万圣节的由来英文版

[英文专业大学生职业规划]第一章：自我认知自我认知是对自己进行全方位，多角度的分析 1.个人基本情况我是一个别开朗又不内向的人，与人交往融洽，细心有条理。不喜欢竞争和冒险，喜欢自由自在的生活，喜欢按自...+阅读

万圣节是西方国家的传统节日。这一夜被称为一年中最闹鬼的一夜，因此也叫鬼节。用英文怎么介绍万圣节的由来呢?以下关于万圣节的由来英文版的相关资料供大家参考。Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?The word itself, Halloween, actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It es from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, All Hollows Day (or All Saints Day), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would e back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a mon source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to he already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.The thrust of the practices also changed over time to bee more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840 s by Irish immigrants fleeing their country s potato famine. At that time, the forite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to he originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for soul cakes, made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul s passage to heen.The Jack-o-lantern custom probably es from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree s trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heen because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil ge him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.The Irish used turnips as their Jack s lanterns originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.So, although some cults may he adopted Halloween as their forite holiday, the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches he Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.