Samhainn
Celtic Celebration of Renewal
Halloween and All Saints Day have their origin in the ancient Celtic feast of Samhainn celebrated on the first day of November. In the modern Gaelic languages, the name of the feast means "summer's end": Samhain (pronounced "sow-en") in Gaeilge (Irish Gaelic), Samhainn ("sah-vun") in Gàidhlig (Scots Gaelic), and Sauin ("sow-in") in Gaelg (Manx Gaelic). In the modern Brythonic languages, the name of the feast means "the first day of winter": Nos Calan Gaeaf ("nos cal-ahn gie-ahv') in Cymraeg (Welsh), Nos Kalann Gwav ("nos cal-ahn gwahv") in Kernewek (Cornish), and Noz Kala-Goañv ("noz cal-a-gwah") in Brezhoneg (Breton).
The Celts honored the intertwining forces of existence: darkness and light, night and day, cold and heat, death and life. Celtic knotwork art represents this intertwining. The Celts observed time as proceeding from darkness to light. Thus, the Celtic day began at dusk, the beginning of the dark and cold night, and ended the following dusk, the end of a day of light and warmth. The Celtic year began with An Geamhradh ("an gyow-ragh"), the dark Celtic winter, and ended with Am Foghar ("am fu-ghar"), the Celtic harvest. Samhainn marks the beginning of both An Geamhradh and the new Celtic year.
Samhainn begins at dusk on October 31, the eve of the new Celtic year. Oidhche Shamhna ("oi-kha haw-na"), the Eve of Samhainn, was the most important part of Samhainn. Villagers gathered the best of the autumn harvest and slaughtered cattle for the feast. The focus of each village's festivities was a great bonfire. Villagers cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames. (The English word "bonfire" comes from these "bone fires.") With the bonfire roaring, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit their hearth from the one great common flame, bonding all families of the village together.
The eve of the Celtic year was a very holy time. The Celts believed that Oidhche Shamhna was a gap in time. Our world and the Otherworld came together on the night between the old and new years. The dead could return to the places where they had lived. Many rituals of Oidhche Shamhna provided hospitality for dead ancestors. Celts put out food and drink for the dead with great ceremony. Villagers left their gates, doors, and windows unlocked to give the dead free passage into their homes. Swarms of spirits poured into our world on November Eve. Not all of these spirits were friendly, so Celts carved the images of spirit-guardians onto turnips. They set these jack o'lanterns before their doors keep out unwelcome visitors from the Otherworld.
There was also a much lighter side to the Celtic New Year rituals. Children put on strange disguises and roamed the countryside, pretending to be the returning dead or spirits from the Otherworld. Celts thought the break in reality on November Eve not only provided a link between the worlds, but also dissolved the structure of society for the night. Boys and girls would put on each other's clothes, and would generally flout convention by boisterous behavior and by playing tricks on their elders.
Divination of the events of the coming year was another prominent feature of Samhainn. Celts used hazelnuts, symbols of wisdom, to foretell the future. Bobbing for apples, another traditional Samhainn pastime, was a reference to the Celtic Emhain Abhlach, "Paradise of Apples," where the dead, having eaten of the sacred fruit, enjoyed a blissful immortality.
Ancient Celtic religion cast the year as a contest between the gods of winter and summer for the favor of the goddess of the earth. The god of summer claimed victory at Latha Buidhe Bealltainn, May Day, but at Samhainn the god of winter, who was also lord of the dead, was victorious. Celts often depicted the god of winter with antlers which he shed each autumn like a stag. Families in Brittany still herald the coming of winter by the baking kornigou, little cakes in the shape of antlers, to commemorate the god of winter shedding his "cuckold" horns as he returns to his kingdom in the Otherworld.
The ancient Celts used a lunar calendar of thirteen lunar months. As contact and trade with the Romans increased, the Celts adapted the Roman calendar into a Celtic solar calendar of twelve months beginning with Samhainn on the first day of an t-Samhain (November).
Celts were among the first people to adopt the new Christian religion. Saint Paul wrote his Epistle to the Galatians in about 53 AD to the Christian Celts of Galatia in what is now central Turkey. Christianity affirmed the Celtic ideals of family, community, renewal, and respect for the dead. The Christian Church elected to begin its liturgical year with the Feast of the Circumcision on the first day of January. The choice of January 1 was a compromise between the Celtic year beginning with Samhainn on November 1 and the Roman year beginning on March 1.
The Celts became a refuge for Christianity following the collapse of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. Celtic monks established monasteries throughout western and central Europe. The monasteries preserved the sacred scriptures of Christianity and kept the faith alive in the midst of chaos. In gratitude to its Celtic faithful, the Western Church gave Samhainn a Christian blessing in 837 AD when it designated November 1 as the Feast of All Saints or Hallow Tide. The evening of Oidhche Shamhna became Hallow Evening, Hallow E'en, or Halloween.