History of Samhain
Propitiation (compensation) in the old days when survival was felt to depend on it was a grim and serious affair. Most anthropologists agree that because this was a very serious and grave time for all, and ritual sacrifices may have taken place. The propitiation might be the killing of a selected criminal or an aging king. In addition to economic uncertainty was added the sense of otherworldly eeriness, for at the turn of the year...the old dying, the new still unborn...the Veil between the worlds was very thin. The doors of the sidhe (shee- faery) mounds opened, and on this night neither human nor faerie needed any magickal password to come and go. Samhain was also most likely a time of divination and communion with the dead, but it was also an uninhibited feast of eating, drinking and the defiant affirmation of life and fertility in the very face of the closing dark.
It was believed the spirits of dead friends sought the warmth of the Samhain fire and communion with their living kin. This was ‘Feile na marbh’ (pronounced fayluh nuh morv) the Feast of the Dead, and also ‘Feile Moingfhinne’ (fayluh mong-innuh), the Feast of the White-Haired One, the Snow Goddess. “It was a partial return to primordial chaos ... the dissolution of time”, as Proinsias mac Cana says in Celtic Mythology.
In
Norse mythology, kings and heroes are often trapped in burning houses. Folklore
tells that these fires were burning because of the ‘wiles’ of supernatural
women. In “Lebor Gabala Erenn”, Part V, note the following Old Irish
translation; “Now the death of
Muirchetach was in this manner; he was drowned in a vat of wine, after being
burned on Samhain night on the summit of Cletech over the Boyne whence St.
Cairnech said:
about
whom, many blasts shall play
for
the man who shall be burnt in fire
on the side of Cletch wine shall
drown him.”
“Frazer, in the “Golden Bough” (pp. 831-33), describes several Scottish, Welsh and Manx survivals, and it is very interesting that in these and corresponding Beltaine fire customs which he records (pp.808-14), there are many traces of the choosing of a sacrificial victim by lot...sometimes through the distributing of pieces of a newly baked cake. In Wales, once the last spark of the Halloween fire was extinguished, everyone would “suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices” The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!” (Frazer might have added that in Welsh mythology, the sow represents the Goddess Cerridwen in her dark aspect.) All these ‘victim-choosing’ rituals long ago mellowed into a mere romp, but Frazer had no doubt of their original grim purpose. Once a deadly serious ritual at the great tribal fire, had become a party game at the family ones.”
Starhawk, in “The Spiral Dance” disagrees with anthropologist, Frazer. She writes that archaeological evidence does not support this picture of Goddess worship as bloody and barbaric. On p. 31, she names many of the Paleolithic sites associated with Goddess figures and Goddess Shrines. In none, she writes, are there any provisions for human-sacrifice, or for animal sacrifice, no altars, no pits for blood, and no caches of bones.
She does write where ‘human sacrifice’ is most clearly evident, for example, in the Royal Tombs of the Sumerian City of Ur, where entire courts followed the king into death — it is associated with cultures that have already made the shift to patriarchy. Starhawk goes on to say, and I quote; “Reconstructing culture from buried bones and artifacts is, of course difficult; reconstruction from surviving folk customs, which Frazer often attempts, is just as liable to error. If peasants burn corn dollies in the harvest fire, it does not necessarily follow that they once burned living men.”
In “Eight Sabbats for Witches” the Farrars write of some of the ancient survivals of Samhain in the British Isles. The ‘pooka.’ (today’s Halloween ghosts and goblins). made its appearance at Samhain. It was a frightening creature — a hobgoblin. The pooka delighted in tormenting humans and contaminating everything that remained ‘unreaped’. Therefore the people abandoned anything they hadn’t harvested, so as not to come in contact with it. Often the pooka disguised itself as an ugly black horse.
In Ireland, bonfire and fireworks night is still Halloween, and some of the unconscious survivals are remarkable. The Farrars write “When we lived at Ferns in Country Wexford, many children who ambushed us at Halloween hoping for apples, nuts or “money for the King, money for the Queen” included one who was masked as the ‘Man in Black’. He would challenge us with...”Do you know me?” to which we had to reply... “I know who you are; you are the Man in Black.” Farrar believes evidence in the witchcrafte trials revealed ‘the Man in Black’ was the ‘coven’s High Priest, whose anonymity had to be stubbornly protected.
In Scotland and Wales individual family Samhain fires were once lit. They were called Samhnagan in Scotland, and Coel Coeth in Wales. They were built for days ahead on the highest ground, near to the house. This was a still thriving custom in some districts not too long ago, though by then it had become (like England’s bonfire night) mostly a children’s celebration. The habit of Halloween fires survived in the Isle of Man, too.”
In England, ‘Guy Fawkes’ Night’ now replaces the old Samhain bonfire. The ancient propitiatory sacrifice has become symbolic. The original meaning and rationale are probably lost. The burned Guy, a failed assassinate of a sacred king, is in a sense the King’s substitute. The ending of the custom of actual royal sacrifice is perhaps commemorated in the legend of the destruction of Aillen mac Midgna, of the Fiannachad sidhe, (faerie peoples) who is said to have burned royal Tara every Samhain, until Fionn mac Cumhal finally slew him. Finn is sort of the Irish equivalent of the English, Robin Hood.
In Craft Festivals today, what ancient elements should be retained? Farrare rejects propitiation, as it reduces the gods to human levels of pettiness. (Yet are not the gods fashioned in our own archtypical images?) Farrar believes “such beliefs belong to a very primitive stage of the Old Religion” (whatever that may have been), “but”, he continues, “the communion with the dead, the affirmation of life, divinations, feasting and humor should be affirmed. They are all in accord with Samhain and point in the year’s natural, human and psychic rhythms.”
So tenacious was the people’s devotion to the great festival of Samhain, that the Christian Church found it could not eradicate the time-honored event. They changed their All-Saints Day from May 13th to November 1st to coincide with the pagan festival during the 8th century. Roman Catholics celebrate All-Souls Day on November 2nd by offering prayers for souls of the dead. All Hallows or Halloween, went crackling right along as a very popular event and continued to hold its pre-Christian sway over the minds and emotions of the people.
Gradually losing its most serious and sacred connotations, Halloween became a spooky or fun time. But for others, who tried to keep the ways of ancient Celtic pagans, the night of Halloween remained one of the great festivals of the year. The perceptive eye can still see remains of the sacred nature of the holiday today.
Witches - Probably surviving relic of the ancient pooka or evil spirits which hung around at such times. Or possibly, a vestige of the faery woman Sin, as described earlier in this paper. Practitioners of Wicca believe that witches at Halloween are symbolic of Hecate, the Crone aspect of the Great Mother.
Brooms - Are traditionally associated with witches. It is believed by Wiccans that women had an incomparably more important place in the ancient pagan religions than in Christianity. The broom was a probably a symbol of the female’s domesticity. In earlier times it was customary for women to put there household broom up the chimney as a sign to neighbors and callers that she was away from the house. From there, it was an easy step to assume that witches, who purportedly could fly, would use their most common tool and soar up the chimney on it! Another theory holds that the association between witches and brooms goes back to ancient times when pagans performed fertility rites to get their crops to grow high. The mounted brooms, poles and pitchforks and rode them like hobbyhorses in the fields dancing and leaping high in the air. Accused witches on trial said they were able to fly thanks to magickal ointments they rubbed on themselves or their brooms. Brooms were probably also a symbol used in ancient fertility dances. It represents the life essence and raised consciousness.
Black Cats - Are associated with witches as their ‘familiars’ or ‘guides’. In the Old Religion, cats were considered to be very magickal and were held to be sacred. They represented the idea of immortality and were guides for souls entering the Underworld or the Summerland. During the Dark Ages most of the cats population was destroyed — burned alive as demons. Besides being horribly inhumane, it was a terrible blunder for it took away the common controllers of rats. Rat fleas, which carried the Black Plague were no longer hunted by the cat population and much of Europe died from the disease. The most common ancient culture associated with a cat is Egyptian, who honored the Cat Goddess, Bast.
Ghosts - Refer to the dead who could be summoned on All-Hallows. They are souls between incarnations.
Jack-o-Lantern - These were not originally pumpkins, which were not known until the discovery of the New World, but rather any old world vegetable that could be hollowed out, so a candle could be set inside, (i.e. turnips and gourds). Before there were glass jars for candles, such vegetable lamps were a practical method of protecting a flame from the wind and lighting one’s way.
Old Jack - The original version was Celtic, and told of a Goddess who refused to convert to Christianity. Later versions dealt with a man, always pagan, who refused to enter either heaven or hell and travels the worlds seeking a more perfect realm.
Orange and Black - Traditional colors of Halloween suggest the flames of the sacred fires against the night; also the light and dark symbolism of life and death. Orange represents life and emotion; black represents change and potential.
Trick or Treat - Goes back to the ancient custom of sharing food with the dead. Food and drink would be set out for the souls at Hallows time. A relic of this ritual remained with us here in this country until the early 1900’s wherein families would pack a picnic lunch and spend the entire afternoon at the graveside of their loved ones.
Bobbing for Apples - A custom handed down to us from Scotland. Apples were always considered sacred to the pagan Goddess. They were used for both fun and divination at Hallowstime.
In conclusion, after summing up all of the myths, folklore and customs, we may thus deduce that Samhain is the time of death; but on the other hand it is also the time of conception and rebirth! Thus, as in the opening myth of this ritual, Death becomes the seed of his own rebirth! And Yule which follows close on the heels of Samhain, becomes the subsequent birth of life/light, which is also when the Sun begins to wax again. The theme of birth and death followed by rebirth is the theme underlying all pagan Sabbat Festivals, but perhaps never so seriously and movingly as it does at Samhain.
