Tuesday 阅读理解 A

Today, the Halloween celebrations have clearly become westernized as well as commercialized, particularly in the USA where it is now the holiday that makes the most money after Christmas. As well as dressing up, these days, we are used to ghost houses, pumpkins, scary face paint and trick-or-treating.

However, the Halloween we know today actually dates back to as long as 2,000 years ago from a festival called Samhain. This was celebrated on 1st November by the Celts who lived in Britain and northern France. The evening before, it was believed that the dead would return, and as a result people would wear things to look like ghosts to trick the real ghosts into thinking they were not alive. In the 8th century, this festival became known as All Saints' Day, or All Hallows' Day, and the night before called All Hallows' Eve, which is where the current name Halloween comes from.

Trick-or-treating comes from several traditions in medieval Britain on the festival All Souls' Day that were taken to America by British immigrants in the 19th century. These traditions included poor people begging for food known as soul cakes, in return for agreeing to pray for the dead; or young people dressing up and offering entertainment such as singing in order to receive gifts of money, food or drink. Other rituals （ 仪式 ） included superstitious （ 迷信的 ） games that related to women finding themselves husbands, these games often involving food.

So nowadays, although my Halloween experience will also involve food （of course via my costume）, our celebrations have clearly come a long way from the traditions of 2,000 years ago. Nevertheless, we can recognize many similarities that explain some of the strange aspects of Halloween, and of course the history helps to remind us what Halloween is really about.