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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. By the way, I can't remember swallowing wrong in the middle of the show before. Good thing Brooke was here. I don't have a partner with me every day, so thanks Brooke for covering for that moment and for everything you do. This week for the membership drive we've been doing a series of brief explainers at the end of the show. We'll round it out right now with the upcoming holiday in mind, an explainer on the history of Halloween.

Here to tell us more about why we dress up as strangers for candy - that is weird, isn't it? - and celebrate all things spooky is Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History, the classic, and Don't Know Much About Mythology, among other books. Thanks for joining us, Ken. Welcome back to WNYC.

Kenneth C. Davis: Hi, Brian. Always a pleasure. We can throw in bobbing for apples there as well because that's all-

Brian Lehrer: Indeed.

Kenneth C. Davis: -part of the picture.

Brian Lehrer: Don't know much about mythology. Is mythology where you cover Halloween?

Kenneth C. Davis: It is partly where I cover Halloween. Mythology is the source of so much of these traditions that became Christianized. Like other holidays on our calendar, when the Christian world started to replace the so-called pagan world they took a lot of those pagan ideals, traditions, and practices that were very popular and converted them into Christianity, and this is a perfect example.

The Druids, the Celtic people, the priests of the Celtic people, had a feast that they called Samhain. It's spelled S-A-M-H-A-I-N in most spellings, but it was a combination of Thanksgiving and New Year's in a sense because the harvest was being brought in. It was the end of one season and the beginning of a new year, and they would have a festival on this night that included a great bonfire to burn away the old year and bring in the new year.

This was the night when this happened, that the veils between the world of the living and the dead fell away on Samhain. As time went by this became Christianized. Now, what did people do on Samhain? Well, first of all, they sent the children around to each household to collect wood for the bonfire, and then they would put on animal masks and antlers to dress up. This would be to frighten away those spirits of the dear departed that were walking around and trampling through the garden. Finally, when the night was over they would bring home embers from the sacred bonfire in a carved-out turnip.

We're getting the picture. Sending the kids around to collect things house to house, putting on costumes, and carving out vegetables with fire inside all started 2,000 years ago at an Irish bonfire.

Brian Lehrer: How about that? Halloween, it's the only time of year that it's socially acceptable to knock on a stranger's door and ask for candy. How did that ever become normalized?

Kenneth C. Davis: This was something that actually happened during the medieval period because Christianity eventually took this Celtic day and turned it into All Souls' Day and All Saints' Day. In England, that was called All Hallows. The night before All Hallows was called All Hallows' Evening, eventually shortened to Halloween. During the medieval period, this tradition of dressing up had become Christianized already, and children went door to door asking for what they called soul cakes; a small baked cookie. You would give them that cookie. In an exchange, the children would say a prayer for your departed relatives.

The whole idea of trick or treat was that if you gave a treat to the children, the soul cake, you would get a prayer said for your departed relatives. All of this accumulated, of course, over centuries in medieval Europe. It did not make the transition to the United States until much later because the Puritans, who ran things in the United States for a long time in early America and then the Early Republic, didn't believe in such things. Halloween was not really an American tradition until the Irish and other European immigrants started to come in the 19th century in large numbers. That's when these traditions become much more accepted.

Brian Lehrer: Was there ever actually a trick involved rather than a treat?

Kenneth C. Davis: This is another historical piece of this, especially in the United States. All of the things that we associate with mischief on Halloween really date back more to the celebration of what was known as Guy Fawkes Day, the 5th of November. In places like Boston people went out and got quite violent, because there would be vandalism and pranks and bonfires against the Pope. That aspect of the violence of the period, and the pranks and the vandalism, kind of gets later attached to Halloween, and that's where the trick part comes from.

The real idea was that if you gave someone a soul cake, again from this medieval period, you were asking them to say a prayer. There was that hint that if you didn't do it you might expect the worst. Now, I mentioned bobbing for apples. That's another mythic aspect of this also adapted by the Irish. Pomona was the Roman goddess of plenty and abundance; her name is related to the word for apples. There was a practice that a young woman would bob for an apple and somebody would go along, and if you came up with the apple together you were going to be matched up. It was kind of like the first dating app.

Brian Lehrer: Why pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns?

Kenneth C. Davis: Well, when the Irish came to America and brought along this legend of lighting a candle or putting light inside a turnip, they came with the legend of Stingy Jack, who had been chased by the devil carrying his turnip with a light in it. When they came to America they found that the pumpkin made a much better vessel for the light than the turnip did, so that got transferred into this jack-o'-lantern from Stingy Jack. Again, an Irish character from folk tales that go back 2,000 years.

Brian Lehrer: I'm having trouble imagining turnip-based jack-o'-lanterns.

Kenneth C. Davis: Yes, it's a little hard to picture.

Brian Lehrer: [chuckles] We're glad the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade is back this year. I know somebody made a generous donation to help that get back on its feet. Last year many Halloween festivities were canceled, of course, because of the pandemic. Were there any historical parallels with the 1918 flu pandemic?

Kenneth C. Davis: Absolutely. First of all, Halloween was a lot different in 1918 than we envision it. It was much more, at that time, adult parties as opposed to children trick or treating. That really emerges much later, but in 1918 many city governments really called for a ban on any Halloween festivities. It wasn't an official ban. It certainly wasn't a national ban. It was really much more localized.

Baltimore, for instance, really said "Don't have any parties." It was largely ignored, people were doing it, but it was also the midst of the last weeks of World War I. There was still rationing in effect. People weren't really too celebratory. It certainly dampened the mood, but it was not this huge commercial holiday that it is in America today; one of the biggest retail holidays after Christmas on the calendar right now.

Brian Lehrer: There we have to leave it with Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About History and Don't Know Much About Mythology, among other books. Now we know a lot more about Halloween. Ken, thanks for closing it out, our Explainer series for the membership drive. Always great to have you on.

Kenneth C. Davis: Bring out your inner pagan.

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