them.
Samhain later transformed in the seventh century into All Saints’ Day or All Hallows’ Day as Christian leaders co-opted pagan holidays. But the night before continued to be observed with bonfires, costumes, and parades under the new name All Hallows’ Eve—later “Halloween.”
European immigrants then brought Halloween to the United States, and the celebration became popular in the 1800s, when Irish American immigration exploded. Their folk customs and beliefs merged with existing agricultural traditions, meaning Halloween dabbled in the occult, but stayed grounded in the fall harvest. Over the years, the holiday became a time for children to dress up as the ghosts their ancestors once feared.
How trick-or-treating became a tradition
But how did those Celtic traditions evolve into one of children trick-or-treating in costumes for fun and candy—not for safety from spirits?
According to the fifth edition of Holiday Symbols and Customs, in as early as the 16th century, it was customary in England for those who were poor to go begging on All Souls’ Day, and children eventually took over the custom. At the time, it was popular to give children cakes with crosses on top called “soul cakes” in exchange for prayers on your behalf.
Lisa Morton, author of Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, traced one of the earliest mentions of typical Halloween celebrations to a letter from Queen Victoria about spending Halloween around a bonfire in Scotland in 1869.
“Having made the circuit of the Castle,” the letter said, “the remainder of the torches were thrown in a pile at the south-west corner, thus forming a large bonfire, which was speedily augmented with other combustibles until it formed a burning mass of huge proportions, round which dancing was spiritedly carried on.”
Morton writes that people in the American middle class often were anxious to imitate their British cousins, which would explain a short story printed in 1870 that painted Halloween as an English holiday celebrated by children with fortune-telling and games to win treats.
However, Morton writes that it’s possible that trick-or-treating may be a more recent tradition that, surprisingly, may have been inspired by Christmas.