The History of Halloween

This video discusses the long history of Halloween. From the Celtic practice of Samhain, to medieval Catholic observance of All Saint's Day, to Victorian Gothic, and finally the modern practice of trick-or-treat.

Further reading:

My books (affiliate links):

#halloween #samhain

[ericday]

It's great seeing Ryan back and posting videos, great scholar, and historian.

[clayashford]

I love thinking about the Robert Burns 1786 poem “Halloween” when thinking about the history of Halloween. The poem is a series a vignettes about young people telling stories, sneaking around, playing pranks, getting into trouble, and scaring themselves. It’s really interesting how similar 18th century rural Scottish Halloween was to our modern ideas of the holiday. Obviously many thing have changed since then, I don’t think the poem mentions any costumes, but it’s clear that the core idea of the holiday is already there. Ghost stories, food, and young people being let loose seem to be a Halloween staple going back centuries, at least in some parts of the world.

[seniorsurveyor]

Thank you Dr. Reeves. Concise and very informative. I do not "do" Halloween, but as a pastor in a local church I get lot's of questions about its origin every year. This one goes goes into my "Hallloween Folder"! Bless you my friend.

[toddbonin]

Ryan, it's great to have you back! You were one of the content producers that got me into YouTube, and I still go back and relisten to your old content, but having new content to look forward to is like "Christmas" every day.

[jeremyyap]

Welcome back sir! I'm one of the lucky folks who got to binge all of your church history lectures during the lockdowns and am very glad to see more new videos from you. Just wanted to thank you for all you do, I have learned so much from you!

[giuseppelogiurato]

This is one of those channels that went dead but I saved my subscription anyway, thinking I might want to rewatch it all in the future... I'm glad I saved it, because I would've forgotten about it otherwise. The new videos are different, but I am enjoying them so far.

Thank you Dr. Reeves; you make informative and entertaining videos. You are protestant, but you are fair, and you never try to make the Roman Church (nor the Orthodox/Oriental Churches) look foolish in order to bolster the protestant sect with which you identify...

I consider this channel to be a good companion to the channel "Gospel Simplicity", also run by a protestant man who is not a crazy person.

[br]

So glad your back, definitely one of the most underated channels on youtube 😀

[ffvvaacc]

So glad you are back with these lectures. I love them.

[calebdesjardins]

Found your channel a few months ago when I was leaving a oneness Pentecostal church and your history on the early church helped me a ton to leave the modalist heresy, thank you!

[ameribeaner]

Let's get him started on Valentine's Day, that sounds like a great video.

[barryallenflash]

I've watched a LOT of videos on the "history of Halloween" and I must say, THIS is one of my favorites. It's more in depth, without all the fluff. Straight to the point AND at the same time giving us the history that other narrators don't! I'm sooo glad that YOU are narrating your channel and NOT some AI, because of THAT, you got a NEW SUBSCRIBER!!! YAY!!!

[ronniemartin]

I'm so grateful for your videos and I'm glad you are making them again.

[cindymonk]

Don’t go away again. The new content is great!

[stevenwiederholt]

I am a Unlicensed Non-Certified historian (that sounds classier than a history nut). One thing I have learned is history is A LOT more complicated than a lot of people Get. This s a Classic example.

[jeti]

Years ago, i learned from The Simpsons that Halloween is “a yearly custom” that eventually became “an annual tradition.” I think that is quite insightful.

[nozrep]

looks like from the comments this is first video in a while. Let me join in and say Yes! I am very happy to see him post a new video also! I learned so much from watching some of his videos on LoTR and also real life church history topics from a few years back! And now this video came up “randomly” on my feed and I thought, ohhhh yay! I have not watched this guy in a while. So yes! I am very glad, I very much enjoy his calm, measured, succinct, and yet, captivating speaking and presentation style! Bravo!

[JBJones]

This is fantastic history that is presented in a fun and easy to understand way. Love it. I feel like I’ve been searching for this specific video for years and finally found it.

[RobsMemoryLane]

Thank you for making this video. I watched this with my entire family including my 73 year old mother, 58 year old aunt, and my 4 year old. We really enjoyed it

[nicholasstephens]

Another well balanced and well done video sir! Thank you from a Catholic fan of your channel.

[HonestTries]

So thrilled you're back! Definitely my favorite YouTube history Channel! God bless!