What's it all about then?

Well first a bit of history....

Of course as much of 'his story' is recorded by men over the centuries for various political, religious and social ends, what follows may not be a totally balanced view, but it's what knowledge we have managed to gain so far.  As the Celts had an oral tradition, much of the first recorded text we have about the Celts was made by the invading Romans and will have been viewed from their cultural and religious belief structure.  Any additional information you have would be gratefully received!

Origins

As with many ancient words Samhuinn has various different spellings, but is pronounced Sow'in.  Samhuinn means the end of summer.  As a celebration it marked the end of harvest, preparation for the on coming Winter and was also the beginning of the Celtic New Year on November 1st.

The festival dates to beyond 2000 years ago and was the traditional festival of New Year's Eve for the Celtic lands pre-invasion by the Romans and subsequently the Roman Catholic Church.  The Celts marked their solar calendar by four festivals, Imbloc (Im'oc), Beltane, Lughnasadh (Luna'sa) and Samhuinn or Samhain (Sow'in).

The other four points in the solar calendar were, Spring Equinox, Autumn Equinox, Summer and Winter Solstice.  Neolithic sites such as Stonehenge act as gigantic solar calendars that marked the solstices and equinoxes and show that solar festivals have been significant dates for thousands of years.   

Honouring of the Dead

When the trees lost their leaves, plants withered and cold, dark winter nights drew in people's thoughts often turned to death. The Celts, believed that on the night before their New Year the boundary between this world and the world of the dead dissolved. The dead returned to earth along with sprites, faeries and the gods of the Otherworld to join with the living. This period would last until the Winter Solstice on December 21st.

This was also a time when lives, especially of the old and infirm would be lost in the cold of winter. However, this was a time when death was not a thing to be feared.  Old age was valued for its wisdom and dying was accepted as a part of life and as necessary and welcome as birth and those that died would merely rest in the Otherworld and then return.  At Samhuinn loved ones who had died were remembered and their spirits often invited to join the living for feasts and celebration.

Spirit and Animal Guides

Some spirits were believed to be up to no good, spoiling crops and the like.  But it wasn't all bad, since the Celts thought that the presence of these spirits helped their shamans, wise women, elders and bards to make predictions about the future by communicating with the spirits.  These forecasts and warnings about the future were an important source of solace during the long, dark winter.

Various animals were seen as important in Celtic mythology and the Raven or Crow was particularly linked to the role of communicator between the world of the dead and that of the living.
Death also symbolises endings, so the passing of relationships, jobs and periods of life can be reflected upon.  These things can now be sanctified and life can move on.

Bonfires to the gods

Huge sacred bonfires where built to celebrate Samhuinn.  The fire represented the sun god that had died to the Winter and would be reborn in Spring.  After dowsing their own hearth, the people came together to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic gods.  During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes - usually animal heads and skins in honour of the animals that gave them sustenance and protection.  Carnon 'The Horned God' appeared, as he did at all the main Celtic Festivals, as the gatekeeper to the spirit-world and was honoured as the creator of the Animal Kingdom by the matriarchal society. 

The word Bonfire dates from 1483 and has its roots as Bone Fire or Bane Fire as a large open air fire used to burn the bones of the dead in celebration.

The Gaulish word carnon or cernon means 'antler' or 'horn'.  This can produce the names Carnonos, 'Deer-Hoofed One' or Cornonos 'Horned One'. The central syllable '-on-' denotes a deity and would have been replaced by '-un-' to provide a Latinised form of the name for inscriptions when the Romans came to record these things. Latin, of course, was the common language of Roman Europe.

Turnips and Pumpkins

After the festival they re-lit the fires in their homes from the sacred bonfire to help protect them, as well as keep them warm during the winter months.  To carry the fire back to their homes turnips or gourds were hollowed out on which they would carve a frightening face to ward off evil spirits that might have crossed, the now, thin divide wishing to cause ill by blowing out the flame.  Irish immigrants to America discovered, as we now have, that pumpkins are a good alternative to the turnip.
Samhuinn heralds in a time of darkness and disorder, but with the symbolic light of the Sun in every hearth the darkness can be endured until Spring brings warmth and light back to the earth.

In march the Romans

The Romans said, 'Do as the Romans Do' and by 43 AD the Roman Empire had conquered most of the Celtic regions with pizza cafés, ice cream vans and straight roads, which of course saved the ice-cream sloshing about.  Oh, and they had some fairly fascist attitudes to those they conquered (but they did soak theirs in vinegar - cheats!)  The Romans of course had their own gods and goddesses, including their equivalent to Carnon in the god Pan.

Celts, Romans and Apples

Over the following 400 years, two Roman festivals became incorporated with Samhuinn. 

The first was Feralia - a day in late October when the Romans also commemorated the passing of the dead, and the second was a day to honour Pomona the Roman goddess of fruit and trees.  An apple is the symbol of Pomona, so perhaps this is the origin of the tradition of bobbing for apples.  Traditionally, whoever bit into an apple first, would marry first the next year.  There was also another form of 'bobbing', which consisted of running a string through the apple, pushing a coin into the centre and tying the apples to a tree.  The one who could bite the coin out of the apple using only their teeth would have prosperity in the coming year. 

The Celts considered the apple tree to be particularly worthy and was seen as such a miraculous tree that Avalon (the land where spirits of the dead dwelled) was thought to have an abundance of apple trees bearing fruit year round. 

Apples also played a major role in divinations on Samhuinn, by peeling an apple with as long a piece of skin as possible you would see how long your life would be.  Well, you'd be certain to get a job in the kitchen of the local tavern anyway!

Catholic Church imposes worship of the 'good' dead.

Christianity via the Roman Catholic Church had spread into Celtic lands by the 800's and in the 8th century Pope Boniface IV designated November 1st All Saints' Day to honour those saints that didn't have a special day of their own.  The celebration on the night before became known as the Eve of All Hallows.  In Old English 'hallow' means to bless, consecrate or sanctify. 

The Pope hoped to replace the old Celtic festival with a church-sponsored holiday and did not want the people to remember and reflect on the dead year and their own dead loved ones but, dead 'Good' people instead.  Which is no bad thing, but in the process it took away the personal and community nature of the ceremony.  Carnon 'the horned god' became demonised as the Devil (along with other Celtic deities) due to his associations with fertility and the reverence of nature, which the new patriarchal religion from the East disallowed in their efforts to convert and control the people to worship the One God.

Church continues the ancient traditions

As time went on these festivals combined and the mass held on All Saints' Day was called All Hallow Mass - the mass of the hallows or blessed.  The night before was known as All Hallows' Eve which eventually became known as Halloween.  Interestingly the church also believed in spirits and the like as All Saints' Day was the day when souls walked the Earth.  In early Christian tradition, souls were released from purgatory on All Hallow's Eve for 48 hours, and cakes and wine were left out for them.
 

Now perhaps as a response to all these souls walking about, three hundred years later, in 1000 AD, the church created All Souls' Day on the 2nd November.  It is an official holiday in the Catholic Church and follows All Saints' Day.  It was created to honour all the faithful dead and is also known as "the day of the dead".  The clergy began to perform requiem masses to assist souls from Purgatory to Heaven.
It was celebrated much like Samhuinn, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils.  Together, the three celebrations, the Eve of All Saints, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day were called Hallowmass.

Halloween Plc

In recent times Halloween has become, like so many things, a commercial enterprise that is aimed at the buying power of children and is dominated by children going round getting bags full of sweets by pretending to scare adults dressed as witches and ghouls. There is no ceremony, Christian or otherwise, and certainly no sense of a joining together as a community to honour and learn from our ancestors and loved ones.  In fact the opposite is true where the dead are seen as something to be feared and rejected and fellow community members are to be scared and targeted with pranks.

Trick or Treat or Prayer?

First off, it's not an American import!  We did it first, they kept it alive and then it came back herein its modern form.

There are several theories on the origin and like many of these things, all may be true. 

One is that the old Irish tradition of going door to door asking for donations of money or food for the New Year's feast, was carried over to the U.S. with the Irish migrations.  Those who gave freely from their hearts were blessed and praised while those who did not had curses invoked upon them. 

So, for 1000's of years and across various cultures this time of year has been a point of celebration.  Of looking back and looking forward, a point of closure on past experiences, of honouring the dead and learning from their wisdom and of looking forward to the future with knowledge gained from the past. 

In our rational worldview, we tend not to believe that such things as spirits and spirit worlds exist or that the link between the two can become 'thin'.  Until we experience something different of course, then we question it, and as we are not sure we push the question aside and say 'I must have imagined it, made it up'.  Frightened of others ridicule we keep our experiences quiet.  But, if we dare to ask our elders who have had more experience and more time to reflect, we might be surprised by the answers they give to our questions. 

And you might just want to spend some time dwelling on the knowledge your ancestors might wish to impart to you.

If you have got this far on the history lesson I hope you have enjoyed it and found it as enlightening as we did doing the research.  If you have any more to add or something to question please send an e-mail via the contacts page.

So what is happening at this Samhuinn thing in Aboyne??