Halloween has never been a single fixed celebration. Its customs changed from place to place and from one generation to the next. Some traditions survived in altered forms. Others almost disappeared.
In Ireland, Scotland, England and elsewhere, autumn and Halloween customs could include disguises, visiting neighbours, games, divination and food. Later, traditions crossed the Atlantic, mixed with other influences and continued to change.
That means there was no one universal version of an "old-fashioned Halloween." A custom familiar in one region might have been unknown somewhere else.
Halloween history is full of modern claims that every custom comes directly from one ancient ritual. The real history is messier. Customs developed at different times and places, and similar traditions sometimes existed alongside one another.
Halloween Before the Plastic Pumpkin
Many things now associated with Halloween are comparatively modern. Mass-produced costumes, mountains of packaged sweets and plastic decorations belong to a much more recent version of the festival.
Earlier celebrations often relied on whatever people already had: food from the harvest, household objects, fires, homemade disguises and local traditions passed between families and communities.
Souling
One tradition often discussed alongside the history of trick-or-treating is souling.
In parts of Britain and Ireland, people went from house to house around the season of All Saints' and All Souls', receiving food such as soul cakes in customs connected with remembrance and prayers for the dead.
The details varied considerably by period and location. It would therefore be too simple to describe souling as merely an ancient version of modern trick-or-treating.
It does, however, belong to the long history of seasonal house-visiting traditions that existed before children began routinely knocking on doors for packaged sweets.
Guising
Another house-visiting custom was guising, particularly associated with Scotland and Ireland.
Participants disguised themselves and visited homes. Rather than simply expecting a treat for appearing at the door, children might perform a song, poem, joke or another small "turn" before receiving something in return.
Imagine the difference
Instead of saying "trick or treat", collecting a chocolate bar and leaving, you might first have been expected to sing a song to the person whose door you had just knocked on.
Elements of guising survived well into modern times, although modern trick-or-treating developed through a broader mixture of customs and influences.
Carving Turnips
Before the orange pumpkin became Halloween's most recognisable face, lanterns could be made from root vegetables such as turnips and swedes.
They were hollowed out, carved with faces and illuminated from inside. Their smaller size and uneven shape could produce faces considerably less cheerful than many modern pumpkin designs.
Pumpkins were much better suited to carving and were widely available in North America. As Halloween traditions developed there, the pumpkin eventually became dominant and later spread internationally as an icon of the holiday.
A carved turnip does not necessarily look like a miniature pumpkin. Its distorted shape, pale flesh and deeply cut face can make the older lantern surprisingly eerie.
Snap-Apple
Apples were involved in several traditional autumn games. Bobbing for apples remains familiar, but another game was snap-apple.
Versions involved suspending an apple from a string and attempting to bite it without using the hands. In some forms, a rotating wooden device carried an apple at one end and a candle at the other.
Players attempted to catch the apple with their teeth while avoiding the candle.
Probably best left in history
Combining blind lunging, faces, food and an open flame would struggle to make it through a modern risk assessment.
Apples and Fortune Telling
Not every Halloween game was intended simply for amusement. Some were forms of divination — playful or serious attempts to discover something about the future.
Romantic fortune telling was particularly common in descriptions of Halloween customs. Young people might use apples, mirrors, nuts or other objects in games supposedly revealing information about a future husband or wife.
Apple Peel
One game involved peeling an apple in a long continuous strip and throwing the peel over the shoulder. The shape it formed after landing was interpreted as the initial of a future partner.
Mirrors
Various traditions claimed that performing a particular ritual involving a mirror might reveal the face or image of a future spouse.
Stories about mirrors became particularly suited to Halloween: dim rooms, candles and the expectation that something might appear behind you already contain all the ingredients of a ghost story.
Burning Nuts
Nuts also appeared in Halloween fortune-telling games. In some versions, two nuts representing two people were placed near a fire.
How the nuts burned, cracked, jumped or remained together could then be interpreted as a prediction about the relationship.
Different accounts describe different rules, which is a good reminder that folk customs were not standardised games with an official instruction manual.
Bonfires
Fire has long featured in autumn celebrations in Britain and Ireland, although the meaning, date and context of particular fires differed.
Bonfires are associated with accounts of Samhain customs in Ireland, while Britain also developed major November fire traditions surrounding Guy Fawkes Night. Over time, neighbouring autumn customs could influence one another.
It is therefore worth being cautious when a modern account labels every historical autumn bonfire specifically as a "Halloween ritual".
Homemade Disguises
Halloween costumes were once far less likely to arrive in a branded plastic packet.
People improvised. Old clothes, sheets, masks, soot, hats and whatever else could create a disguise might be used.
By the twentieth century, commercial Halloween costumes became increasingly available, particularly in North America. The modern costume industry eventually transformed dressing up into one of Halloween's biggest traditions.
The British bin-bag era
Homemade Halloween costumes did not disappear overnight. For generations of British children, a black plastic bag, a witch hat and considerable parental optimism could still constitute an entire Halloween outfit.
Halloween Mischief
The "trick" in trick-or-treating was not always an empty threat. Halloween and the surrounding season developed reputations in some communities for pranks and mischief.
Gates might be moved, objects relocated and other practical jokes played. In some places, Halloween mischief became disruptive enough that organised parties and community events were promoted as alternatives.
The quieter modern ritual of ringing a doorbell and requesting sweets is considerably easier on garden furniture.
Food That Wasn't a Fun-Size Chocolate Bar
Modern Halloween is inseparable from confectionery, but earlier seasonal food traditions were much broader.
Apples, nuts, cakes and regional baked foods all appeared in autumn and Halloween customs. What somebody received while visiting houses depended on the period and location.
The enormous modern market for individually wrapped Halloween sweets belongs to the commercial development of the holiday, rather than representing an unchanged ancient tradition.
Why Did These Traditions Disappear?
Some did not disappear completely. They simply changed.
House visiting became modern trick-or-treating. Homemade disguises became commercial costumes. Root-vegetable lanterns gave way to pumpkins. Old games were replaced by parties, films, decorations and newer forms of entertainment.
Other customs faded because society changed around them. Fewer people depended on local seasonal traditions for entertainment. Communities became more mobile. Commercial products became easier to buy. Safety expectations changed. Television, film and later the internet spread particular versions of Halloween far beyond the places where they developed.
Halloween Has Always Changed
It can be tempting to imagine that there was once a single "real Halloween" that modern society replaced.
History suggests something more interesting.
Halloween has repeatedly absorbed, adapted and reinvented traditions. Religious observances, seasonal customs, folk beliefs, immigration, community celebrations and popular culture have all contributed to what people recognise as Halloween.
Today's glowing pumpkins and bags of sweets are another chapter in that history.
And perhaps somewhere, somebody is still trying to peel an apple in one enormous strip to discover who they are going to marry.