I just wanted to chime in and say that Ransom's info is correct. Much of what we attribute to Halloween are actually very contemporary secular traditions. There is hardly anything that's original to the 3000 year old Sawhain culture.
BTW - Interesting that witchcraft is associated with Halloween, since witches as we stereotype them didn't even come into being until several hundred years after Christ. Bats are associated with Halloween because they were seen swooping around bonfires, eating the insects that were attracted to the firelight. Even the word Halloween didn't arise until long after the Church instituted All saints day on Nov 1.
Further, the ancient Celtics didn't weren't even a religion. They were a cultural group of regional peoples. They didn't worship a god. They payed homage to the forces of nature, such as the sun, the seasons, the harvest, etc etc etc. It was the church in the middle of the first millenium that had decided they were demonic, in an attempt to assilimate their culture.
BTW - Interesting that witchcraft is associated with Halloween, since witches as we stereotype them didn't even come into being until several hundred years after Christ. Bats are associated with Halloween because they were seen swooping around bonfires, eating the insects that were attracted to the firelight. Even the word Halloween didn't arise until long after the Church instituted All saints day on Nov 1.
Further, the ancient Celtics didn't weren't even a religion. They were a cultural group of regional peoples. They didn't worship a god. They payed homage to the forces of nature, such as the sun, the seasons, the harvest, etc etc etc. It was the church in the middle of the first millenium that had decided they were demonic, in an attempt to assilimate their culture.