Saints, Souls, Hallows and Samhain

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Samhain (pronounced SAH-win, not Sam Hain) is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, or the “darker half” of the year.

It is celebrated from sunset on the last day of October until sunset on the first day of November. This time was chosen because it is the midpoint between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. If you are wondering if this has some connection to our Halloween, read on.

Along with Imbolc,  Beltane and Lughnasadh it makes up the four Gaelic seasonal festivals. I have written before about Beltane, the ancient Celtic festival meaning “May First.” It was traditionally celebrated with large bonfires to mark spring transitioning to summer.  Cattle were driven through the Beltane bonfires for purification and fertility.

In Modern Irish, the name is Samhain, in Scottish Gaelic Samhainn and in Manx Gaelic Sauin. These are also the names for the month of November in each language, shortened from other forms.

These names all come from the Old Irish samain, samuin or samfuin all of which referred to November first and the festival and royal assembly that was held on that date in medieval Ireland. It seems to have been translated as “summer’s end.”

If you read Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, he says that May 1 and November 1 may not have been important to European farmers, but they were important to herdsmen. The May date would be the beginning of summer and the time when herds could be driven to the upland summer pastures. November 1 would mark the beginning of winter and the time to bring them back. Frazer suggests that this halving of the year comes from the time when the Celts were mainly pastoral people who were dependent on their herds.

In medieval Ireland, Samhain marked the end of the season for trading and a time for tribal gatherings.  It was a time for storytelling and Samhain appears in pre-Christian Irish literature.  Many important events in Irish mythology happen or begin on Samhain.

In the 9th century, the Roman Catholic Church shifted the date of All Saints’ Day to November first, while the next day later became All Souls’ Day. The Church tried to turn many of the “pagan” holidays into something Catholic.

Over time, the last night of October came to be called All Hallows’ Eve (or All Hallows’ Even). Samhain certainly influenced All Hallows’ Eve, and All Hallows’ Eve influenced the celebration of Samhain, and the two eventually morphed into the secular holiday known as Halloween.

Since the late 20th century, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed Samhain, or something based on it, as a religious holiday.

All Hallows Day – a Midpoint

Halloween is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (also known as All Saints’ or Hallowmas) on November 1, and All Souls’ Day on November 2. Halloween, the modern popular cultural holiday, is also called All Hallows’ Eve.

It is not hard to see how this three-day observance of Allhallowtide that was dedicated to remembering the dead was popularized into our modern Halloween. Hallows are saints, martyrs, and all the faithful departed and they are supposed to be remembered now. That is an idea found in almost all religions, though marked in different ways and on different dates.

Many Halloween traditions originated from Celtic harvest festivals which may have pagan roots. Many pagan practices, such as the Gaelic festival Samhain, were appropriated and Christianized as a way to bring pagans into the church.

Samhain is celebrated from sunset on October 31 until sunset on November 1st. That time was chosen because it was the midpoint between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice.

In Ireland, it is known as Samhain and in Scotland as Samhuinn and both translate as “summer’s end.” In Wales, it is Calan Gaeaf meaning “calends of winter.” In Cornwall, it is Allantide.

It marks the end of the green season. It is also a time when bare boughs make it easier to hunt and see your prey.

American Indian Iroquois corn spirit mask

It was a time to appease the shadowy powers with offerings. A sacrificial victim may have once embodied the corn spirit of harvest or with the beating of the grain (threshing). Slaying the corn spirit was in earlier times the slaying of a tree or a vegetation spirit embodied in a tree or in a human or animal victim. American Indians had their own end-of-harvest corn spirit beliefs. It is ironic and gruesome that a human victim may have once been regarded as a “king” much like the mock kings or queens chosen at winter festivals.

With the rise of Christianity, a slain human or animal sacrifice became regarded as wrong and even as an offering to evil powers. Effigies of the corn spirit or even some saints were made but not sacrificed as part of the festival.