Most Halloween festivities are based on folk beliefs concerning supernatural forces and spirits of the dead. Halloween decorations typically feature imagery associated with supernatural beings such as witches, werewolves, vampires, and ghosts.

Halloween, a time of magic, also became a day of divination, with a host of magical beliefs. Images thought to symbolize bad omens—such as black cats, bats, and spiders—are also commonly featured in Halloween decorations. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins and scarecrows, are also reflected in symbols of Halloween.

Particularly in America, symbolism is inspired by classic film, such as fictional figures like Dracula and Frankenstein's monster in the vein of Boris Karloff and Alfred Hitchcock. Homes are often decorated with these symbols around Halloween.

Black and orange are the traditional colors of Halloween. In modern Halloween images and products, purple, green, and red are also prominent.

The use of these colors is largely a result of advertising for the holiday that dates back for over a century. They tend to be associated with various parts of Halloween's imagery.

Color Symbolism

Black death, night, witches, black cats, bats, vampires Orange pumpkins, jack o' lanterns, Autumn Purple  night, the supernatural, mysticism Green goblins, monsters Red blood, evil

Apples

The idea behind ducking, dooking or bobbing for apples seems to have been that snatching a bite from the apple enables the person to grasp good fortune.

Ducking for apples was a marriage divination. The first person to bite an apple would be the first to marry in the coming year. Apple peeling was a divination to see how long your life would be. The longer the unbroken apple peel, the longer your life was destined to be. In Scotland, people would place stones in the ashes of the hearth before retiring for the night. Anyone whose stone had been disturbed during the night was said to be destined to die during the coming year.

Cats

In ancient religions, black cats were considered to be reincarnated beings with the ability to divine the future. During the Middle Ages it was believed that witches could turn themselves into black cats. Thus when such a cat was seen, it was considered to be a witch in disguise or a familiar, resulting in many black cats being thrown into fire. The throwing of cats into a bonfire used to be a folk custom in France, Switzerland and Belgium and was done on St. John's Eve in June. The custom was abolished by King Louis XIV in 1648, though it continued in the provinces until as late as 1796.

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