Similarly, “the practice of trick-or-treating originates in the Celtic custom of giving token bits of the harvest to spirits wandering outside of houses on the evening of Samhain, to placate them and prevent them from doing destructive things to the harvest or to homes,” Suppe says. READ MORE: How Jack O'Lanterns Originated in Irish Myth Later, in Ireland and Scotland, people developed the custom of using similarly-carved vegetable lanterns to scare off the mythical character of Stingy Jack, who wandered the Earth because the devil wouldn’t let him into hell. “The early medieval Christian church believed in saints-Christians who were remarkable for their devout religious beliefs and lives.” But saints also had a supernatural side, such as their involvement in miraculous occurrences. “The ancient Celts believed that all sorts of threatening spirits were out and about on Samhain,” Suppe says. In that fashion, Samhain, the Celts’ dark supernatural festival, eventually was converted and given a Christian context. For example, “the site of a pagan temple could be converted to become a Christian church,” Suppe says. 590 to 604, advised a missionary going to England that instead of trying to do away with the religious customs of non-Christian peoples, they simply should convert them to a Christian religious purpose. Gregory the Great, who headed the Church from A.D. The importance of pre-Christian customs to people’s lives apparently wasn’t lost upon the early Catholic Church.
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