Celtic Society’s Fear of Spirits Became Halloween

More than 2,000 years ago, ancient Celts paid homage to spirits of the dead in a celebration they called Samhain. It was a somber pagan ritual that began their new year on the current date of November 1st. That celebration evolved into what we call Halloween.  

The Celts used the start of November to mark the end of harvest season and the beginning of winter. They believed the transition between the seasons provided an open door between the worlds of the living and the dead. That opening allowed fearful creatures among the dead access to the population. The Celts devised rituals that would protect them from evil spirits. Samhain, the night of the dead, was their yearly defense from an invasion of ghosts and evil spirits that wanted to steal harvested crops and personal property from the Celts.

The night before Samhain eventually became known as All Hallows’ Eve. That’s when the people would dress in costumes that were designed to be gruesome and frightful. By disguising themselves, the Celts hoped to fool the nighttime visitors from stealing from them. They left food, drink and sweet treats on their doorsteps the night before and through Samhain to help appease the evil spirits to not ruin their crops. That led to our tradition of giving candy to children who come to our doors on Halloween.  

Celtic societies populated the European areas we know as Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France from 300 B.C. until 600 A.D.  They lived in the midst of the Iron Age in Medieval Europe with an agrarian culture that depended on their skills in planting crops for existence. The fear of crop failures was what motivated the Celts to cater to their superstitions of ghosts invading their society.

The ritual of celebrating the dead became an important Christian celebration called All Saints Day.  In the 8th Century, Pope Gregory III made November 1st the official day of celebrating the lives of canonized saints in the Catholic Church. The Samhain celebration informally designated All Hallows Eve on October 31^st, giving people an excuse to party the night before a day of prayer.

Today we give candy and treats to children dressed in Halloween costumes. Without realizing it, we are celebrating a pagan tradition. Kids come to the door on Halloween and threaten a trick or treat. Through this ritual, the children represent visitors from the dead who demand a treat or they will inflict mischief against the homeowner.

According to the Nielsen Research Company, Americans buy 90 million pounds of chocolate candy yearly during Halloween week. That’s more chocolate than the amounts bought during the weeks of both Easter and Valentine’s Day. Hard candy purchases more than double the amount of chocolate bought for Halloween.

The amazing amount of candy bought in the United States to give away on October 31st is motivated from pagan superstitions of an extinct society from 2,000 years ago. When trick-or-treaters come to our doors asking for candy, we don’t consciously make the connection that the treats we give them are meant to appease them from inflicting terrible harm to us.  

Thanks for reading this blog. Come back to this space at the end of the month to enjoy reading another interesting subject. See my website at www.joevlatino.com.

Hot Air Propelled First Human Flyers

Two Frenchmen floated five and one half miles during the first free-floating trip into the air on November 21,1783. The world’s first aviators were lifted approximately 500 feet high while standing on a platform attached to a large bag or balloon filled with hot air.

Francois Pilatre de Rozier and Francois Laurent, called the two Francois, flew 25 minutes over farm fields near Paris, France. They landed safely in an abandoned vineyard without attracting any witnesses. Stories from the period say the airborne pioneers carried wine with them to share in a victory toast with any people who might have been near the historic flight. Undoubtedly, the first flyers celebrated by drinking the wine themselves.

The balloon used by the two Francois consisted of lightweight but highly flammable materials of paper and silk. The Montgolfier brothers, two French inventors who experimented with hot air balloons for many years, built it. The brothers often rode their own experimental balloons that sored hundreds of feet into the air while being held by ropes attached to the ground. The two Francois were the first people to take a flight in a balloon that was not attached to anything.     

Hot air rises; that’s what gives balloons the lift to go up. However, heating the air was a very dangerous part of early hot air ballooning. The Montgolfiers used wood fires as a heat source. They placed a stove on the balloon platform and kept the fire going with logs to provide the heat needed to keep the balloon going.

Many early ballooners had their floating vehicles burn and crash from onboard fires. Modern hot air ballooners use adjustable flames fed by propane tanks as their heat source. It’s many times safer than wood stoves, but fire remains a safety concern for people who like floating quietly into the air.  They can control the rise and decent of their air ships, somewhat anyway, by increasing and decreasing the amount of heat that is sent into the air bag. But the biggest disadvantage of flying hot air balloons is that they aren’t steerable. The big air bags are at the mercy of the wind, sometimes drifting helplessly into buildings, hills and power lines.  This inability to steer the balloons has prohibited them from any sort of military or industrial use.

The threat of fire destroying the crafts was greatly reduced soon after the Frenchmen pioneers made their historic flight. On December 1, 1783, just ten days after the two Francois accomplished their first flight, a gas-powered balloon flew around Paris for two and one half hours. That air ship used hydrogen and traveled 25 miles. That flight made the hot air type balloons obsolete, because no fire was needed to heat the air inside the large bag.

Hydrogen and later helium provided enough buoyancy to lift the huge bags without using any outside heat. Gas filled balloons became the major form of flying until 1903 when the Wright brothers flew the first successful airplane. The Wright’s invention of a powered, steerable airplane demonstrated the advantage of an engine-equipped plane that could be controlled.

Today, hot air ballooning is more popular than ever as a sport and recreational event. The sport is in a resurgence that started about 50 years ago and continues to attract a growing number of participants. Hundreds of hot air ballooners and spectators will meet this month in North Carolina at one of the country’s biggest floating bag events.

An upcoming event in my area, the annual Carolina Balloonfest is scheduled for October 16-18 in Statesville, NC. More than 50 hot air balloons are expected to participate in the three-day event. The public will be able to take rides on several types of balloons that will be decorated with bright colors. Organizers describe this celebration of hot air ballooning as the “Oldest Successful Human Carrying Flight Technology.” A directory of hot air balloon festivals across the nation can be found here. 

Thanks for reading about the early development of flying. Another interesting subject will be explored here later this month. Please see my website at  www.joevlatino.com.