THE ORIGINS OF HALLOWEEN

(c) copyright 1989, Rowan Moonstone

In recent years, there have been a number of pamphlets and books put
but 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 non! human 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 people as 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 firstborns; 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

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

*Bord, Janet & Colin, The Secret Country, (London: Paladin
Books,1978)

*Briggs, Katherine, Nine Lives, Cats in Folklore, (London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1980)

*Chadwick, Nora, The Celts, (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin
Books,1982)

*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)

*Danaher, Kevin, The Year in Ireland, (Cork, Ireland: The Mercier
Press, 1972)

*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)

*MacCana, Proinsias, Celtic Mythology, (London: The Hamlyn
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*MacLennan, Malcolm, A pronouncing and Etymological Dictionary of
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*Powell, T.G.E., The Celts, (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1980)

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*Rees, Alwyn and Brinley, Celtic Heritage, Ancient Tradition in
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*Ross, Dr. Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain, (London: Routledge and Kegan
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*Sharkey, John, Celtic Mysteries, (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1975)

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*Squire, Charles, Celtic Myth & Legend, Poetry & Romance, (New
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*Toulson, Shirley, The Winter Solstice, (London: Jill Norman &
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*Wood-Martin, W.G., Traces of the Elder Faiths of Ireland, Vols. I &
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