Halloween Traditions

Trick or treat

The best-known Halloween custom has two clear ancestors. "Souling", recorded in Britain and Ireland from the medieval period, involved the poor going from house to house on All Souls' Day and receiving soul cakes in exchange for praying for the household's dead. "Guising", documented in Scotland from the nineteenth century, involved children in disguise performing a song, poem or joke and being rewarded with food, nuts or coins.

The performance element is worth reviving. In the Scottish original, children earned the treat rather than demanding it, and the modern German-language equivalent — a short rhyme at the door — works exactly the same way. It turns the exchange into something both sides enjoy.

How trick-or-treating works in practice

• Only knock at houses that are visibly decorated or lit. A dark house means no participation, and that should always be respected.
• Stay in the immediate neighbourhood and go in groups. Younger children should be accompanied by an adult who stays on the pavement.
• Keep to the early evening, roughly 17:00 to 19:00 for smaller children.
• Bring a short rhyme or a small performance. It is the original form of the custom and it is far better received.
• Say thank you and move on quickly. A queue of five groups is a lot for an elderly neighbour.

The jack o'lantern

The carved lantern is the visual centre of Halloween. Its legend concerns Stingy Jack, a man who tricked the devil and was consequently refused entry to both heaven and hell, condemned to wander with a single ember inside a hollowed turnip. The lantern in the window was originally a protective sign, and later simply a welcome.

Practically, the lantern also serves a very concrete function on the night: it tells children which houses are taking part. A lit pumpkin at the door is the clearest possible invitation, and an unlit one is a polite decline.

Costumes and disguise

Dressing up was originally about not being recognised. On a night when the ordinary order was suspended, a disguise offered both protection and licence. That logic has largely disappeared, and what remains is the pleasure of the transformation itself.

In Austria the tone tends to be moderate, especially for children. Classic figures — ghost, witch, skeleton, black cat, vampire — dominate, and homemade costumes are common and generally more admired than bought ones.

Games and divination

Apple bobbing is the most persistent of the old Halloween games. Its origins are in divination: the first person to catch an apple with their teeth was said to be the next to marry. Nut roasting, in which two nuts placed by the fire predicted the fate of a couple depending on whether they burned quietly or cracked apart, worked on the same principle.

Modern party games have lost the fortune-telling layer but kept the structure: simple, physical, communal and slightly ridiculous. Mummy wrapping with toilet paper, doughnut eating on a string and a memory game with hidden objects all work with mixed ages and require almost no equipment.

Food traditions

• Pumpkin soup: the natural centrepiece of the season and the best use for the flesh of a carving pumpkin.
• Roasted pumpkin seeds: washed, dried, salted and roasted for around fifteen minutes.
• Apples in every form: baked, in punch, as a caramel apple or simply as the material for a game.
• Barmbrack: an Irish fruit loaf containing hidden charms, each predicting a different fate for the person who finds it.
• Allerheiligenstriezel: the Austrian braided sweet bread traditionally given by godparents around 1 November.

Traditions specific to the Alpine region

Austria and southern Germany carved lanterns from turnips long before pumpkins arrived, in customs known regionally as Rübengeister or Rubebechtln. In parts of Styria and Carinthia, hollowed turnips with faces were carried by children in early November.

Other Alpine customs cluster around the same period: leaving bread and water out for the dead on the night before All Saints', the Seleln or Seelenbrot given to children, and the extensive grave decoration that still defines 1 November in Austrian villages and cities alike.