How Halloween Traditions Are Rooted in the Ancient Pagan Festival of Samhain (2024)
Dressing up in costumes and trick-or-treating are popular Halloween activities, but few probably associate these lighthearted fall traditions with their origins in Samhain, a three-day ancient Celtic pagan festival.
For the Celts, who lived during the Iron Age in what is now Ireland, Scotland, the U.K. and other parts of Northern Europe, Samhain (meaning literally, in modern Irish, “summer’s end”) marked the end of summer and kicked off the Celtic new year. Ushering in a new year signaled a time of both death and rebirth, something that was doubly symbolic because it coincided with the end of a bountiful harvest season and the beginning of a cold and dark winter season that would present plenty of challenges.
According to historian Nicholas Rogers, author of Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night, Samhain was a “time of stock-taking and perhaps sacrifice” — including probably animal sacrifice — during which “pastoral communities [prepared] to survive the winter.”
Rogers also notes that little is firmly known about the particulars of the holiday, since the limited sources available are either folkloric literature like the Celtic sagas and Roman authors who would have likely “trashed” the traditions of a culture with which they were often in conflict.
To understand what we do know about Samhain, it’s important to recognize how the structure of the year’s calendar affected the Celts’ religious practices. According to The Guardian, much of modern pagan practice is based on the wheel of the year, a major determining factor in Celtic worship. The Celtic year was divided into two halves — light and dark, which were delineated by two of their four annual fire festivals. In between, rituals or ceremonies were celebrated marking solstices (when night is either the shortest or longest) or equinoxes (when day and night are equal). Samhain, the fire festival that marked the beginning of the dark half of the year, is situated between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.
Encyclopedia Britannica notes that, during this festival, the world of the gods “was believed to be made visible to humankind,” leading to supernatural tricks and trouble; ghosts of the dead and spirits from the Otherworld were also thought to return to the earth during Samhain. To appease deities during this time, sacrifices (generally of crops and animals) were burned in bonfires as a protective measure from from evil otherworldly beings and offerings were left out for other visiting mischievous spirits. Tricks and pranks were often played, but blamed on fairies and spirits during the three-day period when the line between the two worlds blurred.
The spiritual undertones of the Samhain festival also lent themselves to looking to the future, an activity quite apropos to the start of the Celtic new year; History.com notes that Druids, or Celtic priests, thought that “the presence of otherworldly spirits made it easier…to make predictions about the future.” At the bonfires of the festival, fortune-telling was done alongside sacrifices, and many participants also donned costumes, often masquerading as animals or beasts, in hopes of fooling spirits who might want to harm them.
The practices of this fire festival evolved over time — most notably with the spread of Christianity and the Catholic church, by 43 A.D., following Rome conquering most of the Celtic lands. In Jack Santino’s Halloween in America: Contemporary Customs and Performances, he explains how, during this time, many of Celtic traditions were reframed with a Christian narrative in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the pagan practices while spreading the new religion. That reframing created many of the Halloween traditions that people still participate in today.
It was May 13 in the year 609 that Pope Boniface IV declared a celebration called All Saints’ Day, also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas in Middle English; the day before it was thus known as All-hallows’ Eve, as History.com explains. The festival was a day to honor Christian martyrs and saints. Later, in the mid-eighth century, Pope Gregory III strategically moved the celebration to November 1, coinciding with the time Samhain would have typically been held. The homage paid to martyrs and saints who passed closely paralleled the appeasem*nt of ghosts of the dead during Samhain. The church’s capitalization on Samhain traditions didn’t end there, however; participants in the new version of the holiday celebrated in much the same manner as their Celtic forebears had — with bonfires and costumes that reflected the spiritual and otherworldly. The offerings of food and goods to protect themselves from spirits and ancestral ghosts became offerings of food and drink to the poor, displays of generosity and goodwill. And the tricks and pranks attributed to otherworldly and evil spirits manifested themselves in the spirit of the saints.
Eventually, All-hallows’ Eve evolved into Halloween, becoming more popular in secular culture than All Saints’ Day. The pagan-turned-Christian practices of dressing up in costume, playing pranks and handing out offerings have evolved into popular traditions even for those who may not believe in otherworldly spirits or saints. However, whether Halloween celebrants know it or not, they’re following the legacy of the ancient Celts who, with the festival of Samhain, celebrated the inevitability of death and rebirth.
The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints
all saints
All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, the Feast of All Saints, the Feast of All Hallows, the Solemnity of All Saints, and Hallowmas, is a Christian solemnity celebrated in honour of all the saints of the Church, whether they are known or unknown.
In Celtic Ireland about 2,000 years ago, Samhain was the division of the year between the lighter half (summer) and the darker half (winter). At Samhain the division between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest, allowing spirits to pass through.
Yet, the Halloween holiday has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”), a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.
Bonfires and feasting played a large part of the festivities. Food was prepared for both the living and the dead, bones of slaughtered cattle were cast into the communal fires, and household fires were left to burn out only to be reignited by the communal bonfire again.
Trick-or-treating is said to have been derived from ancient Irish and Scottish practices in the nights leading up to Samhain. In Ireland, mumming was the practice of putting on costumes, going door-to-door and singing songs to the dead. Cakes were given as payment.
Samhain marked the Celtic New Year, the end of summer, and the end of the harvest season. It also signaled the beginning of winter, which they associated with death. On this day, the Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead was especially thin. This allowed spirits of the dead to visit the living.
Halloween's origins can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, which was held on November 1 in contemporary calendars. It was believed that on that day, the souls of the dead returned to their homes, so people dressed in costumes and lit bonfires to ward off spirits.
Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.
Historians have linked Halloween to Samhain, the Celtic festival of the summer's end celebrated in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man. According to Celtic mythology, the veil between the Otherworld and our world thins during Samhain, making it easier for spirits and the souls of the dead to return.
Halloween may be a secular affair today, dominated by candy, costumes and trick-or-treating, but the holiday is rooted in an annual Celtic pagan festival called Samhain (pronounced "SAH- wane") that was then appropriated by the early Catholic Church some 1,200 years ago.
Samhain. Samhain, the Halloween Lord, is essentially the Spirit of Halloween and has even been said by some to be a personification of the holiday itself. It is also the name of an ancient pagan Celtic festival which was named after him.
Every year, usually starting around September, people start making noises about “Samhain, the Celtic god of death,” despite the fact that Samhain is not a death deity at all, but the name of a Pagan holiday that coincides with Halloween and is a great time of year to stock up on candy corn.
People often think that the Celtic Festival of Samhain and Halloween are the same thing. Even though they have many similarities there is one major difference. Samhain is a pagan festival whereas Halloween seems to have come from Christian history.
During Samhain events the Druids would build huge bonfires, these were seen as sacred because parts of the crops and other items would be offered up as sacrifices to their Celtic deities. This was done in hope of having a good winter, one where no lives would be lost and there would be enough food for all.
According to Doyle, the Church incorporated the traditions of Samhain into the Christian holidays of All Saints Day on November 1 and All Souls Day on November 2. These two days honored the saints and the souls of those who have passed away. Samhain was set on the night before these holy days.
According to the Druidic tradition, these souls of the dead roamed the city on Halloween night and returned to haunt the homes where they once lived. The only way current occupants of the house could free themselves from being haunted was to lay food and give shelter to the spirits during the night.
The All Saints' Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago, mostly in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1.
Samhain is the Witches' New Year and the time of the Crone. Hekate is a crone goddess, one of the Triple Goddesses (Maiden, Mother and Crone.) She is the elder wise one who is relied on for her knowledge, wisdom and healing.
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