Celtic Moment

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Samhain ( Halloween) is upon us, the Celtic New year when the dark days will enter. A time for inner contemplation. Here is a wee video explaining the origins and also to give a better understanding of Celtic knots and traditions by Joe Keane, storyteller of Celtic Revival in Medford ma. www.celticrevival.com

Samhain ( Halloween) is upon us, the Celtic New year when the dark days will enter. A time for inner contemplation. Here is a wee video explaining the origins and also to give a better understanding of Celtic knots and traditions by Joe Keane, storyteller of Celtic Revival in Medford ma. www.celticrevival.com

Samhain sunrise on the quartz standing stone in the cairn that happens at Samhain and Imbolc. This series of pics was taken November 6th 2005 at Cairn L on Carnbane West among the sites of Loughcrew. Music is Claire Roche singing Journey On Three Rock Mountain, which overlooks Dublin. Piano and echoed backing track is from a cassette recorded when Claire was 15, lyrics totally improvised from thoughts, and new top vocal added last year, 42 years later

The ancienct festival of Samhain draws near and I come with offerings of Fun, Properity and *for you who are not interested in Celtic history aka greedy Trick ‘O Treaters* yes – CANDY FOR ALL WHO SHOW UP OPON MY DOORSTEP ON OCTOBER 31ST! My street is usually quiet so, great chance for literally buckets full… you’ll have to find me first, HAHA! *tis impossible* Just wanted to do a tribute while I was thinking about it and had the time, song reminds me of Ireland a bit for some odd reason. SONG: “The Last Of The Wilds” by Nightwish

Celebrated at the beginning of November, the Celtic Festival of Samhain marked the coming of the winter months, with their dimming light and heightening darkness. The root of the word “Samhain” comes from “samhradh”, meaning “summer” in Irish Gaelic. While the exact etymology has not been confirmed by scholars, in Celtic tradition, “Samhain” corresponds to “end of summer” (a combination of samh “summer” and fuin “ending, concealment”).  Samhain and Beltanne (May Day) stood in opposition as the beginning of the season of winter and summer, respectively, but Samhain was a much more prominent festival and may have marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year as Frazer has pointed out.

Samhain was, consequently, a festival of deepening darkness and budding light. It was a meeting place between two opposites – the winter and the summer, the dark and the light, death and life. As such, the festival contained both aspects of existence – although the darkness, increasing at this time, was more profuse and substantial.

In its ‘dark’ aspect, Samhain marked a period of destruction and chaos. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this was the ritual killing of the Irish kings of Tara. According to Dalton’s evidence and interpretation, the kings that had behaved unsuitably or unpiously in office would be killed on the day of Samhain. Ritual killing was also effected against animals: Samhain was the season when the cattle that would not be kept through the winter were slaughtered.

On Samhain, the forces of darkness or chaos returned to rule. According to Irish mythology, 1st of November marked the day that the demonic Fomorian race oppressed the people of Nemed. According to another legend, the divine Aillen the Burner puts everyone to sleep at Samhain and burns the palace of the Irish kings at Tara. During the festival, bands of men, women and children dressed in masks and costumes embodied the havoc-causing divinities and inflicted their own terror and chaos on the neighbourhood. As Dalton points out, the tyrannical Irish king Conn Cetcathach was killed by fifty warriors dressed as women. The habit of cross-dressing was popular in various parts of the Celtic world as expressions of the breakdown of rules on Samhain.

Samhain was also a time when the dead came back to roam the earth. This happened because the normal order no longer applied, and hence the boundaries of the otherworld were broken. Freed from the rules that clearly separate one world from the next, the dead returned to visit the living. They were welcomed at ritual feasts where, as Kondratiev has noted, they were “actually” present. It was this custom of honoring the dead that made the Catholic Church adopt the date of 1st and 2nd of November as the Day of the Saints and Day of the Departed.

If Samhain was a dreaded time when rules were broken and demons roamed the earth, it was also a time when light was re-born. Samhain, as Frazer has observed, was not a festival of the sun: the sun is in retreat in autumn. Instead, Samhain marked the birth of a mystical light – a light that may originate in the first ray of sun at dawn or the first lunar ray after the new moon. In Ireland, a bonfire was started on the royal hill of Tara accompanying, perhaps, the coronation of a new king after the killing of the old one. The custom of lighting fires on Samhain was also pervasive in Scotland and Wales. In line with this new light, Samhain was also a time when the forces of good eventually prevailed: the demon Fomorians were destroyed, Aillen the Burner was slain. Divination was also pervasive as a practical translation of the ‘light in the darkness’ motif: the diviner would try to shed a dim light into the dark future.

This combination of darkness and light, fear and hope, order and chaos gave Samhain its particular coloring of a merry time of misbehaving. It was a festival where rules were briefly abolished and tension – whether communal, social, political or even psychological – could be released. It was also a time when new order was born – hence the competitions and games of worth that were practiced during this period. Figures of power were abolished and others replaced them; rules were destroyed and recreated.

It is perhaps of interest to see what has remained of this festival time in today’s Halloween customs.

The symbolic kindling of fires in the lit pumpkin;
Games of worth in the popular ‘bobbing for apples’ – a water ordeal.
The havoc wreaked by deities and the dead in modern movies like Halloween, Scream, Dracula and vampire stories, American Werewolf in London and other horror classics;
The identification of the living with deities and the dead in Halloween trick-or-treating and costume-wearing
The sacral fear surrounding the Samhain celebration survives in urban legends of ‘razors hidden in apples’ to harm children.
The tradition of Samhain feasts in Halloween parties, trick-or-treating and Halloween candy;
Mischief survives in the mild “tricks” played on those that do not propitiate the costumed revelers
Abolition of traditional hierarchy is still present in the ascendance of children over adults during the Halloween season.

Perhaps more investigations should be carried out in this aspect, yet what is certain is that Samhain has evolved into Halloween in subtle, but yet powerful ways, maintaining in the process its fundamental character of an out-of-the-ordinary time when rules become more relaxed and identities more fluid behind the mask. It is unfortunate that its spiritual core has taken second place to ‘ordered chaos’, yet the enduring power of the Samhain is witnessed by its innovative ways to survive and adapt in the modern world.

Kondratiev, A. (1997). Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal. Online. Accessed 29 October 2008.
Frazer, J.G. (1922). The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. London : Macmillan
Dalton, G.F. (1970). The Ritual Killing of the Irish Kings. Folklore 81(1), pp.1-22
Kondratiev, A. (1997). Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal. Online.  Accessed 29 October 2008.
Walsh, M.J. (1947). Notes on Fire-Lighting Ceremonies I. Folklore 58(2), pp. 277-284.
Wikipedia. (2008). Samhain. Online. Accessed 30 October 2008
Dalton, G.F. (1970). The Ritual Killing of the Irish Kings. Folklore 81(1), pp.1-22.
Kondratiev, A. (1997). Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal. Online.  Accessed 29 October 2008.
Frazer, J.G. (1922). The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion. London : Macmillan.
Kondratiev, A. (1997). Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal. Online.  Accessed 29 October 2008.
Best, J. & Horiuchi, G.T. The Razor Blade in the Apple: The Social Construction of Urban Legends. Social Problems, 32(5), pp. 488-499.
Dell Clark, C. (2005). Tricks of Festival: Children, Enculturation and American Halloween. Ethos 33(2), pp.180-205.

Samhain, pronounced sow-wen, is a Celtic word meaning “summer’s end.” It is also the Irish Gaelic word for the month of November. Samhain is the last of three harvest festivals in the Celtic year, and it is the Celtic New Year. The Celts only recognized two seasons: summer, and winter. So, with the last harvest, the summer ends, and the cold, dark, dangerous days of winter begin. Any food that was not brought in from the fields by the end of the day on October 31, Samhain, was left in the fields and not eaten. It was considered to belong to the fairy folk at that point, and would make anyone sick who tried to eat it.

The food in the storerooms by this time was all the food you were going to get between this first day of winter and the coming spring. It had to last through the cold, dark winter months. Starvation was always a possibility. Livestock was slaughtered at this time, both to preserve meat for the winter months, and to cull the herd. With fewer animals to feed, the ones that were left would have a better chance of survival until spring. This is one reason why death and the dead are associated with this day.

Facing the long, deadly winter, unsure of your food supply, with no central heating, you would have to brave the elements and the dangers of the forest to gather all the wood you would need to keep yourself warm. With the days getting shorter and shorter, you would start wondering if the sun was ever going to come back. The wild animals would get hungrier and more aggressive as the winter got harder for everyone. All made this day, marking the beginning of the winter season, one of fear and danger. But it was also a day of celebration, akin to the American Thanksgiving — thanking the gods for the blessings of a bountiful harvest.

To the Celts, “between” times and places were very important. At these points, the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, and communication between the fairy realm, the land of the dead, and the human world is much easier. “Between” places include doorways between one room and another, or between inside and outside; or the seashore, marking the meeting of earth and sea. “Between” times include dusk and dawn, marking the transitions from night to day, and day to night; and in more recent centuries, midnight, representing the transition between one calendar day and the next.

The transitions between seasons are even more important “between” times. The transition from winter to summer at Beltaine (May 1), and the transition from summer to winter at Samhain, were the two most important days of the Celtic year; but Samhain was the most important, because it also marked the transition from one year to the next. Ergo, it is at this time that the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and communication between the world of the living and the world of our deceased ancestors, the fairy folk, and other spirits is easiest. This is also a good night for divination for that reason.

At this harvest celebration, when the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest, one’s ancestors are therefore honored and venerated. Hospitality was very important to the ancient Celts. They would leave food out on their hearth, or out on their front step, as an offering to the spirits of their ancestors, whom they believed would visit them on this night. Offerings of food or milk were also left out for the fairies, and some Wiccans today invite fairy beings into their homes to share their hospitality with them for the winter. The Celts also extended this hospitality to wandering travelers and beggars, because Celts considered it very bad luck to withhold hospitality from anyone in need.

But the thinness of the veil between the worlds also allowed more dangerous spirits to wander into the human realm, so Samhain was also a time of fear and foreboding. These two ideas influenced our modern custom of “trick or treating” at Halloween (our modern name for Samhain). Today, wandering beggars in the form of children, dress up as horrible spirits that go from door to door begging for food, and threatening pranks if they are not appeased. That is a very recent tradition, however, invented in America.[1]

The carved pumpkins we call jack-o’-lanterns also have their root in ancient hospitality. The Celts did not have pumpkins in the Old World, as we have here in America; pumpkin is a New World fruit. So rather than carving pumpkins, the Celts used turnips and gourds. They hollowed out the inside, and put candles in them to create a lantern. Then they would set a light out each evening to let any wandering strangers know that hospitality was available at that particular home. However, to frighten away the evil spirits that might also be out wandering, these home owners would take the precaution to carve ugly faces into the lanterns, to scare anything nasty away.

Many ancient pagan holidays, including those of the Celts, were adapted by the Christian church in an attempt to convert pagans to Christianity. Many of the traditions of Yule, such as the decorated evergreen tree, became the traditions of Christmas. Many of the traditions of the spring equinox, such as decorating eggs, became customs of Easter. And many practices of Samhain became the traditions of Halloween.[2]

“Hallow” means “sacred.” For example, “hallowed ground” means a place that has been blessed and is appropriate for burial. The suffix “-een” is short for “evening,” the night before a holiday. Halloween, like our New Year’s Eve, is therefore the celebration before the actual holiday, in this case November 1, dubbed “All Saints Day” by the Catholic Church. Halloween is also known as “All Souls Day,” following the tradition that this is a time to celebrate the dead and commemorate them.

There are several misconceptions and outright lies that are spread by religious fundamentalists about Samhain every year, in an attempt to get Halloween banned. The first is that the holiday is of Druidic origin; the Druids were a priestly class of the Celts, but they were a very late manifestation of the Celtic religion. The Celts were practicing their religion for thousands of years before the priestly class of the Druids developed.

Another misconception is that the ancient Romans adopted Samhain and added their traditions to it; however, the traditions of Halloween, as we know them, have come down to us from Ireland. Ireland was never conquered by the Romans. Samhain was also celebrated by the Picts in Scotland, but the Picts were never conquered by the Romans, either. The only territory in the British Isles that the Romans successfully conquered was England.

Another error is that Samhain is pronounced Sam Hane and is the name of a Celtic god of the dead. The Celts had no god of the dead.[3] Samhain is also not pronounced that way, it is pronounced “Sow-ween,” due to the odd way Irish Gaelic ended up being spelled when written in English letters. There is a very minor character in Celtic mythology that has a name with a similar spelling, but he has nothing to do with death or with that particular holiday.

Some people also claim that at this holiday the souls of the dead were supposed to move into the bodies of animals if they had been “sinful,” and that human sacrifice was practiced. The Celts did not believe in sin, nor in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls. The Celts also did not practice human sacrifice, with the exception of the execution of criminals, which we still practice in America today.

Halloween in America is now a completely secular holiday. Though it still maintains some of its harvest festival roots, there is no longer any religious or spiritual significance to the practices of bobbing for apples, trick or treating, and dressing up in costume.

Samhain, however, is still observed by Wiccans and other Pagans for its spiritual significance in the Wheel of the Year, the cycle of holidays that mark transition points in the natural solar cycle.

[1] Because Samhain represented the transition between years, it could not belong to one year or the next. Since time did not technically exist during this period, other societal rules were suspended as well, creating the necessary atmosphere to allow people to vent frustrations, often by playing practical jokes on each other. This may be the precursor to the pranks practiced at Halloween today.

[2] A lot of the associations of Halloween, from black cats to dressing up in costumes, to witches, are more associated with Germanic tradition and Walpurgisnacht, which is associated with May Day, rather than the Celtic tradition or Samhain.

[3] A couple of sources list Gwynn ap Nudd as a British god of the dead, and Arawn as a Welsh god of the dead, but there is no Irish equivalent.

***

For Part II of this article, “A Subtle Samhain Celebration -or-What to Do If You Don’t Live Alone” visit www.careandfeedingofspirits.com. Part II provides instructions for how to take advantage of this season to contact deceased loved ones on the other side of the veil of death, as well as other subtle ways to mark the holiday. But hurry! It will only be available through October 31, 2008. After that it will go back into the vaults.

Have a blessed Samhain, and a happy Halloween!

BB,

Vivienne

Bibliography

Isaac Bonewitz, “The Real Origins of Halloween,” version 4.5, © 1997 and 2002, http://www.neopagan.net/halloween-origins-text.html, downloaded 9/19/03.

“Halloween Errors and Lies, or What Fundamentalist Christians Don’t Want You to Know,” version 4.4, © 1997, 2002; http://www.neopagan.net/halloween-lies.html, 9/19/03.

B.A. Robinson, “the Myth of Samhain, Celtic God of the Dead,” © 1998-2001 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, last updated 10/19/01, http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallow_sa.htm, 9/19/03.

W.J. Bethancourt, III, “Halloween: Myths, Monsters and Devils,” © 1994, updated 10/7/01; http://www.illusions.com/halloween/hallows.htm, 9/19/03.

Rowan Moonstone, “the Origins of Halloween.” http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/5452/hallorig.html, 9/19/03.

I’m making a video about Halloween and I need a song with a Celtic feel about the holiday, or if not about at least suitable.
Any suggestions?