© copyright 1989, Rowan Moonstone
In recent years, there have been a number of pamphlets and books put
out be various Christian organizations dealing with the origins of
modern-day Halloween customs.
Being a Witch myself, and a student of the ancient Celts from whom we get
this holiday, I have found these pamphlets woefully inaccurate and
poorly researched. A typical example of this information is contained
in the following quote from the pamphlet entitled "What's Wrong
with Halloween?" by Russell K. Tardo. "The Druids believed
that on October 31st, the last day of the year by the ancient Celtic
calendar, the lord of death gathered together the souls of the dead
who had been made to enter bodies of animals, and decided what forms
they should take the following year. Cats were held sacred because it
was believed that they were once human beings ... We see that this
holiday has its origin, basis and root in the occultic Druid
celebration of the dead.
Only they called it 'Samhain', who was the lord of the dead (a big demon)".1
When these books and pamphlets cite sources at all, they usually list
the Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana, and the World
Book Encyclopedia. The Britannica and the Americana make no mention
of cats, but do, indeed list Samhain as the Lord of Death, contrary
to Celtic scholars, and list no references. The World Book mentions
the cats, and calls Samhain the Lord of Death, and lists as its
sources several children's books (hardly what one could consider
scholarly texts, and, of course, themselves citing no references).
In an effort to correct some of this erroneous information, I have
researched the religious life of the ancient Celtic peoples and the
survivals of that religious life in modern times. Listed below are
some of the most commonly asked questions concerning the origins and
customs of Halloween. Following the questions is a lengthy
bibliography where the curious reader can go to learn more about this
holiday than space in this small pamphlet permits.
1. Where does Halloween come from? Our modern celebration of
Halloween is a descendent of the ancient Celtic festival called
"Samhain". The word is pronounced "sow-in", with
"sow" rhyming with "cow".
2. What does "Samhain" mean? The Irish-English
Dictionary published by the Irish Texts Society defines the word as
follows: "Samhain,All Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in Pagan
and Christian times, signaling the close of harvest and the
initiation of the winter season, lasting till May, during which
troops were quartered. Fairies were imagined as particularly active
at this season. From it, the half-year is reckoned. Also called Feile
Moingfinne (Snow Goddess).2 The Scottish Gaelic Dictionary
defines it as "Hallowtide. The Feast of All Souls. Sam + Fuin =
end of summer."3 Contrary to the information
published by many organizations, there is no archaeological or
literary evidence to indicate that Samhain was a deity. Eliade's
Encyclopedia of Religion states as follows: "The Eve and day of
Samhain were characterized as a time when the barriers between the
human and supernatural worlds were broken ... Not a festival honoring
any particular Celtic deity, Samhain acknowledged the entire spectrum
of nonhuman forces that roamed the earth during that period."4
The Celtic Gods of the dead were Gwynn ap Nudd for the British and
Arawn for the Welsh. The Irish did not have a "lord of
death" as such.
3. Why was the end of summer of significance to the Celts? The
Celts were a pastoral peopleas opposed to an agricultural people. The
end of summer was significant to them because it meant the time of
year when the structure of their lives changed radically. The cattle
were brought down from the summer pastures in the hills and the
people were gathered into the houses for the long winter nights of
story-telling and handicrafts .
4. What does it have to do with a festival of the dead? The
Celts believed that when people died, they went to a land of eternal
youth and happiness called Tir nan Og. They did not have the concept
of heaven and hell that the Christian church later brought into the
land. The dead were sometimes believed to be dwelling with the Fairy
Folk, who lived in the numerous mounds, or sidhe, (pronounced
"shee" or "sh-thee") that dotted the Irish and
Scottish countryside. Samhain was the new year to the Celts. In the
Celtic belief system, turning points, such as the time between one
day and the next, the meeting of sea and shore, or the turning of one
year into the next were seen as magickal times. The turning of the
year was the most potent of these times. This was the time when the
"veil between the worlds" was at its thinnest, and the
living could communicate with their beloved dead in Tir nan Og.
5. What about the aspects of "evil' that we associate with the
night today? The Celts did not have demons and devils in their
belief system. The fairies, however, were often considered hostile
and dangerous to humans because they were seen as being resentful of
man taking over their land. On this night, they would sometimes trick
humans into becoming lost in the fairy mounds, where they would be
trapped forever. After the coming of the Christians to the Celtic
lands, certain of the folk saw the fairies as those angels who had
sided neither with God or with Lucifer in their dispute, and thus
were condemned to walk the earth until judgment day.5 In
addition to the fairies, many humans were abroad on this night,
causing mischief. Since this night belonged neither to one year or
the other, Celtic folk believed that chaos reigned, and the people
would engage in "horseplay and practical jokes".6
This also served as a final outlet for high spirits before the gloom
of winter set in.
6. What about "trick or treat"? During the course of
these hijinks, many of the people would imitate the fairies and go
from house to house begging for treats. Failure to supply the treats
would usually result in practical jokes being visited on the owner of
the house. Since the fairies were abroad on this night, an offering
of food or milk was frequently left for them on the steps of the
house, so the homeowner could gain the blessing of the "good
folk" for the coming year. Many of the households would also
leave out a "dumb supper" for the spirits of the departed.9
The folks who were abroad in the night imitating the fairies would
sometimes carry turnips carved to represent faces. This is the origin
of our modern Jack-o-lantern.
7. Was there any special significance of cats to the Celts?
According to Katherine Briggs in Nine Lives: Cats in Folklore,, the
Celts associated cats with the Cailleach Bheur, or Blue Hag of
Winter. "She was a nature goddess, who herded the deer as her
cattle. The touch of her staff drove the leaves off the trees and
brought snow and harsh weather."7 Dr. Anne Ross
addresses the use of divine animals in her book Pagan Celtic Britain
and has this to day about cats."Cats do not play a large role in
Celtic mythology ... the evidence for the cat as an important cult
animal in Celtic mythology is slight"8 She cites as
supporting evidence, the lack of archaeological artifacts and
literary references in surviving works of mythology.
8. Was this also a religious festival? Yes. Celtic religion was
very closely tied to the Earth. Their great legends are concerned
with momentous happenings which took place around the time of
Samhain. Many of the great battles and legends of kings and heroes
center on this night. Many of the legends concern the promotion of
fertility of the earth and the insurance of the continuance of the
lives of the people through the dark winter season.
9. How was the religious festival observed? Unfortunately, we
know very little about that. W.G. Wood-Martin, in his book, Traces of
the Elder Faiths of Ireland, states, "There is comparatively
little trace of the religion of the Druids now discoverable, save in
the folklore of the peasantry, and the references relative to it that
occur in ancient and authentic Irish manuscripts are, as far as
present appearances go, meager and insufficient to support anything
like a sound theory for full development of the ancient religion."10
The Druids were the priests of the Celtic peoples. They passed on
their teachings by oral tradition instead of committing them to
writing, so when they perished, most of their religious teachings
were lost. We do know that this festival was characterized as one of
the four great "Fire Festivals" of the Celts. Legends tell
us that on this night, all the hearth fires in Ireland were
extinguished, and then re-lit from the central fire of the Druids at
Tlachtga, 12 miles from the royal hill of Tara. This fire was kindled
from "need fire" which had been generated by the friction
of rubbing two sticks together, as opposed to more conventional
methods (such as the flint-and-steel method) common in those days.11
The extinguishing of the fires symbolized the "dark half"
of the year, and the re-kindling from the Druidic fires was symbolic
of the returning life hoped for, and brought about through the
ministrations of the priesthood.
10. What about sacrifices? Animals were certainly killed at this
time of year. This was the time to "cull" from the herds
those animals which were not desired for breeding purposes for the
next year. Most certainly, some of these would have been done in a
ritual manner for the use of the priesthood.
11. Were humans sacrificed? Scholars are sharply divided on this
account, with about half believing that it took place and half
doubting its veracity. Caesar and Tacitus certainly tell tales of the
human sacrifices of the Celts, but Nora Chadwick points out in her
book The Celts that "it is not without interest that the Romans
themselves had abolished human sacrifice not long before Caesar's
time, and references to the practice among various barbarian peoples
have certain overtones of self-righteousness. There is little direct
archaeological evidence relevant to Celtic sacrifice."12
Indeed, there is little reference to this practice in Celtic
literature. The only surviving story echoes the tale of the Minotaur
in Greek legend: the Fomorians, a race of evil giants said to inhabit
portions of Ireland before the coming of the Tuatha de Danaan (or
"people of the Goddess Danu"), demanded the sacrifice of
2/3 of the corn, milk, and first born children of the Fir Bolg, or
human inhabitants of Ireland. The de Danaan ended this practice in
the second battle of Moy Tura, which incidentally, took place on
Samhain. It should be noted, however, that this story appears in only
one (relatively modern) manuscript from Irish literature, and that
manuscript, the "Dinnsenchus", is known to be a collection
of fables. According to P.W. Joyce in Vol. 2 of his Social History of
Ancient Ireland, "Scattered everywhere through our ancient
literature, both secular and ecclesiastical, we find abundant
descriptions and details of the rites and superstitions of the pagan
Irish; and in no place - with this single exception - do we find a
word or hint pointing to human sacrifice to pagan gods or idols."13
12. What other practices were associated with this season? Folk
tradition tells us of many divination practices associated with
Samhain. Among the most common were divinations dealing with
marriage, weather, and the coming fortunes for the year. These were
performed via such methods as ducking for apples and apple peeling.
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.14
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.
13. How did these ancient Celtic practices come to America? When
the potato crop in Ireland failed, many of the Irish people, modern
descendants of the Celts, immigrated to America, bringing with them
their folk practices, which were remnants of the Celtic festival
observances.
14. We in America view this as a harvest festival. Did the Celts also
view it as such? Yes. The Celts had 3 harvests. Aug 1, or Lammas,
was the first harvest, when the first fruits were offered to the Gods
in thanks. The Fall equinox was the true harvest. This was when the
bulk of the crops would be brought in. Samhain was the final harvest
of the year. Anything left on the vines or in the fields after this
date was considered blasted by the fairies ("pu'ka") and
unfit for human consumption.
15. Does anyone today celebrate Samhain as a religious observance?
Yes. Many followers of various pagan religions, such as Druidism and
Wicca, observe this day as a religious festival. They view it as a
memorial day for their dead friends and family, much as the world
does the national Memorial Day holiday in May. It is still a night to
practice various forms of divination concerning future events. It is
also considered a time to wrap up old projects, take stock of one's
life, and initiate new projects for the coming year. As the winter
season is approaching, it is a good time to do studying on research
projects, and also a good time to begin hand work such as sewing,
leather working, woodworking, etc., for Yule gifts later in the year.
And while "satanists" are using this holiday as their own,
this is certainly not the only example of a holiday (or even
religious symbols) being "borrowed" from an older religion
by a newer one.
16. Does this involve human or animal sacrifice? Absolutely NOT!
Hollywood to the contrary, blood sacrifice is not practiced by modern
followers of Wicca or Druidism. There may be some people who THINK
they are practicing Wicca by performing blood sacrificing, but this
is NOT condoned by reputable practitioners of today's neo-Pagan
religions.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Tardo, Russell K., What's Wrong with Halloween?, Faithful Word Publishers, (Arabi, LA, undated), p. 2
2. Rev. Patrick Dinneen, An Irish-English Dictionary, (Dublin, 1927), p. 937
3. Malcolm MacLennan, A Pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, (Aberdeen, 1979), p. 279
4. The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade, "Halloween" by Primiano, (New York, 1987) pp. 176-177
5. Katherine Briggs, Nine Lives: Cats in Folklore, (London,1980), p.5
6. Dr. Anne Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain, (London,1967), p. 301-302
7. W.G. Wood-Martin, Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, Vol. II, (Port Washington, NY, 1902), p. 5
8. Kevin Danaher, The Year in Ireland, (Cork, 1972), p. 214
9. Alwyn & Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage, (New York, 1961), p. 90
10. Wood-Martin, op. cit., p. 249
11. Rees & Rees, op. cit., p. 90
12. Nora Chadwick, The Celts, (Harmondsworth, 1982), p. 151
13. P.W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol.2, (New York, 1968), pp. 282-283
14. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Medieval Holidays and Festivals, (New York, 1981), p. 81
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*Coglan, Ronan, A Dictionary of Irish Myth and Legend, (Dublin: 1979)
*Cosman, Madeleine Pelner, Medieval Holidays and Festivals, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981)
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*Dinneen, Rev. Patrick S., M.A., An Irish-English Dictionary, (Dublin: The Irish Texts Society, 1927)
*Joyce, P.W., A Social History of Ancient Ireland, (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968)
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*Rees, Alwyn and Brinley, Celtic Heritage, Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales, (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1961)
*Ross, Dr. Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967)
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*Wood-Martin, W.G.,Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, Vols. I & II, (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1902)
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