The Celts heralded the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the dark time of winter with the ancestral festival of Samhain. According to their belief, the gateway to the Otherworld opens to Samhain. The border between the realm of the dead and the realm of the living is particularly thin on this night, so that the living and the dead can be close to each other. Symbolically, it stands for the farewell to what was in order to be able to look to the future without ballast. But when is it even celebrated? What was the significance of it in Celtic culture? And how is it celebrated?
When is Samhain celebrated?
Although preparations can begin earlier, in Irish folklore the date of Samhain was determined by the nearest new moon, which usually corresponds to the 11th new moon of the year. In fact, the festival itself takes place on the night before the 11th new moon.
Calculating this is sometimes not easy. The new moon following the winter solstice is usually considered the first new moon of the year. For 2020, the 11th new moon would have been on October 16th.
Only in the neo-pagan development was a fixed calendar day determined for the celebrations, namely the night from October 31st to November 1st. In neo-paganism, this festival marks the beginning of a new year in the Celtic calendar.
The meaning of the festival
The festival of Samhain had mythological/religious as well as social significance. In a social context, it had an impact on people's lives, because in Ireland the festival ushered in winter. The cattle were driven home and the herd was divided up:animals to be slaughtered and animals to be left on the farm for breeding over the winter.
In the mythological sense, it is said, the border to the other world and thus to the souls of the dead on Samhain is particularly thin. Translated, the word Samhain roughly means "union", which refers to the meeting of the living and the dead. This festival honors the dead, the beings of the underworld and the unborn life.
Ancestor worship is an important part of most ancient cultures, including the Celtic-Irish culture. Samhain must therefore have been an important festival for the people. The focus of the festival is the end of life and the thought that new life can only arise through death. The blessing of the deceased is requested and one's own roots are remembered.
The gateway to the Otherworld in the Macgnímartha Finn
So, because Samhain plays an important role in Celtic culture, many events in Irish mythology take place around Samhain. In the transcript of the Macgnímartha Finn, for example, it says that the Sídhe (fairy mounds or portals to the Otherworld) always opened towards Samhain. From these portals year after year the fire-breather Aillen from the Otherworld appeared and burned the palace of Tara during the Samhain festival after putting everyone to sleep with his music. At a Samhain, young Fionn Mac Cumhaill stays awake and kills Aillen with a magic spear.
In a similar story, the otherworldly creature Cúldubh crossed the border into our world on a hilltop, snatched up a roast pork and disappeared again. When he tried to enter the hill again, Fionn killed him with a spear throw. At that moment, however, the border between the worlds closed and Fionn's thumb was pinched at the threshold. To ease the pain, he put his finger in his mouth. With his thumb in the Otherworld, Fionn was then flooded with the knowledge of his ancestors.
Samhain and the Celtic cycle of the year
The Celtic annual cycle is a construction of Celtic neo-paganism. Accordingly, Samhain marks the third harvest festival after Beltane and Lugnasad, which marks the beginning of the winter half-year. For Neuheiden, November 1st is also the beginning of the cycle of the year. Incidentally, this assumption goes back to a theory by the Welsh scholar Sir John Rhys from the late 19th century. Although somewhat controversial these days, this night, also described in the modern Celtic calendar as "Celtic New Year's Eve," heralds the Witches' New Year for many neopagans.
In neopagan belief there are sun festivals and moon festivals. In contrast to the sun festivals, the moon festivals mark the high point of a season. As a moon festival, Samhain is the highlight of autumn.
It is said that many Celts did not leave their homes that night for fear of possible vengeance from the dead. Instead, they dressed up in costumes, hoping to disguise themselves and ward off evil spirits. It is said that blood sacrifices were also typical here. For example, the firstborn were sacrificed to the gods to gain their mercy and ask for fertility in bad years. However, we could not find a source for this, so please treat this statement with caution.
Celtic traditions and customs
The Celtic festivals are basically based very much on nature. The beginning of the cold season also heralded a retreat into the interior. This does not only mean one's own dwelling, but also symbolically one's own world of thoughts.
The customs surrounding Samhain are mentioned in several medieval texts. In the Ulster Cycle tale Serglige Con Chulainn ('Cú Chulainn's Sickbed and the Only Jealousy of Emer') it is said that the festival of Samhain in the kingdom of Ulaid lasted for a week:Samhain itself, plus the three days before and after it. These were large gatherings, with celebrations, drinking and competitions.
The campfire
In the tale Togail Bruidne Dá Derga ('The Destruction of the Hall Da Derga'), also from the Ulster Cycle, it is written that the revelers at Samhain lit bonfires and threw stones into the fires.
Geoffrey Keating describes the customs in a little more detail in his history Foras Feasa ar Éirinn. which he wrote in the early 17th century. However, this relies on earlier medieval sources, some of which are unknown. He claims that the Feis of Tara, a kind of artistic competition, were held every third Samhain for a week. Here the nobles of Ireland met to make and renew the laws and to celebrate. He also claims that the druids in Tlachtga lit a sacred bonfire and made sacrifices to the gods, sometimes by burning their victims. It goes on to say that all other fires were put out and then rekindled by this campfire.
These fires had a double meaning for the Celts:they not only attributed purifying powers to them; they were also meant to protect the revelers from the cold of the approaching winter. According to their tradition, the Celts walked through the flames with their animals in order to carry out purification in this way. It is believed that these fires symbolize a kind of magic in the broadest sense, since a fire imitates the power of the sun, without which life would not be possible.
Divination
The bonfires often played a role in divination rituals, although not all rituals necessarily involved fire. In the 18th-century Scottish settlement of Ochtertyre, for example, a stone ring - one stone for each person - was placed around the fire, possibly on a layer of ash. Everyone then ran around it with a torch and "cheered". In the morning the stones were examined and if one was out of place it was said that the person belonging to the stone would not survive the year. A similar custom was observed in North Wales and Brittany.
James Frazer, a 19th-century Scottish ethnologist, believes that this may derive from an older practice in which human sacrifices, for example, were actually burned. But it is also possible that this ritual has always had a symbolic character. Divination has probably been a part of the ceremony since ancient times and has survived the centuries in some rural areas.
At domestic celebrations in the Gaelic regions and Wales, there were many rituals to divine the future of those gathered, particularly in relation to death and marriage. Apples and hazelnuts were often used in these divination rituals or games. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom.
One of the most common games was apples, in which several players try to take an apple out of a bowl filled with water with their mouths. Whoever makes it first will be the first to get married in the group.
Another Celtic custom is the throwing of apple peels:the player throws an extra long strip over his shoulder and the peel should then show the first letter of the future partner.
Ghosts and souls
As previously mentioned, Samhain was a time when it was easier to cross the line between this world and the Otherworld. This also allows the Aos Sí, the “ghosts” or “fairies”, to enter our world more easily. Many scholars see the aos sí as remnants of pagan gods and nature spirits. It was believed important to appease the Aos sí an Samhain to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Therefore, people placed offerings of food and drink for the aos sí outside. In addition, parts of the harvest were left in the ground for them.
In addition to the aos sí, the Celts also commemorated their deceased ancestors at Samhain. The onset of winter was perhaps considered the most appropriate time for this, since a time of 'dying' was also dawning in nature. Thus, it was believed that the souls of the dead would revisit their homes to seek hospitality. Places have been set up around the dining table and around the fire to welcome them.
However, the souls of grateful relatives could return to bestow blessings just as easily as those of enraged ones could return to wreak vengeance. The belief that the souls of the dead must return home on a certain night of the year and be placated seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures around the world.
Dress up
Dressing up is a custom believed to have developed in parts of Ireland, Scotland, Mann and Wales in the 16th century. It involved people going from house to house in costume, usually reciting songs or verses in exchange for food. This may have evolved from a tradition in which people embodied the aos sí, or souls of the dead, and received offerings in their name. It is also believed that by mimicking these spirits or souls, the disguised person protected himself from them.
S.V. Peddle suggests that the disguised embody the ancient spirits of winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good luck. McNeill goes on to surmise that the modern custom of costuming arose from this imitation. Some Irish were also in costume when collecting before nightfall for a Samhain festival.
Is Samhain still celebrated today?
Even though Samhain is a traditional Celtic festival, it is still celebrated today in a modified form as Halloween or All Saints' Day. The revelers still dress up, commemorate their ancestors or ring in the Witches' New Year. In various cultures, there is something unearthly about the night and spirits, spiders and beings from the underworld are brought to life, at least in the form of costumes and decorations.
The development of Samhain into the Christian festival of All Saints began with the progressive Christianization from the 7th to the 9th century AD. The goal was to eliminate the old, pagan customs by replacing them with other customs more conducive to the faith of Christianity. This change should be done as cautiously as possible. To ensure this, missionaries adopted or slightly modified a number of elements.
Samhain, Neopaganism and Christianity
Not only neo-pagans celebrate the night of November 1st:Christians also paid a visit to their deceased relatives in the cemetery that night. The early Christian church wanted to honor the saints on this day and put the focus on the baptized members of the congregation. The neo-pagans also attached special importance to the night celebrated in Celtic style:in the now beginning dark season, the past year was reviewed and the old said goodbye to make room for the new. The focus was on mental development and preparing for spring in order to be able to welcome it with full energy.
What do we really know about Samhain today?
The Celtic-Irish mythology was hardly written down at the time, but passed on orally. It is proven that there was a festival. And it may not have been an unimportant festival either, for some prehistoric passage graves in Ireland are aligned to the sunrise around the time of Samhain. Mentions in early Irish literature also confirm this. However, most accounts of Irish mythology come from medieval manuscripts, when the myths were written by monks. To what extent they Christianized their writings can hardly be understood today.
Some confusion is sometimes caused by the fact that many descriptions of Celtic holidays that are declared to be factual stem from neo-pagan developments. Neopagan customs are partly based on the same mythology written down by medieval monks, but elements have also been added to it. In this post we have endeavored to mark the passages that are of neo-pagan origin. If you notice something where this has not been done sufficiently, please contact us. We are always happy when we can expand our knowledge.