What Is Samhain?

**WHAT IS SAMHAIN?**

Samhain (Gaelic, commonly pronounced Sow-wen), is an ancient harvest festival and ceremonial practice dating back to pre-Christian Ireland and the rest of the Celtic world, taking place between 31st October and November 1st. Considered the beginning of the Wheel of the Year (and thus the Pagan “New Year”), Samhain also serves as a marker for the midway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. Additionally, it is one of the four Celtic cross-quarter days (together with Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasadh).

Long ago, Samhain was marked by fires, and the Jack O’Lanterns of old were carved turnips, not pumpkins, carried or set out to keep away unwanted spirits and the mischievous Fae. For some, the fires had to be lit by a main sacred flame. As Peter Ellis Beresford has noted:

“In Ireland, as in the other Celtic countries, the fires were extinguished and could only be rekindled from a ceremonial fire lit by the Druids at Samhain on Tlachtga (now the Hill of Ward).“

Over the years the Christian church would seek to co-opt Samhain, as it did all Pagan festivals. Ellis writes:

“Christianity took this pagan festival over as a harvest festival. The feast became St. Martin’s Mass (Martinmas). The festival also became All Saints’ Day or All-Hallows and the evening prior was Hallowe’en, still celebrated as the night when spirits and ghosts set out to wreak vengeance on the living and when evil marches unbridled across the world.”

Across various mythologies and folklore, Samhain is also a time of transformation and there are many stories wherein beings from other realms or dimensions cross over to our world and back again. As Jean Markale notes:

“What is striking in all these Samhain-related tales is the interpenetrating of the world of the living, the visible world, and the world of the gods, the heroes, and the dead, the world that is invisible but always present, parallel to the world of ordinary life. During the night of Samhain, the borders between life and death are no longer uncrossable barriers … anyone can pass from one side to the other … This is when what could be called the passage of souls takes place … the carnival-like processions of Halloween are a striking example of this.”

In time, Samhain became commercialized as Halloween, a day where children (predominately in North America, though it is catching on in some other countries), dress up in costume and go door to door seeking candies, and adults hold costume parties, visit mechanized “haunted” houses or watch horror movies in search of chills and thrills.

So where does trick-or-treating come from? First recorded as a tradition in Canada in 1917, the origins appear to trace back to 16th-century Scotland and Ireland, where the practice of “guising” involved children going door to door in disguise asking for candies and nuts. However, another theory suggests that the tradition is far older, and was based (at least in part) on the Welsh mid-winter tradition of the Mari Llwyd, wherein people would dress in a white sheet and a giant horse’s skeletal head, decorated with glass and ribbons, going to houses asking for food. The exact age of this practice is of some debate among scholars, however the general consensus is that it is from pre-Christian times. The Mari Llywd today is practiced in Wales at Yule/ Christmastime, though the Anglesey Order of Druids incorporates it into other Wheel of the Year rituals. In Newfoundland, a similar Christmas practice called a “Janny” involves dressing up in costume and mummering from house to house in exchange for food and drink.

For modern Pagans, Witches, Druids and others, Samhain is a sacred time, when the Veil has thinned and we can seek out the ancestors and spirits of the dead. Through the use of herbs such as Mugwort, Dittany of Crete, and Lotus, to name a few, visionary journeys can help us to reach the spirits or even divine the future while the Veil is thin. An old Welsh tradition saw maidens go out on Nos Galan Gaef (Welsh, Samhain or Halloween), to gather sage; their future husbands would join them at midnight. There are still Welsh witches who choose to gather sage on this night.

Today’s Witches and Druids have both been known, depending on the group, to hold Samhain rites and rituals with cauldrons after dark, outdoors if the weather isn’t too cold, scrying and calling on the Goddess Ceridwen or the Cailleach. Some modern Pagans and Witches will host a dumb supper for the ancestors; some will even mix Samhain with Halloween and hold parties of their own, decorating their homes in delightfully macabre fashion. In the United States and Canada, it is also popular to hold Witches’ Balls and dances as well as gathering at Samhain markets in the days leading up 31st October.

There are parallel traditions to Samhain across the globe. Examples include the Mexican Dia de los Muertes (Day of the Dead) on 1st November, and the Slavic Dziadzy on 31st October-2nd November.

However one chooses to honour Samhain or the days surrounding it, one thing is certain: this time of year is full of magick and mystery, and the dead, the Fae, and other spirits walk the worlds freely. Watch out as Samhain approaches—you never know who (or what!) you might encounter.

– by Ravenhawk Winters

Sources:

The Occasion and Purpose of the ‘Mari Lwyd’ Ceremony
Ellen Ettlinger, Man Vol. 44 (Jul. – Aug., 1944), pp. 89-93
(Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland)

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