The belief that the ancient festival of Samhain heralded the ‘Celtic New Year’ is a modern one and not founded on any historical evidence. It was the Celtic scholar Sir John Rhys (1840-1915) who after reading contemporary Irish and Welsh folklore came to the conclusion that there was an underlying theme of ‘new beginnings’ running through many of the tales associated with this time of year. He even went as far as to rewrite passages from old Irish texts such as the Sanas Cormaic to support his theory. Sir James Frazer, a Scottish folklorist (1854-1941) took this one step further and claimed that Samhain must have been a pagan festival of the dead because the Roman Catholic festivals of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day had obviously replaced a much older pre-Christian celebration. Later, Frazer admitted that there was no evidence to support this claim.
In the mid 300s, Christians living in southern Europe held a feast day on 13th May to honour Christian martyrs. The Syrian Church had its feast day for martyrs during the week of Easter and the Greek Church had theirs on the Sunday after Pentecost. On 13th May in the year 609 or 610, pope Boniface IV formally dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the Christian martyrs. One hundred and thirty years later, pope Gregory III dedicated a chapel in the Old St Peter’s Basilica in Rome to the apostles, saints and martyrs of the Church. Some say this was done on 1st November 731, while others believe it was 12th April 732. During the early years of the Church there was no universal date for honouring the holy dead that would have pointed to the replacement of an earlier pagan observance. Even in Medieval Ireland it was on a different day which was 20th of April. There was, however, a Roman pagan festival called Lemuria that was observed on 9th, 11th and 13th of May to appease the spirits of the dead at a time when they were believed to haunt people’s homes.
It was not until the 800s, more than two hundred years after England had begun converting to Christianity that some parts of the country as well as Germany were celebrating an All Saints Day on the 1st November. No one knows why the English and German Catholic Churches decided on this date.
Monasteries in continental Europe began holding masses dedicated to the faithfully departed. In the 6th century, Benedictine monks chose Whitsuntide to do this and in 7th century Spain it was the Monday after Pentecost. In some parts of Germany, it was 17th December and in 10th century Saxony it was 1st October. In 998, Odilo, an influential Abbot of Cluny in France, decided that he wanted a mass to be said for all Christian souls at his monastery and chose the month of February. Eventually, 2nd November was chosen, the day following All Saints. November became a time of assisting the dead to reach heaven by praying and making offerings. With a growing emphasis on the doctrine of purgatory (the final and painful purification of the soul from sin) people grew preoccupied with the fate of the dead, especially now that winter was here with its daily reminder of death and decay. Superstitions and myths of supernatural beings, fairies, the human dead and other spooky creatures grew out of this thanks to Medieval folklore being captured on parchment by monks. This time of year became all about spooky creatures, the otherworld and the walking dead.
To understand what the pre-Christian festival of Samhain actually was and where it was positioned within the Celtic year we first need to look at how the Celts measured time. The oldest Celtic calendar was discovered buried in a French vineyard in 1897 in the town of Coligny. This highly complex system is believed to have been the work of Druid astronomers and mathematicians wanting to safeguard their festivals and customs at the time when the Julian Calendar was being introduced by the Romans. The Coligny Calendar, as it is known, has been dated to around the first century AD and covers a period of five years (we know that the Continental Celts held sacrifices every five years). The Druids followed a thirty two year lunisolar calendar made up of five cycles of sixty two lunations and one cycle of sixty one lunations. The Celtic year was also split up into two halves; the winter half beginning with the lunar month of Samonios in October/November and the summer half beginning in April/May time with the lunar month of Giamonios. Curiously, the Old Irish Celtic festivals of Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh are not featured on the Coligny Calendar. The old Celtic festivals did not take place on fixed dates as they do today with our solar calendar. Historically, the festival of Lughnasadh for example lasted a full lunar cycle beginning in July, two weeks before the full moon of August and ending two weeks after the full moon. This ancient way of timekeeping is reflected in the Irish language, for example Bealtaine is the name that we give to the Irish festival that takes place on 1st May, but it is also the Irish word for the month of May. And lastly, Pliny the Elder (23/24 AD-79 AD) a Roman author, naturalist, philosopher and commander wrote in his Natural History (Book 16) that the Celtic peoples began their months on the fifth day of the moon (Germanic peoples began their months on the full moon). If you want a deeper dive into the historical Celtic Calendar then please read my article titled ‘The Celtic Wheel of the Year’ where I go into much more detail.
Samhradh in Irish means summer. The actual wording of Samhain on the Coligny Calendar is ‘Trinoxtion Samonii’ believed to mean the ‘three nights of the end of summer’. However, there is still an ongoing debate among scholars whether Samhain really does translate to ‘summer’s end’. Peter Berresford Ellis is in the camp of thinkers that believe that the calendar has been translated ‘back to front’. In his book ‘The Ancient World of the Celts’, Berresford Ellis writes that the old Irish name for November was Gam and that today November has been erroneously renamed Samhain. He believes that this name has nothing to do with the word sam meaning summer. He continues,
‘It is by misunderstanding and misuse that this name was extended to the whole month of November and thus confused people as to why a dark month should bear the element of the name of summer in it. To get round this one observer has suggested that Samhain must mean ‘end of summer’. A good try. However, in thinking that Samon was the name for November another error was perpetuated by unwary commentators on the Coligny Calendar when they placed Giamon (winter) as the May month. The May month was clearly called in old Ireland Cet-Samhin, the first of the summer period. Cet-Gamred was November, the first of the winter months or black period, and it is still so called in Scottish Gaelic. So, in the Coligny Calendar, we have a black half of the year and a light half of the year and in between the two halves is the Gaulish Celtic word atenvix, which translates as ‘renewal’, as in the old Irish word athnugud’.
As for the ‘three nights of Samhain’, we do have written sources such as the Icelandic Sagas that mention pre-Christian peoples celebrating important feasts that lasted for three nights around the full moon; Yule and Winter Nights being two examples we have from northern Europe. We can confidently say that Samhain was a time of tribal assemblies where the high kings of Ireland gathered their people. In the 12th century Irish myth the ‘Serglige Con Culainn’ (The Sick-Bed of CuChulainn) it states that the feast of the Ulaid (Ulstermen) lasted the ‘three days before Samhain and the three days after Samhain including Samhain itself. They would gather at Mag Muirthemni and during these seven days there were gatherings, games, music and feasting. None of these Irish texts share any religious observances. It was a time of rest and gratitude after a summer of warfare, raiding, harvesting and trading. In Ireland, black sheep were sacrificed.
Bonfires associated with this time of year originally got their name from the ‘bone’ fires of slaughtered cattle during the Neolithic when farmers smoked or salted the meat for their winter stores. The causewayed camp that once stood on Windmill Hill in Wiltshire, England, is one of the ancient sites where these fires burned, a place much older than Avebury Stone Circle which still stands nearby today. Bonfires were also used to purify the air and appease the gods or malevolent spirits.
The old Irish festivals of Imbolc, Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Samhain are known today as fire festivals due to the nature of the fire rituals that took place for the purposes of cleansing and protecting the folk and their crops, livestock and homes. These festivals marked the four points of the pastoral and agricultural year with Samhain and Bealtaine being the most important because they were the gateways that divided the year into its two halves of summer and winter. The practice of transhumance demonstrates this beautifully. No matter the weather, the cattle had to be herded to the sheilings (buaile in Irish) at Bealtaine along with the horses, sheep and goats. The season of fresh grass had begun and the animals that had been stall-fed throughout the winter were ready to be turned out onto summer pastures in the mountains and moorlands. Everyone went together in mass, carrying what they needed for repairing the huts that would be home for the farmers and their families for the next six months, as well as bedding and food for them to live comfortably during this time. Prayers were said to St Brigid, St Michael and the Virgin Mary for a successful summer as well as for protection because it was also a dangerous time of warfare and cattle raids. When Samhain arrived with the promise of winter, the animals were herded back to the farmsteads and either slaughtered (there would not be enough fodder to feed all of the animals throughout the winter) sold or kept for the following year’s breeding.
In Gleann na Chailliche (Glen of the Cailleach) in Perthshire, Scotland, there is an abandoned stone hut called the House of the Old Man (Tigh nam Bodach). Each year at Bealtaine, the local folk would remove the three human-like stones inside and leave them out until Samhain when they were taken back inside again. This family of stones; the old man, the old woman and their daughter are believed to be ancient deities or land spirits that were once believed to protect the cattle as they grazed on the mountain side.
Samhain is mentioned in many Irish myths from the 10th century onwards, five hundred years after people had converted to Christianity. The myth of the Cath Maige Turied, an epic battle between the Tuatha de Danann and the Formorians takes place around Samhain. The triple killing of legendary kings, by wounding, burning and drowning happens at Samhain, which paved the way for a new king in the spring. The tale of the Tain Bo Cuiligne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley) happens at Samhain with the ritual coming together of the Irish god the Dagda and the Morrigan. In the tale of the Dream of Oenghus, Caer, who is under a shapeshifting spell, transforms into a swan every other year at Samhain and Oenghus turns himself into a swan at Samhain so that he can be with her. Buried passage tombs, dolmens, stone cairns and cashels (ring forts that are surrounded by a circular stone wall which over time take the shape of a mound) became portals to the Otherworld at Samhain.
In the Middle Ages, the Irish who settled in the Scottish Highlands and Islands took the name of Samhain with them. The Welsh called it Calan Gaeaf, the first day of winter and night before was known as Nos Galan Gaea, winter’s eve. In early Medieval Welsh literature there is no mention of any significance of this date unlike May Eve. There are no Medieval manuscripts that mention there being an ancient Celtic festival or religious observance on the 1st of November.
The Christian feast of the dead became known as Hallowtide, Hollantide or Allantide. In the Middle Ages there were candle and torch processions along with the ringing of church bells to comfort the souls in purgatory. Being on 1st of November, the saints could intercede for them too. In the Middle Ages, monarchs would dress in purple and their attendants in black, the colours of mourning. Church bells rang out from the end of the mass’ liturgy to midnight, but the Elizabethan Reformation silenced them in 1559. People refused to obey the new laws because they feared for the wellbeing of their ancestors and continued ringing the bells at night when darkness could hide their identity. Parishioners even threatened clergy to keep the bells ringing. Despite prosecutions being carried out, church bells were heard at All Hallows for the next thirty years.
Folklore is not a reliable source to learn about pre-Christian beliefs and religious practices. These Medieval tales of Samhain were written down by Christians, centuries after conversion. Traditions only survive in their original form for two to three generations before they either morph into something else or die out completely due to the changing needs and beliefs of the current times. It is important to remind ourselves that we cannot project a Medieval Christian worldview onto a pre-Christian past and assume that these tales and superstitions were relics of a much older religion or practice.
Wishing you a blessed All Hallows.
Brightest blessings,
Elissa
The winner of my Halloween giveaway is fairytalesfolkloreandfantasy on Instagram (give her a follow if you love folklore, fantasy and fairy tale books). I would like to say a big thank you to all of you who entered. Your feedback was extremely helpful.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stations of the Sun by Ronald Hutton (2001)
The Celtic Tradition by Caitlin Matthews (1995)
Druids by Anne Ross {1999)
The Druids By Miranda Green (2005)
Celtic Goddesses by Miranda Green (1995)
Celtic Myths by Miranda Green (1993)
Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend by Miranda Green (1997)
Celts and Germans: The Early Literary Evidence by V.S. White (2009)
The Ancient World of the Celts by Peter Berresford Ellis (1998)
The Celtic Year by Shirley Toulson (1997)
The Celtic Calendar by Brian Day (2003)
I haven't even gotten past the first paragraph but wanted to immediately go comment to say THANK YOU for bringing up Rhys and Frazer!! Their flawed research and theories have been so influential in modern thought that their ideas are now just accepted as canon, which is just so misleading.
This is all so rich and interesting! I’m very excited for November 1st now!