（1）實(shí)用英語作文-萬圣節(jié)
Halloween
Halloween is an autumn holiday that Americans celebrate every year. It means "holy evening," and it comes every October 31, the evening before All Saints' Day. However, it is not really a church holiday, it is a holiday for children mainly.
Every autumn, when the vegetables are ready to eat, children pick large orange pumpkins. Then they cut faces in the pumpkins and put a burning candle inside. It looks as if there were a person looking out of the pumpkin! These lights are called jack-o'-lanterns, which means "Jack of the lantern".
The children also put on strange masks and frightening costumes every Halloween. Some children paint their faces to look like monsters. Then they carry boxes or bags from house to house. Every time they come to a new house, they say,"Trick or treat! Money or eat!" The grown-ups put treat-money or candy in their bags.
Not only children, but most grown-ups also love Halloween and Halloween parties because on this day,they can disguise themselves as personages or ghost as their imaginations will lead them. This bring them the satisfaction of being young.
萬圣節(jié)前夕
萬圣節(jié)前夕是美國人年年都會慶祝的秋季節(jié)日.它的意思是“神圣的夜晚”,在每年的10月31日,也就是萬圣節(jié)前夜.但實(shí)際上這不是一個(gè)真正的宗教節(jié)日,而主要是孩子們的節(jié)日.
每年秋天蔬菜成熟可以食用的時(shí)候,孩子們就會挑出大個(gè)兒的橙色南瓜.然后在南瓜上刻上一張臉,把一根點(diǎn)燃的蠟燭放在里面.看起來就好像有人在向南瓜外面張望.這些燈就叫做“iack-o'-lantems”,意思也就是“杰克的燈”.
每年萬圣節(jié)前夕孩子們還戴上奇怪的面具,穿上嚇人的服裝.有些孩子把臉?biāo)⒊晒治?然后他們拿著盒子或袋子挨家挨戶串門.每來到一個(gè)新房子他們就說：“不款待就搗亂!給錢還是吃的!”大人們就會把用來招待的錢或糖放在他們的袋子里了.
不僅孩子,許多成年人也喜歡萬圣節(jié)前夕和萬圣節(jié)前夕晚會.因?yàn)檫@一天他們可以根據(jù)自己的想象把自己裝扮成名流或幽靈.這會帶給他們年輕的快感.
（2） 英語—萬圣節(jié)
Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom originate? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?
The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.
One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.
Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.
Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.
Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.
The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.
The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.
The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outhouses and unhinging fence gates.
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made out of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could expedite a soul's passage to heaven.
The Jack-o-lantern custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.
According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.
The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.
So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.
（3）萬圣節(jié)
Next to Christmas, Halloween is the most commercialized celebration in the United States and Canada. This ancient festival originated far from North America however, and centuries before the first European set foot on the continent.
The ancient Druids who inhabited what we now call Great Britain placed great importance on the passing of one season to the next, holding "Fire Festivals" which were celebrated for three days (two days on either side of the day itself).
One of these festivals was called Samhain (pronounced Sha-Von) and it took place on October 31 through to November 1. During this period, it was believed that the boundaries between our world and the world of the dead were weakened, allowing spirits of the recently dead to cross over and possess the living.
In order to make themselves and their homes less inviting to these wayward spirits, the ancient Celts would douse all their fires. There was also a secondary purpose to this, after extinguishing all their fires, they would re-light them from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning at Usinach, in the Middle of Ireland.
Samhain was considered to be a gateway not only from the land of the dead to the land of the living, but also between Summer and Fall/Winter. For the Druids, this was the last gasp of summer (it was also the Celtic New Year), so therefore they made sure it went out with a bang before they had to button down for the winter ahead.
They would dress up in bizarre costumes and parade through their villages causing destruction in order to scare off any recently departed souls who might be prowling for bodies to inhabit, in addition to burning animals and other offerings to the Druidic deities. It is also a popular belief that they would burn people who they believed to be possessed, but this has largely been debunked as myth.
This yearly festival was adopted by the Roman invaders, who helped to propagate it throughout the rest of the world (and at that time, the Roman Empire was the world). The word "Halloween" itself actually comes from a contraction of All Hallows Eve, or All Saint's Day (November 1), which is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints.
This tradition was later brought to the North American continent by Irish immigrants who were escaping the Potato Famine in their homeland. In addition to the festival itself, the immigrants brought several customs with them, including one of the symbols most commonly associated with Halloween -- the Jack 'O Lantern.
According to Irish folklore, there once lived a man named Jack who was known for being a drunk and a prankster. One night Jack tricked the devil into climbing a tree, and quickly carved an image of a cross on the trunk, trapping the devil. Jack then made him promise that, in exchange for letting him out of the tree, the Devil would never tempt him to sin again. He reluctantly agreed, but was able to exact his revenge upon Jack's death. Because of his mischievous ways in life, Jack was barred from entering heaven and because of his earlier trick, he was also barred from hell. So he was doomed to wander the earth until the end of time, with only a single ember (carried in a hollowed out turnip. to warm him and light his way.
In Ireland, they originally also used turnips for their "Jack Lanterns", but upon arriving in the new world, they discovered that pumpkins were abundant and easier to carve out.
希望對你有點(diǎn)幫助!