Where Did Halloween Come From?

The druids, the Celtic god of the dead, the Celtic New Year, the ancient turnip lantern, the poisoned candy: most of Halloween's famous origin story is younger than Halloween. Here's where each piece really comes from, from a thirsty corpse in a medieval Irish tale to an army engineer in 1786, a Canadian protection racket and the real danger on Halloween night. 0:00 Intro 1:39 The real Samhain 4:25 The god who never was 5:36 New Year on the Isle of Man 6:38 Working backwards 8:38 Fairies and fortunes 10:01 The turnip 11:44 Trick or treat 13:47 The candy man Images: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access (CC0), The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access (CC0; Winslow Homer, "Thanksgiving Day – The Dinner", 1858), NASA (public domain) and Wikimedia Commons (public domain: Alexander Nasmyth's Robert Burns; J. M. Wright and Edward Scriven's "Halloween"; J. M. W. Turner's "The Golden Bough", photo Didier Descouens · CC0: Hop-tu-naa turnip, Manx James). Turnip lantern at the Museum of Country Life: photo by rannṗáirtí anaiṫnid, CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0), via Wikimedia Commons, cropped. Narration, voices, music and sound effects made with ElevenLabs. #Halloween #history #Samhain #curiosity