10/28/2009 5:12 PM
Posted by Whitetigress
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The modern celebration of All Hallow's Eve or Halloween
derives directly from the ancient Celtic rite of Samhain (pronounced "Sow-in"
in Ireland, "Sav-in" in Scotland, and "Sow-een" in Wales). In Wales, the
festival is also known as "Hollantide" or "Calan Gaeaf;" in Cornwall, it is
called "Allantide" and often referred to as the "apple time;" and in Brittany,
its name is "Kala-Goañv." The old spelling for Samhain is "Samfhuin," from
the Old Celtic Samani ("summer") the Old Celtic fuin ("end"). Thus, the word
Samhain means "Summer's End." It is not, as is often erroneously stated, the
name of a Celtic god of death, nor connected to the Aryan god Samana.
The
ancient Celtic Coligny Calendar, which dates from between the first century
B.C. and the first century A.D., records Samhain as Samonios. The Celts
divided the year into halves: summer (from Béltene --- May 1st --- to sundown
on October 31st) and winter (from Samhain --- November 1st --- to sundown on
April 30th) The Coligny Calendar also explains that to the Celts, darkness
precedes light. Thus, Samhain, which came at the official death of summer and
birth of winter, was the Celtic New Year's Day and the most important of the
Celts' four major annual celebrations or great "Fire Festivals." It was also
the last harvest of the year and the time when preparations for the long,
dark, cold months of winter were undertaken.
Unlike our modern
linear concept of it, the Celts viewed Time as an ever-turning wheel, with New
Year's Eve being a point beyond that wheel, when the natural order of the
universe reverted to its primordial chaos, thence to establish a new world
order. Thus, Oidche Shamhna ("Samhain Eve") was a night when Time hung
suspended, when the gates between this world and the Otherworld and Underworld
stood open wide, allowing faeries and the souls of the dead to pass freely
into the realm of mortals, and mortals themselves to glimpse what lies beyond
the mists or veil and the grave. There is a good deal of confusion with regard
to the Otherworld and Underworld of Celtic mythology, and they are often
mistakenly equated with the Christian Heaven and Hell. In reality, however,
the Otherworld, frequently referred to as the "Isle of Apples," was a paradise
of faeries and youths who never aged --- a Never-Never Land; while the
Underworld was a place of the Wild Hunt, of the dead --- predominantly of
warriors slain in battle --- and of the hounds who guarded them.
Julius
Caesar reports that on Samhain, the Celts worshiped Dis Pater (the Roman god
of the Underworld and Death, associated with Pluto and with the Greek Hades).
The equivalent Welsh god is Arawn, and the Irish god is Donn. Other Celtic
gods that may be equally cognate with Dis Pater are Bile, Cernunnos, Dagda,
Taranis, and Teutates. Caesar further states that among a Celtic pantheon of
six gods, Dis Pater was the transcendent or supreme god of the Celts, and that
they all claimed him as their paramount ancestor.
On both Samhain Eve and
Samhain Day, it was customary for the Celts to celebrate the festival in a
variety of fashions, depending upon their region and tribal traditions.
However, the burning of winter bonfires in Magic Circles (symbolic of the
Wheel of Time) on sacred hilltops was a preeminent rite, as were ceremonies
commemorating the ritual copulation of the Underworld God or Winter King with
the Triple-Faced (Maiden/Mother/Crone) Goddess or Summer Queen, who, having
"grown old" and now "dying," appears at Samhain in her Crone or Hag
guise.
In her Maiden form, she is the virgin May Queen or Spring Queen,
awaiting plowing and the sowing of seed. In her Mother personification, she is
the Earth-Mother Goddess, the Grain Queen or Harvest Queen, fertile with new
life and abundance. But in her Crone personification, the Triple-Faced Goddess
is the Death Queen, the shroud weaver and the psychopomp who opens the western
gates to the Otherworld, which lies beyond the westering sun and the mists or
veil, so that those who have departed this earth can journey to the Isle of
Apples or "Summer Country," as it is also known, for the Otherworld is the
eternal realm of the Summer Queen, the Faery Queen.
To honor her,
tributes of grain, milk, and, according to some texts, live children and human
sacrifices were exacted from the populace at Samhain --- although, with a
single, anomalous exception, none of the Celtic records themselves supports
this last assertion. Instead, it is far more likely that animals being culled
from the herds of cattle, sheep, and goats brought down from the hillside
pastures for winter were ritually slain --- the ancient equivalents of
today's Thanksgiving turkeys and Christmas geese.
Led by one of their
own posing as the "White Mare" and who was decked out in a horse's head and
white robes, young men blew horns (the hunting horn was sacred to the
Underworld God) and visited all the neighboring farmhouses, collecting
tuppence, along with ale and other provisions for the celebratory feast. In
origin, the Celtic "White Mare" is the sacred white horse ridden by the Celtic
Horse Goddess, Epona, and by the Celtic Great Queen, Rhiannon --- the
mythical, wild white unicorn that could be captured and tamed only by a
virgin. The White Mare is also the white froth of the sea, the "white horses"
that the Celtic Sea God, Sea King, and seafaring warriors rode; and the "Night
Mare" of restless slumber fraught by disturbing dreams borne on the white
mists of the mind.
Because Time stood still at Samhain, the celebration
was believed particularly auspicious for divination. For the ritual feast,
small cakes known as "barmbracks" (bairghin breac, meaning "speckled bread,"
as they were filled with currants or raisins) were baked and eaten, and a
young woman lucky enough to find a traditional ring or nut concealed in hers
was thought to have marriage in her near future. Apples (symbolic of the
Otherworld or Isle of Apples) placed in large half-barrels (symbolic of the
Celtic cauldron) were a means of foretelling the future, as well. The first
young woman lucky enough to take a bite from a bobbing apple was also thought
to have marriage in her near future. It was said that if she cut an apple in
half through its equator to reveal the pentacle or five-pointed star within
and ate it before a mirror, her future husband would be revealed to
her.
To ward off the faeries and spirits who might come calling from the
Otherworld and Underworld, the populace carved spooky faces into turnips,
which they hollowed out, lit with candles, and either carried as lanterns to
guard themselves along dark roads or else placed on their windowsills and
doorsteps to protect their homes and those within. They left offerings of food
and milk outside, too, in the hope of appeasing those faeries and spirits not
frightened away by the glowing turnips.
From all this sprang our modern
traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve or Halloween.
Arawn, the
Welsh god of the Underworld, was said to possess a magic cauldron, and in
Celtic mythology, the cauldron is symbolic of life, fertility, plenty, death,
regeneration, and wisdom. The Celtic god Cernunnos ("Horned One") also
possessed a magic cauldron, in which dead warriors were immersed, headfirst,
to be brought back to life to fight anew. The Celtic cauldron has come down to
us as today's witch's bubbling cauldron, and the witch herself is the
"dying" Summer Queen...the Crone aspect of the Triple-Faced Goddess who
copulates with the Underworld God or Winter King at Samhain, who himself
appears to us today as the horned "devil" of Halloween (in reality, in nature,
horns are a symbol of power and authority, rather than of evil).
"Double,
double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron
bubble."
Macbeth
---William Shakespeare
The foaming
Hebridean whirlpool of Corry-Vreckan is popularly referred to as the "cauldron
of the old woman," which old woman or hag is associated with the Celtic War
Goddess Mórrígan ("Great Queen" or "Sea Queen"), from whom derive both the
shrieking, white-garbed banshee (bean sídhe, meaning "Faery Woman") and the
portentous crow or raven of war and death...the blackbirds of ill omen, who
eat both the ripening grain in the fields and the corpses of those slain in
battle. It is the Mórrígan who is the Crone aspect of the Triple-Faced
Goddess --- and today's Halloween witch.
Possessed of the power of
prophecy, the Mórrígan could also cast spells and transform herself into
birds, fish, and other animals. As a bird (most often a crow, raven, or swan),
she was capable of flying. Today's Halloween witch, flying upon her besom or
magical broom fashioned of straw or cornhusks from the grainfields, is the
Mórrígan and the Grain Queen, sweeping away the old, in preparation for the
new, just as the houses of the populace were swept and cleaned for the coming
winter. She is frequently portrayed as having a green face. But this is an
erroneous depiction. In reality, it is the withered face, blue with cold, of
the Celtic Cailleach Bhéirre or Bheur, that is intended. A weather spirit,
the personification of winter, and yet another guise of the Mórrígan and the
Grain Queen, the Cailleach Bhéirre is said to have lived on a "speckled"
mountain, where she guarded a fountain, spring, stream, or well of youth. Like
the Mórrígan, she could grow young or old at will. In her sea form, she is
known as the "Muilleartach" ("Miller of Plenty").
These days, on
Halloween, children are not led along roads by the "White Mare," but, rather,
by their parents, as, dressed in costumes (as the Druids --- the Celtic
priests --- of old ritually wrapped themselves in bullskins and other animal
skins), they proceed from house to house, trick-or-treating --- gathering
candy "corn" and carrying their UNICEF "milk" cartons, with which to collect
coins for the charity; and we who answer our ringing doorbells cheerfully pay
this "tribute" to the youngsters.
At each doorstep, the processions of
children are popularly greeted by jack o'lanterns carved with spooky faces,
for the Irish who immigrated to America brought their turnip-carving tradition
with them, substituting pumpkins, which were much more plentiful in the new
land, for turnips, which were not so readily available. Many a front porch
boasts a scarecrow, as well --- not just for chasing crows from the
grainfields, but also the ravens of the Mórrígan from the
battlefields.
Youngsters still bob for apples, too, and caramel apples
rolled in nuts are a popular Halloween treat.
For modern Wiccans, Samhain
is the "Great Sabbat" --- the most important of all the eight sabbaths. It may
be celebrated not only beginning at sundown on October 31st, but also on "Old
Halloween" (November 6th), which is usually when the actual cross-quarter day
falls --- a time marked by the sun's having reached fifteen degrees Scorpio,
which is considered a powerful astrological aspect and is characterized by the
Scorpion Eagle.
Samhain's Christian equivalents are All Saints' Day and
All Souls' Day, the former of which was introduced by Pope Boniface IV during
the seventh century A.D. and later, by Pope Gregory III, grafted on to
Samhain, in a futile attempt to stamp out the so-called pagan celebration,
which was viewed as "wicked" or "evil" by early Christians.
But this is a
wholly inaccurate and uninformed viewpoint. For ultimately, Samhain is not a
celebration of death, but of life. In its highest form, the "death" of the
Summer Queen is representative of the death of all life and peace here on
earth. Far from being "wicked" or "evil," the traditional rituals and magical
objects and symbols employed at Samhain to drive away the faeries and spirits
of the Otherworld and Underworld are instead indicative of a deep desire to
banish all death and war, and to establish a harvest of plenty --- a paradise
of eternal life and peace here in this world. Thus, in its greatest sense,
Samhain is a rite of hope.
The principal colors associated with Samhain
are orange and black. Orange represents the dying summer sun, the dying light
of day, and the ritual bonfires ignited to hold the coming darkness at bay;
while black represents the darkness of the long, winter nights to come, the
charred ashes of dead fires, and the rot of war and
death.
