Histories of Halloween
Behind the name... Halloween, or the Hallow E'en as they call it in Ireland , means All Hallows Eve, or the night before the ‘All Hallows', also called ‘All Hallowmas', or ‘All Saints', or ‘All Souls' Day', observed on November 1. In old English, the word ‘hallow' meant ‘sanctify'. The Roman Catholic Church, as well as Episcopalians and Lutherans, observe All Hallows Day to honor all saints in heaven, known or unknown. They consider the day with all the solemnity of one of the most significant observances of the Church year. And Catholics were (and still are) obliged to participate in Mass.
The Romans observed the holiday of Feralia, intended to give rest and peace to the departed. Participants made sacrifices in honor of the dead, offered up prayers for them, and made oblations to them. The festival was celebrated on February 21st, the end of the Roman year. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV introduced All Saints' Day to replace the pagan festival of the dead. It was observed on May 13th. Later, Pope Gregory III changed the date to November 1st. The Greek Orthodox Church observes it on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
Despite this connection with the Roman Church, the American version of Halloween Day celebration owes its origin to the ancient (pre-Christian) Druidic fire festival called "Samhain," celebrated by the Celts in Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Samhain is pronounced "sow-in", with "sow" rhyming with "cow." In Ireland, the festival was known as Samhein, or La Samon, the Feast of the Sun.
In Scotland, the celebration was known as Hallowe'en. In Welsh, it's Nos Galen-gae of (that is, the Night of the Winter Calends). According to the Irish-English dictionary published by the Irish Texts Society: "Samhain, All Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in Pagan and Christian times, signalizing the close of harvest and the initiation of the winter season, lasting till May, during which troops (esp. the Fiann) were quartered. Faeries were imagined as particularly active at this season. From it the half year is reckoned, also called Feile Moingfinne (Snow Goddess)."
(1) The Scottish Gaelis Dictionary defines it as "Hallowtide. The Feast of All Souls. Sam + Fuin = end of summer."
(2) Contrary to the information published by many organizations, there is no archaeological or literary evidence to indicate that Samhain was a deity. 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. Thus most of the customs connected with this day are remnants of the ancient religious beliefs and rituals, first of the Druids and then transcended amongst the Roman Christians who conquered them.
There appear to have been four major holy days celebrated by the Paleopagan Druids, possibly throughout the Celtic territories: Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane & Lughnasadh (in one set of Irish-based modern spellings). Four additional holy (or "High") days (Winter Solstice or "Midwinter," Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice or "Midsummer," and Fall Equinox), which are based on Germanic or other Indo-European cultures, are also celebrated in the Neopagan Druid calendar, along with others based on mainstream holidays.
The most common practice for the calculation of Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane and Lughnasadh has been, for the last several centuries, to use the civil calendar days or eves of November 1st, February 1st, May 1st and August 1st, respectively. Since we have conflicting evidence on how the Paleopagan Druids calculated these dates, modern Neopagans just use whichever method is most convenient. This means, of course, that we aren't all doing anything uniformly on any given night, which fits perfectly with the Neopagan saying that, "organizing Pagans is like herding cats." (This doesn't match the "Evil Conspiracy theories" of present fundamentalist Christians- which have us all marching to a strict drumbeat in perfect Satanic unison - at all).
These four major holy days have been referred to as "fire festivals" for at least the last hundred years or so, because
(1) to the ancient Celts, as with all the Indo-European Paleopagans, fire was a physical symbol of divinity, holiness, truth, and beauty;
(2) fires play important roles in the traditional customs associated with these festivals; and
(3) several early Celtic scholars called them that. Whether in Ireland or India, among the Germans or the Hittites, sacred fires were apparently kindled by the Indo-European Paleopagans on every important religious occasion.
To this very day, among Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholics, you can't have a satisfying ritual without a few candles being lit - (of course, the same fundamentalist Christians consider them heathen too!)
Samhain was the original festival to which the Western Catholic calendar moved its feast of "All Saints' Day." Eastern Orthodox Christians continue to celebrate All Saints' Day in the Springtime, as the Roman Christians had originally. Since the Celts, like many cultures, started every day at sunset of the night before, Samhain became the "evening" of "All Hallows" ("hallowed" = "holy" = "saint") which was eventually contracted into "Hallow-e'en" or the modern "Halloween."
Whether it was the Celtic New Year or not, Samhain was the beginning of the Winter or Dark Half of the Year (the seasons of Geimredh=Winter and Earrach=Spring) as Beltane was the beginning of the Summer or Light Half of the Year (the seasons of Samradh=Summer and Foghamhar=Fall). The day before Samhain is the last day of summer (or the old year) and the day after Samhain is the first day of winter (or of the new year). Being "between" seasons or years, Samhain was (and is) considered a very magical time, when the dead walk among the living and the veils between past, present and future may be lifted in prophecy and divination.
Many important mythological events are said to have occurred on that day. It was on a Samhain that the Nemedians captured the terrible Tower of Glass built by the evil Formorians; that the Tuatha De Danann later defeated the Formors once and for all; and that many other events of a dramatic or prophetic nature in Celtic myth happened. Many of these events had to do with the temporary victory of the forces of darkness over those of light, signaling the beginning of the cold and dark half of the year.
There is some evidence to indicate that three days were spent celebrating this festival. Philip Carr-Gomm, Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, speaking of both Paleopagan and Mesopagan Druids in England, had this to say about it in his Elements of the Druid Tradition:
"Samhuinn, from 31st October to 2nd November was a time of no-time. Celtic society, like all early societies, was highly structured and organized, everyone knew their place. But to allow that order to be psychologically comfortable, the Celts knew that there had to be a time when order and structure were abolished, when chaos could reign. And Samhuinn was such a time. Time was abolished for the three days of this festival and people did crazy things, men dressed as women and women as men. Farmers' gates were unhinged and left in ditches, people's horses were moved to different fields, and children would knock on neighbours' doors for food and treats in a way that we still find today, in a watered-down way, in the custom of trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en."
But behind this apparent lunacy lay a deeper meaning. The Druids knew that these three days had a special quality about them. The veil between This World and the World of the Ancestors was drawn aside on these nights, and for those who were prepared, journeys could be made in safety to the ‘other side.' The Druid rites, therefore, were concerned with making contact with the spirits of the departed, who were seen as sources of guidance and inspiration rather than as sources of dread. The dark moon, the time when no moon can be seen in the sky, was the phase of the moon which ruled this time, because it represents a time in which our mortal sight needs to be obscured in order for us to see into the other worlds. The dead are honoured and feasted, not as the dead, but as the living spirits of loved ones and of guardians who hold the root-wisdom of the tribe.
With the coming of Christianity, this festival was turned into Hallowe'en (31st of October), All Hallows [All Saints Day] (1st of November), and All Souls Day (2nd of November). Here we can see most clearly the way in which Christianity built on the Pagan foundations it found rooted in these isles. Not only does the purpose of the festival match with the earlier one, but even the unusual length of the festival is the same.
The Catholic Church, unable to get the people to stop celebrating this holiday, simply sprinkled a little holy water on it and gave it new names, as they did with other Paleopagan holidays and customs. This was a form of calendrical imperialism, (co-opting Paleopagan sacred times), as they had co-opted Paleopagan sacred places (most if not all of the great cathedrals of Europe were built on top of earlier Paleopagan shrines and sacred groves).
(So when fundamentalist Christians come to your local school board and try to get Halloween removed from the public schools because "it's a Pagan Holiday," they are perfectly correct. Of course, Valentine's Day /Lupercalia, Easter / Eostre, and Christmas / Yule also have many Paleopagan elements associated with their dating and/or symbols as the Jehovah's Witnesses and others have pointed out for decades. So if we decide to rid the public schools of all holidays that have Pagan aspects to them, there won't be many left for the kids to enjoy.)
It is amusing that American teens and pre-teens seem to have instinctively expanded their seasonal celebrations to add another night before Halloween, one on which they commit various acts of harmless (or unfortunately sometimes serious) vandalism, including pranks on neighbors. If we assume that All Saints Day was moved to co-opt the central day of Samhain which was associated originally with the Gods and Goddesses of the Celts, and All Souls Day was supposed to co-opt the worship of the Ancestors, then the modern "Cabbage Night," "Hell Night", or simply "Mischief Night" (which used to be April 30th - the night before May Day - in Germany - there's that Beltane/Samhain connection again) would correspond to a celebration of the often mischievous Nature Spirits. This then nicely covers the Indo-European pattern of the "Three Kindreds" of Deities, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits.
