Evidence status: WELL SUPPORTED — a modern custom assembled from older traditions
A child dressed as a vampire knocks on your door.
You open it.
They issue a threat.
Give me something nice or I may cause trouble.
Because it is Halloween, everyone agrees this is charming.
The Short Answer
Modern trick-or-treating developed in North America during the early twentieth century from several older customs involving masks, seasonal visiting, begging for food and playful mischief.
Irish and Scottish guising involved disguised visitors performing songs, jokes or recitations in exchange for food or money.
Christian souling involved people going door to door seeking food in exchange for prayers for the dead.
Other North American customs, including Halloween pranking and seasonal masking, probably contributed too.
The exact phrase “trick or treat” appears in Canadian newspaper evidence during the 1920s. The earliest widely accepted printed example of the exact wording comes from Alberta in 1927.
The practice then spread rapidly across North America.
What We Know
Going from house to house at seasonal festivals is much older than trick-or-treating.
In Britain and Ireland, several traditions involved ritualised begging.
Souling could involve poor people or children requesting food and promising prayers for the household's dead.
Guisers appeared in disguise and offered entertainment in return for gifts.
Christmas mummers, Guy Fawkes collectors and other seasonal visitors followed similar structures.
But folklorists warn against drawing one perfectly straight line from any single medieval practice to modern Halloween.
The Library of Congress notes that several European and North American customs may have contributed, including American Thanksgiving masking, which was common shortly before trick-or-treating emerged.
How It Became a Habit
Early twentieth-century Halloween in North America could be considerably rougher than the modern children's version.
Pranks were common.
Fences moved.
Windows were soaped.
Property could be damaged.
Communities increasingly looked for ways to turn Halloween mischief into something more manageable.
The emerging formula was brilliant:
children visit the house,
the householder provides a treat,
the trick does not happen.
It converted mischief into a transaction.
The Story Everyone Tells
The easiest explanation says:
Ancient Celts celebrated Samhain.
They dressed as spirits.
People gave them food.
Therefore trick-or-treating is an unchanged Celtic custom thousands of years old.
That collapses a very complicated history.
Samhain, later Christian festivals, souling, guising, immigration and North American Halloween culture all contributed different elements.
But the modern child saying the actual words “trick or treat” belongs firmly to the twentieth century.
What the Evidence Actually Says
Canadian newspaper evidence is especially important.
The City of Edmonton Archives identifies Blackie, Alberta, in 1927 as the location of the earliest currently known printed use of the exact phrase “trick or treat”.
The report described young Halloween visitors demanding edible rewards using those words.
Other Canadian newspaper references from the early 1920s already show the language developing, including “treat or trick”.
In the United States, an early printed example appears in Michigan in 1928.
The custom expanded during the 1930s, slowed during wartime sugar rationing, then surged after the Second World War.
New suburbs made door-to-door routes easy, and individually wrapped sweets made treats convenient to distribute.
So:
DOCUMENTED: Britain and Ireland had older door-to-door guising and souling traditions.
DOCUMENTED: Halloween mischief was widespread in North America.
DOCUMENTED: “Trick or treat” appears in Canadian print during the 1920s.
WELL SUPPORTED: Modern trick-or-treating developed by combining several older practices in a new North American setting.
FOLKLORE: It is too simple to describe the modern custom as an unchanged survival directly from ancient Samhain.
Different Elsewhere
Modern American trick-or-treating is not identical to older Scottish guising.
Traditionally, a guiser might be expected to earn the treat by performing:
a song,
a poem,
a joke,
or another party piece.
The American formula increasingly reduced that obligation to three words.
Costume.
Doorbell.
“Trick or treat.”
Payment please.
From a child's point of view, this was excellent progress.
Why It Stuck
Because it solved two problems at once.
Children wanted sweets and excitement.
Adults wanted less vandalism.
Trick-or-treating created an agreement both sides could live with.
The threat remained in the phrase.
The actual trick mostly disappeared.
What survived was the treat.
Related Curiosities
Why Do We Put Candles on Birthday Cakes?
Why Do We Hang Stockings at Christmas?
Why Do We Kiss Under Mistletoe?
Why Are Black Cats Considered Unlucky?
Sources & Further Reading
City of Edmonton Archives — “Halloween in Edmonton, 1900–1950: Trick or Treat!” — identifies the 1927 Alberta newspaper occurrence.
Smithsonian Magazine — “The History of Trick-or-Treating Goes Back Centuries” — overview of guising, souling and the twentieth-century spread of trick-or-treating.
Library of Congress, Folklife Today — ritual begging, masking and possible predecessors of trick-or-treating.
Library of Congress — “The Origins of Halloween Traditions”.
Last checked: 19 September 2026