Halloween the Swedish way
Pumpkins flicker and sweets-craving children roam the streets. It’s Halloween!
Halloween is a relatively new custom in Sweden. It has only been celebrated in Sweden since the late 1980s, and has rapidly become established in the country.
By the beginning of November, Sweden is enveloped in darkness and the long working weeks stretch away endlessly. Halloween heralds the schools’ autumn break and represents a welcome diversion in the gathering dark.
In fact, there are no public holidays or extended weekends in the calendar between the summer holiday and All Saints' Day, which falls just after Halloween.
Dress parties and pumpkins
The occasion is mainly celebrated by children and teenagers. They go to fancy-dress/costume parties and ghost parties, light lanterns and venture forth into the streets to scare the life out of the neighbourhood. Many pubs and restaurants stage Halloween parties and decorate their premises with fearsome attributes. Halloween has come to stay.
On the island of Öland in the southern Baltic Sea, the arrival of Halloween has led to an upswing in pumpkin growing, and the giant fruits are now quite readily available.
Trick or treat? Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
It's all about the sweets. Photo: Lieselotte van der Meijs/imagebank.sweden.se
This is the one night of the year, when zombies might fail to scare people. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Trick or treat? Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
It's all about the sweets. Photo: Lieselotte van der Meijs/imagebank.sweden.se
This is the one night of the year, when zombies might fail to scare people. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Trick or treat? Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
It's all about the sweets. Photo: Lieselotte van der Meijs/imagebank.sweden.se
This is the one night of the year, when zombies might fail to scare people. Photo: Sofia Sabel/imagebank.sweden.se
Halloween in Sweden – the origins
With the rise of Christianity, the heathen Samhain came to be called Hallowmas, or All Saints’ Day, to commemorate the souls of the dead who had been canonised that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween, All Hallows Eve. Today, though, Swedish All Saints' Day always falls on a Saturday, which means that it only occasionally comes straight after Halloween.
Samhain was a Celtic harvest festival marking the end of summer and the beginning of winter labours. That night was regarded as a magical time of transition, when the dead called on the living and various supernatural creatures were afoot. People lit fires, dressed up and went round begging from door to door (trick or treat). They carved faces in turnips and lit them inside with candles. These glowing vegetables were supposed to represent the wandering soul of Jack the Blacksmith and were called Jack O’Lanterns.
Halloween was imported into the US by Irish immigrants in the 1840s and became a popular festivity there. The pumpkin replaced the turnip and the occasion was celebrated with trick or treat and special parades.
According to Sweden’s largest museum of cultural history in the Nordic region, Nordiska museet, the first Halloween celebrations in Sweden took place in the 1950s, courtesy of some American exchange students who brought this tradition with them.
It took until the late 1980s and 1990s, before Halloween became established in Sweden. Here, it is mainly celebrated in macabre fashion by children and young people.
