If you have ever wondered about the history of Halloween this book is amazing. It explains in detail how the ancient Celtic beliefs merged and evolved into our modern-day Halloween via the ancient Romans and later the Roman-Catholic church.

“How many times the Church has decanted the new wine of Christianity into the old bottles of heathendom.”

The ancient Celtic new year of Samhain (“summer’s end “) was intertwined with the Roman worship of Pomona when the two cultures started trading in 270 B.C. After Rome became a Christian nation and stamped-out the Druids in 61 A.D a centuries-long substitution of the ancient Celtic and Roman beliefs with Christianity was attempted but never fully succeeded. In time the autumn festival of the Druids became the vigil of All Hallows or All Saints’ Day, but retained much of the ancient pagan rituals.

The Book of Hallowe’en by Ruth E Kelly (1919)
Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/bookofhalloween00kell/mode/1up