Short answer
The origin of trick-or-treating lies in older customs from Britain and Ireland: medieval “souling”, when people went door to door offering prayers for the dead in exchange for food, and Scottish “guising”, when children in disguise traded songs or jokes for treats. Immigrants carried these customs to North America, where “trick or treat” first appears in print in the 1920s.
Key takeaways
- Trick-or-treating combines several older customs: medieval “souling”, Scottish “guising” and Irish and Scottish Halloween pranks.
- Irish and Scottish immigrants brought Halloween customs to North America in the 19th century.
- The phrase “trick or treat” first appears in print in western Canada: words close to it in Saskatchewan in 1923, and the phrase itself in Alberta in 1927.
- Sugar rationing during the Second World War briefly halted the custom.
- It returned in the early 1950s, helped by candy companies, comic strips and cartoons.
For millions of children, Halloween means a costume, a bag and a walk around the neighborhood. It feels like a tradition with deep roots, and in a sense it is. But the version we know is surprisingly young, and the phrase that defines it was first printed barely a century ago.
Samhain and the dead
Halloween falls on the evening before All Saints’ Day, November 1. Long before Christianity, the Celtic festival of Samhain was held at the same time of year. Samhain, the Gaelic word for November, marked “summer’s end”, the division between the light and dark halves of the year, when the boundary between the living and the dead was believed to be at its thinnest.
How much modern Halloween owes directly to Samhain is debated, but the timing and the theme of the dead returning stuck.
Souling
In the Middle Ages, people went from house to house on All Souls’ Day offering prayers for the dead in exchange for food or money. The custom was known as souling. It established the basic structure of trick-or-treating: going door to door, asking, and receiving something in return.
Guising and pranks
In 19th-century Scotland, children went “guising”: dressed in disguise, they visited neighbors and performed a song, a poem or a joke in exchange for treats. The disguise is the ancestor of the Halloween costume.
There was also a mischievous side. Irish and Scottish children played Halloween pranks on their neighbors, from blowing cabbage smoke through keyholes to scaring passersby with carved turnips, the ancestors of the jack-o’-lantern.
Crossing the Atlantic
Irish and Scottish immigrants brought these customs to Canada and the United States in the mid-to-late 1800s. In North America, the turnip became a pumpkin: the first public report of a pumpkin jack-o’-lantern in Canada dates from 1886, in Kingston, Ontario, and the first recorded Halloween disguises in Canada from 1898, in Vancouver.
The phrase appears
The words come together in print in western Canada. In 1923, a Saskatchewan newspaper reported that “‘Treats’ not ‘tricks’ were the order of the evening.” In November 1927, the Lethbridge Herald in Alberta described young people going from house to house demanding “edible plunder” with the words “trick or treat”. This is usually cited as the first recorded use of the phrase in North America. A year later, a Michigan newspaper described children shouting “Tricks or treats!” for sweets.
The phrase made the bargain explicit: give us a treat, or we play a trick. In the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween pranks in North America could be destructive, and the treat was partly a way of buying peace.
Rationing, then candy
During the Second World War, sugar rationing in the United States put trick-or-treating on hold. It returned in the early 1950s, now with the help of popular culture. In 1951, Charles Schulz drew the Peanuts characters trick-or-treating, and in 1952 Disney released Trick or Treat, a Donald Duck cartoon in which his nephews go door to door. Candy companies saw an opportunity, and the custom settled into the form we know: costumes, wrapped sweets and very few tricks.
From medieval custom to candy bag
| Period | Custom | What was exchanged |
|---|---|---|
| Middle Ages | Souling | Prayers for the dead, for food or money |
| 19th century, Scotland | Guising | Songs, poems or jokes, for treats |
| 1920s, Canada and the US | “Trick or treat” | The threat of a prank, for food |
| From the 1950s | Modern trick-or-treating | A costume and a greeting, for candy |
What the story tells us
Trick-or-treating is a good example of how customs travel and change. Each stage kept the same shape, a visit to a neighbor’s door with something offered and something received, while the content changed completely: prayers became songs, songs became threats, and threats became a polite ritual. What survived was the visit itself.
Another custom whose origin story is better known than its real history is the blessing after a sneeze. See Why Do We Say “Bless You”?, or explore Customs & Traditions.
Frequently asked questions
Where did trick-or-treating originate?
It grew out of medieval souling, 19th-century Scottish guising and Halloween pranks, and took its modern form in North America in the 20th century.
When was the phrase trick or treat first used?
The phrase appears in the Lethbridge Herald in Alberta, Canada, in November 1927, usually cited as the first recorded use in North America. A Saskatchewan newspaper had paired the words “treats” and “tricks” in 1923.
What is guising?
A 19th-century Scottish custom in which children in disguise visited neighbors on Halloween and performed a song, poem or joke in exchange for treats.
Why did trick-or-treating stop during the Second World War?
Sugar rationing made candy scarce, so the custom was put on hold until the early 1950s.