Samhain – Halloween…the veils lift

ElizabethCarefoot.com painting

Most people don’t realize that Halloween has its origins in Scotland. Many of the customs were brought over with emigrants to the New World. It dates back more than two thousand years to the Celtic Samhain (summer’s end) festival which began at sunset. Celtic belief worked with cycles and circles found in nature. They believed in half a year of darkness and half a year of light. And time measurement was in nights instead of days.

Since this festival is during the season that marks the beginning of the darkest part of the year, many consider it the Celtic New Year celebration. Bonfires played an important role. People would extinguish their hearth fires and re-light them with embers of the bonfires. Also there was guising where people wore costumes and masks to disguise themselves and enact stories about the cycles of life and death relating to the harvest of crops and raising of domestic animals.

It was a time where “the veils were thin”- a transitional time to communicate with dead loved ones and the ancestors. It was a time of divination for seeds of ideas to let gestate during the long winter.

The spirits from the other-world were welcomed with food and drink placed on the windows and doors of their homes left open for the dead to enter. Images were carved out of turnips were also placed in windows to repel any evil spirits. In North America these Scottish turnip lanterns became pumpkin carving.

Other traditions involve apples – the autumn fruit. Dooking for apples relates to apple bobbing. Peeling an apple in a long peel then throwing the peel over your shoulder. If it formed a letter, it was said that it would be the initial of a future spouse.

On a personal note, Halloween (October 31) was a favorite holiday when I was young. A few of my recent posts have been from Wyoming where my family lived when I was young. In Casper people love Halloween and many adults dress up and go to work for several days surrounding the holiday. Many decorate their yards and homes more than Christmas. In some areas of town people run out of treats (sometimes more than 250 kids per night) and have to turn off their lights. It was fun, and in those days a safe community event.

Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhuit – Happy New Year