SAMHAIN

Whilst Hallowe’en itself is a relative young concept, many of its rituals and celebrations stem from the ancient pagan festival of Samhain (pronounced SOW-een) Samhain commences at sundown on 31st October and ends at sunrise on 1st November at which time it is said a coin should be thrown out of the front door of your home and buried where it lands in order to provide for the household in the coming year.

With the incline in secular religion, many of the pagan celebrations were re-invented by the church, although much of the old tradition remains.

Samhain was a mark of the end of the year: a time when animals and crops were gathered in. Animals were slaughtered to provide food for the winter, strong breeders were selected and encouraged to mate in order that new stock would be available for the coming spring and there are many folklore tales relating to the Gods and Goddesses selecting their own mates during the time of darkness between Samhain and Imbolc.

During times when the Church sought to discredit Pagan followers, the slaughter and encouragement to breed were focussed on by way of reflecting a negative side to the traditional religion, leaving the current images of horror, sexual depravity and bloodshed used by film and television to this day to represent Hallowe’en as a time to fear rather than celebrate. Likewise, the iconic hag-like witches, the idea of a black-cat familiar and the presence of bats, spiders and snakes as potion ingredients were all further used to turn people away from the older religions in favour of the new ways.

Whilst Samhain itself is a celebration of the end of the year, many of the early religions did not recognise the start of the next until their own Yule-time festival.This led to the belief that the time between was a period which did not truly exist on the Earthly plane thus was a time for reflection, introspection and casting out your hopes and dreams for the future year in order that they would be fulfilled. It was considered that the spirit world entirely dominated the time between Samhain and Midwinter, so positive interaction with the spirits was encouraged. Such traditions as bobbing for apples, roasting nuts in the fire and baked goods containing a token were all forms of geomancy used by pagans during the festival to foretell what lay ahead in the coming year although nowadays provide little more than simple entertainment.

The connection with the spirit world is a focus of many religions at this time, with a huge number of cultures holding a festival to celebrate their dead. Such traditions as a “Feast of the Dead”, leaving milk and cake or other goodies outside your home to feed the spirits of your loved ones and laying an extra place at the dinner table in order to provide for the unseen guests are all common across the world.

Recognised as the halfway point between summer and winter equinoxes, this is also a magical time, during which it is said that the doors to the Land of Sidhe (the Faery Realm) lay open. This lends in part to the ‘trick’ aspect of the new tradition of trick-or-treat, as the forthcoming sprites would have made themselves known by hiding things, moving things around and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Acknowledging their presence was said to prevent their trickery so by leaving something nice out for them you could be sure they would leave your household alone.

During the ‘Time of No Light’, collections were often held for donations towards the New Year feasts. Those who gave poorly or not at all were cursed by the door-to-door collectors. With the large-scale migration into America during the 1840’s of predominantly Irish people, this tradition spread throughout the USA, although as time passed by and the feasts were no longer relevant, the tradition became an excuse to carry out acts of vandalism. Societies such as the Boy Scout movement called for a change in order to give reward for good behaviour rather than seeing it as an excuse to cause damage and upset, so people were asked instead to give sweets and goodies to those knocking at their doors, leaving us with the current pattern which has spread across the world of children begging throughout their neighbourhood for treats.

How do you celebrate this festival?

I personally have always found the Time of No Light to be the best time of the year with the run-up to the Christmas festival, cleaning and decluttering, feeding my soul and spirit: this is the period of self-indulgent behaviours that leave me feeling enriched before the coming New Year; the time I go within and ask the questions I most need answering… and wait for the response