How Did Halloween Begin?

I get this from Little Steven's Underground Garage show, which I recorded off WXRT, 93.1 FM, which plays Mondays from 10 PM to midnight. This past Monday, he had a Halloween show.

Today is All-Saints Day in the Catholic Church. My wife Liz, who went to Catholic schools, remembers always getting the day after Halloween off. This is when all the saints who have not gotten their own day, are celebrated.

Tomorrow is All Souls Day where you pray for all souls who are in purgatory. Little Steven joked that this was when you'd pray for Sam Cooke, Arthur Alexander, James Brown, and Solomon Burke. Just kidding though. Also, that applies to anybody at the DMV, waiting for a passport, or waiting for the cable guy or the phone company.

Some dude in Europe in the 9th century some enterprising homeless dude got the idea of going souling from house to house on All Souls Day begging for soul cakes. Somehow, that got mixed up with a Celtic custom of dressing up in scary costumes to keep from getting possessed and it all got mixed together...and the results were the Ramones. Still just kidding. He then segued into the Ramones' "Cretin Bop", the legendary cretins themselves, the Ramones, a group very comfortable with Halloween.

I would imagine it also somehow got moved up to October 31st or perhaps that was the date of the Celtic thing.

That Little Steven is one funny guy.

Now, that is just Too Scary. --RoadDog