Let’s face it, that’s absolutely true. But when it comes to Christian holidays, the precise date doesn’t matter. We don’t know when the historical Jesus was born, and even if we did, it doesn’t matter. Christianity doesn’t get it’s power from nature, but rather from a complicated relationship between an omnipotent deity and his son, who acts as a go between to keep the almighty from once more saying “screw it” and obliterating the human race, if not all of creation as well. When does all this take place? Nobody knows, the Bible doesn’t tell, and it really doesn’t matter. Keeps you on your toes.
Pagan religions on the other hand are an entirely different matter. For example, do you really think that the ancient Brits spent a thousand years or so building and perfecting Stonehenge so that they could isolate the exact moment of the summer solstice, only then to decide “hey! let’s hold the celebration on Monday instead so we can have a three day holiday?”
Of course not. These holidays, as are all pagan holidays, celebrated according to nature’s schedule. Because of this, many pagan cultures throughout time and from around the world quite often developed similar celebrations, held on the same days.
Which brings us to All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween. Or even Hallow’een to be precise in our brevity. It’s generally agreed that Halloween stems from the ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain, which is one of the quarter holidays, meaning it’s celebrated halfway between two other holidays, in this case the fall equinox and the winter solstice.
Is it really necessary that pagans celebrate Samhain on the correct date? To determine that, we need to understand what Halloween, or Samhain all about. According to Wikipedia, which waxes somewhat poetic on this, “Samhain (like Beltane) was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world.”
I don’t consider myself to be an authority on all things pagan, wiccan or any of the ancient mystery cults. But I can’t help but think if you’re looking for a portal to the Otherworld to open, allowing dead souls and fairies to pour through, then timing could be everything.
To believe that such an opening between the worlds even exists, is to believe in magic. The problem I’ve always had with Wicca for example, is that it lacks any ancient pedigree. You’re in essence celebrating a belief system that was developed from dubious sources in the 1950s.
I was browsing the occult and new age section at Barnes and Noble the other day, and found myself thumbing through a paperback version of a Book of Shadows, full of a wide variety of spells. I mean, can you really put a lot of faith in a spell you got out of a paperback? Isn’t that like pulp witchcraft or something? Can you imagine being bewitched from a witch brandishing a book she picked up for $9.99 with free shipping from Amazon?
Like Christians dully mumbling their call and response prayers on Sunday, with about half as much enthusiasm as they put into the Pledge of Allegiance, paganism seems to be lacking in energy, in soul, in short – in magic. And how can it be otherwise, when people reschedule their Samhain rituals for the preceding Saturday night because it’s more convenient for the coven. “I know Auntie Flo wants to come through from the other side, but darn it, Wednesday night the kid has violin lessons and I’ve got to be up and out by 5 a.m. for my spin class. Maybe she can come through on Saturday instead, if I write her a note?”
So yes, the date is important. Which is what totally boggles the mind when it comes to Halloween. It was so obvious, that I feel incredibly stupid that it took me till this week to notice it. Halloween can’t fall on the same day each year, because the equinox and solstice fall on different days each year.
By the time of the first written references to Samhain come into being in the early middle ages, it was already being celebrated on October 31 or November 1. But by this point, the holiday had in some ways at least, been Christianized. At any rate, the date stuck and the Christian All Souls Day Eve and Samhain became contracted into Halloween, with both sides laying claim to most of the traditions associated with the modern holiday. It took a break in the era of the Puritans, who saw the references to Purgatory inherent in the celebration as Popish poppycock. But Halloween came roaring back in the twentieth century, albeit in a tamer, more child-friendly format. Today it’s pretty safe to say, that Halloween as it’s now practiced, is superstition and magic free. And in that, the blame lays equally with the Wiccans and pagans, as it does with the Christians.
There are those who argue that Samhain is actually a practice far older than we know from its earliest accounts, and relate to the days when Ireland was more dependent on the pasturing of animals. It’s been written that the actual time could even be based on the first frost, rather than some celestial event. Which of course widens even more the range of dates in which it could fall. But the fact remains, there has to be a specific time in which that door between the worlds open, and it could very well be that it takes more than a calendar to recognize it.
Others say that Samhain came from “summers end,” but that seems far-fetched as summer in Ireland and the Gaelic countries ends much sooner than October 31. Others say it was a harvest festival, but there are already plenty of those, even closer to the actual time of the harvest. And finally, you have those that say Samhain actually just means a gathering, and if that’s the case, Halloween night is as good as any.
But that means the magic, if any, stems from the gathering of the people, not necessarily with any connection to nature. And that to me, seems to somehow miss the point. What kind of nature worshippers are we if we exclude nature from the party? In that sense, without intervention from this side, the door never opens to the other side, and then there certainly is no reason for Christians to attack Halloween as  a holiday for worshiping devils, pagan gods or even starting down that slippery slope which leads to witchcraft, and eventually orgiastic sex and heroin. Halloween is a mood, a frame of mind, and the modern celebration certainly doesn’t require any more than that – whether your taste is for the macabre or the kitsch. But if it’s Samhain you’re after, then authenticity counts.
great article <3
Thank you so much for this article!
Without the fanfare, I just want to say that I simply feel in my bones when to set an extra plate on the table 🙂
Esther
You made me laugh. Thank you. Good article. 😀
Very entertaining and quite provocative, but I was hoping for your guess as to when the event could occur 🙂 None the less,great article, fabulous site-so glad I found you.
If it were based on the halfway point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, then, the door between worlds would open between November 6 and 7.
This really is a fantastic blog and site. I share a similar aesthetic sensibility and have been to several of the places you show on here. There is, or was, a celestial correspondence of the Pleiades with the Samhain; though, my research had suggested a vestigual pastoral tradition, like you mentioned. Here is an interesting link. I need to read the rest of this page: http://www.idialstars.com/npm.htm
AS a Pagan priestess that has been practicing for over 25 years I felt the need to enlighten you. Solstices, equinoxes and seasonal midways called cross quarters were vital to ancient people for regulating their calendars and knowing when to plant, when to harvest, when to stay, when to move. From the earth on the ecliptic plane, the sun appears to cycle each year past the same, twinkling stars of the Zodiac. Equinoxes and solstices are separated by precise 90 degree angles according to astronomical convention. The cross quarters exactly bisect these and served as Celtic boundaries for each of the four seasons. The Celts named the cross quarters Beltaine, Lughnasad, Samain and Imbolc. This is the way the Wheel of the Year is set up. 0° Vernal Equinox 0° to 45° 45.88 45° Beltaine Cross Quarter. 45° to 90° 46.88 90° Summer Solstice. 90° to 135° 47.13 135° Lughnasad CQ . 135° to 180° 46.51 180° Autumnal Equinox. 180° to 225° 45.38 225° Samhain CQ. 225° to 270° 44.45 270° Winter Solstice. 270° to 315° 44.20
315° Imbolc CQ 315° to 0° 44.82 0° Vernal Equinox.
All that you say is absolutely correct, unless you factor in the human element. As someone who has grown up in and still live in an agricultural community, and having visited several places where the older agricultural traditions carry on in Europe, England and Ireland, one thing you find is that the date which you plant, when you bring in the harvest, move the animals from the highlands back down to shelter, depends as much or more on current weather patterns and crop conditions than fixed dates. And let’s face it, cloud cover in Ireland in October can prevent celestial alignments to determine exact times and dates for days on end, which is the point of the article … it’s not a fixed time, as much as the appropriate time. If conditions weren’t favorable, the harvest wouldn’t be brought in based on a fixed position of the stars, and it would be insulting to those people to believe that they needed to rely on the stars as the primary factor in determining dates.
It would have been helpful if the celts had written down exactly what they did, but we know about the celts from their enemies than from the actual people. Not to mention that what celts in Ireland believed versus celts in Britain, was likely to vary widely. Even in the early days of Christianity, when a lot of people still believed in the traditional gods, there was a great difference in how traditional festival dates were calculated, and communication between those parts of the world was much better then than in the wholly pagan times.
There aren’t enough original sources which use the terms we use today, to say that the names, or any celebrations tied to those names were universally practiced among the celts as a people, so it’s reasonable to assume that fixed dates was the result of the Christianization of pagan celebrations. The church was a lot more hung up on fixed dates than normal people. We celebrate when the time feels right, though I’m still a stickler for October 31 …
Thanks for writing!
Thank you! Can’t help giggling at a Wiccan friend of mine who celebrates Samhaim on October 31st each year IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE (spring/summer) because she follows the Celtic tradition. Paganism/Witchcraft/Wicca are supposed to be belief systems that allow us to think for ourselves… so let’s use that ability! 🙂
Yes, I agree that that’s crazy. I think all people in the southern hemisphere (whether they’re pagan or not), should celebrate Halloween on April 30th! That’s their equivalent. It’d be like if we tried to celebrate it in the northern hemisphere on April 30th; it would feel very strange seeing all the macabre décor in spring.
if its meaning is “gathering” couldnt that mean a gathering of both within the veil and out, there is a time and there is a day that when you you give part of yourself you are given equal in return, many made this mistake in the old times and gave more than they meant to get and in this way im glad this knowledge was forgotten
Samhain does has a specific day, as it’s all to do with the energies and using them at the appropriate time and tide. Since time and tide wait for no man, it IS important to use the right time if you want to use the energies. The term Pagan is all encompassing, and there are many, many different strands both historically and currently.
Samhain is either the Scorpio full moon, which in 2014 is on 6th November or 15 degrees Scorpio which is 8th November.
You are absolutely correct that 31st October is a Christian festival. Two things amuse me about this little known fact. 1) The number of Christians that won’t celebrate it as it promotes evil. 2) The equal number of people who call themselves pagans and enthusiastically celebrate a Christian festival.
You’re kidding, Right? Samhain occurred 15 degrees Scorpio? That astrological system was created by the Greeks from older West-Asian components. The Celts would have had absolutely no idea what Scorpio was. There is no way they would have set a date for one of their holy days based on an Astrological system that they had never heard of.
I particularly like this bit: “It was so obvious, that I feel incredibly stupid that it took me till this week to notice it. Halloween can’t fall on the same day each year, because the equinox and solstice fall on different days each year.”
At least you realised… it took me to see something on facebook and then do a google search !
I agree with you here, I was brought up not necessarily wiccan but definately ‘pagan’ by my family, we didn’t speak out loud about what we did and why. That we thanked the earth for our bounty each year or that we celebrated the dead and loved ones we had lost.
When I was young (in the northern half of the uk and in times of Thatcher) we never celebrated Halloween, we had Bonefire Night instead, that was when we felt the dead near to us, as we built the pyres and set the figures to burn upon them. The scapegoat filled with messages to the dead, or news of the world in old newspapers and letters.
As it burned we sent our wishes to them who were gathered around the greatest light we had and the ashes in the morning were spread on the garden to bring new life to the ground we’d harvested from.
We celebrate this way still, Halloween is a moveable feast the day of the dead moves as the seasons do, but we celebrate between the 5th and the 11th of November, but never on the 31st of October.
“Summer’s end” is the translation of Samhain from Gaelic into English. It makes more sense if you understand that the ancient Celts just recognized two seasons: summer and winter, and Samhain and Beltane were the days that marked the end of one and beginning of the other.
That doesn’t answer whether they celebrated it on the exact midpoint between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice (sun at 15 degrees Scorpio – though of course, Scorpio is a Greek constellation, but they could have just counted 45 days after the equinox) or by the nearest full moon…or your suggestion that it could have been celebrated on the first frost seems an equally valid possibility, especially since it would have been considered the beginning of winter.
I’ve always been that person who does things on the actual alignment. Good thing I don’t mind solitary.
But when is the actual alignment Philisity? I would like to know
Amy, this year I believe it’s November 7th at 18:42 (Eastern US time). As with the solstices and equinoxes, it can change dates each year. However, last year it was the 7th too.
It’s interesting that in the Jewish faith, the 10 days between Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur (a lunar holiday in late summer or early fall, depending on the moon) is a time with the gates of heaven are believed to open so there is a more direct line to heaven. I don’t know if this has anything to do with how the ancient Celts celebrated Samhain, but it seems like it must have influenced Christianity’s take on the whole idea.
I find all of this interesting. I stumbled upon it in search for what would or could be considered to be Halloween repeat date. Anybody have info I would greatly appreciate it.
Introduction to http://www.sacredsites.ie/samhain/Samhain
Samhain is a fire festival, one of the eight Celtic festivals of the wheel of the year, the others being the two Solstices, the two Equinoxes, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasa. There are four quarter festivals, the solstices and the equinoxes and four cross quarter festivals. Samhain is a cross quarter festival, which is halfway between autumn equinox and winter solstice. The way the Celtic calendar works means there is a festival approximately every six weeks.
Samhain originated in Ireland and the date falls astronomically around the 7th of November, although it is now known internationally as Halloween and celebrated on 31st October. It is Celtic New Year and is the time of year when the veil is thinnest between the worlds and it is easiest to contact the dead. Samhain traditionally is a time for remembering and honouring our ancestors that have passed on to the otherworld.
There are a number of Samhain sites in Ireland, the first being Rathcroghan cave in Co. Roscommon, also known as Cruachan or Oweynagcat, the cave of the cats, the entrance to the otherworld from whence the Morrigan is meant to come forth on Samhain night. Caves are liminal, or in between places as are lakes, bogs, mountain tops, dawn and twilight, where it is easier to move between this world and the otherworld, the world of spirit and of the dead.
The Morrigan, the Great Warrior Queen of the Tuatha de Danann, sometimes known as the Queen of Darkness is a triple goddess, appearing as maiden, mother and crone. She is a shape shifter, sometimes appearing as a heifer, a wolf or a raven. She is mentioned as a powerful magic user and warrior of the Tuatha de Danann at both the Battles of Moytura and appeared to Cuchulainn in various guises and shapes before prophesying his death as the washer at the ford and alighting on his shoulder as a raven as he died. She was also said to be the consort of the Dagda, the all father, god of the earth.
Tlachtga, the Hill of Ward, just outside Athboy in Co Meath is also a Samhain site, known as the birthplace of Halloween. It is here that the Samhain fires were lit, and pilgrims would come from all corners of the country, to celebrate the new year, to honour their ancestors that had passed over and to take fire from the sacred Samhain fires of Tlachtga to rekindle the fires they had extinguished in their homes. This tradition is still alive today, with the Samhain Festival being held at Tlachtga on Halloween night, the sacred fire is lit, the story of the Goddess Tlachtga is told and people take the flames of the Samhain fire to the Hill of Tara, fifteen miles away.
Tlachtga, whose name means lightning bolt, was the daughter of Mog Ruith, the druid. Her father and Simon Magus, the magician sent Tlachtga all over the world to collect the magic and knowledge of all the peoples for them. When Tlachtga returned they realised that she had the knowledge and the power, not them and they were jealous of her. She was assaulted by Simon Magus’s sons and she returned to Tlachtga, pregnant and gave birth to three sons on the hill on Samhain night. She named her sons Dorb, Cuma and Muacth and said that as long as their names were remembered Ireland would be free. She died on the hill and all the magical power and knowledge flowed out of her and back into the earth.
The passage tomb known as the Mound of the Hostages or Duma na nGiall at the Hill of Tara is aligned with the Samhain sunrise, with the sunlight hitting the stone at the rear of the passage on Samhain morning and also at Imbolc. The Mound of the Hostages was excavated in the 1950’s by archaeologists from University College Dublin. It is believed to date back to around 3500 bc, with burials continuing over time and the excavations yielded evidence of cremation burials of more than 250 individuals in the main tomb and over 60 individuals in the three cists outside the main tomb. The artefacts discovered included a ceremonial battleaxe; bronze daggers; jewellery and urns.
Some believe that Teia Tephi, the fabled Queen of Tara of the royal line of King David of Jerusalem is buried in a subterranean chamber underneath the mound of the hostages.
For this meditation we shall be visiting the Morrigan in her cave at Rathcroghan, lighting the sacred Samhain fires at Tlachtga to remember and honour our ancestors and carrying the sacred flame to the Hill of Tara where we will watch the Samhain sunrise at the Mound of the Hostages.
This historian (an ACTUAL expert) disagrees with your assumptions. Samhain has nothing at all to do with Halloween, it wasn’t even held in the same time of year, and was established by Germans who had nothing to do with Celtic practices. Also, nobody actually knows how they celebrated Samhain. The idea that it’s in October, or shares any of the same practices as Halloween, is completely made up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/28/guess-what-halloween-is-more-christian-than-pagan/?fbclid=IwAR198qwja2tVXyCixfzqvq9OvYd18rSu3WEY8gIRN6vVdfO9wGMypl5YXaI&utm_term=.ad4086052efc
Okay Mama Jo, let’s see your credentials? You can’t just claim to be an ACTUAL historian and add a link to the Washington Post and be accepted as gospel. That would be like, well accepting folk tradition for the origins of Samhain as gospel. And if you notice, I don’t contradict anything in the Washington Post article you linked. It’s true, Pope B. moved the Christian celebration to the current days before the Irish (or any of the other Gaelic traditions) were written down, and those were based on oral tradition. You seem to argue that since it was only oral tradition, it must be discounted. That completely discounts Ireland’s rich cultural history of oral tradition, and that I fear is wrong. Your argument is based in the concept that since no facts are available, nothing can be surmised, and if that’s the case, history and historians fall flat on their face. Simply because something can’t be proven beyond a doubt, doesn’t mean what can be proven is fact.
The point of the entire article isn’t to say which came first, or precisely how the celebrations were held, but that if there was a celebration which opened the veil between this world and the next, it would be based on something other than a calendar date.
You don’t exactly need to be an ACTUAL historian to realize that, considering the fact that the calendar industry at Barnes and Noble was in its nascent stage in the eighth century, and most of the Gaelic lands didn’t have access to Amazon, the ancients needed other ways of marking time. They looked to the sun, the stars, the weather and nature to determine the dates that were important to them, just as farmers and others in agricultural communities do to this day.
Such great discussions and a well written article! Thanks everyone for sharing.
One thing that cannot be denied, regardless of whether or not you were born in October (which my great-grandmother, mother, and I all were, but that’s another story), October is simply a magical month. October sees the first frost, and when the change in the angle of the sun in the sky becomes obvious. The leaves change to maroon, red, orange, yellow, brown, and sometimes hot pink. It’s no wonder why the opal was assigned as October’s birthstone! The winds blow through the trees, and the leaves fall in droves (October gave a party, the leaves by hundreds came…). This is why Autumn became known as “Fall.” October is when you notice that the northern hemisphere of earth is beginning its dormancy. The air feels crisp, the critters feast to fatten up, the last caterpillars spin their cocoons. Forget Christianity’s un-originality and penchant to attempt an erase of the past by changing names, dates, and the meanings of words. If for no other reason, an October 31 celebration is a celebration of the passing of October, a month which deserves a celebration.
So, viva la “Hallowe’en;” as I light my bonfire, absorbing its warmth on a cold night and dance around it to thank Earth for yet another bountiful harvest, farewell magical October, see you next year.