Blog, Halloween, Spirits & ghosts, Wheel of the Year
Halloween: All You Need To Know
Oct
Halloween is a holiday celebrated each year on October 31, and Halloween 2021 will occur on Sunday, October 31. The tradition originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death.
Origins
People have known the festival by many names: Samhain, All Hallows, Hallowmass, Hallowe’en, All Hallowe’en, All Hallows’ Eve, & All Saints’ Eve.
Halloween. The word Halloween is of Christian origin, and means “Saints’ evening”. The name ‘Halloween’ comes from “All Hallows’ Eve”, being the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows’ Day (All Saints’ Day) on 1 November and All Souls’ Day on 2 November.
Halloween and the Day of the Dead share a common origin in the Christian commemoration of the dead on All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day. But both embody strong pre-Christian beliefs. In the case of Halloween, the Celtic celebration of Samhain is critical to its pagan legacy, a claim that has been foregrounded in recent years by both new-age enthusiasts and the evangelical.
Samhain. Samhain comes from the Gaelic word ‘sam’ meaning ‘summer’ and ‘fuin’ meaning ‘end’, “Summers End”, which was celebrated by the Celtics who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France.
Celtics celebrated their new year on November 1. What is it that they were celebrating?
- The end of sowing and harvest season – therefore it’s the end of the year celebration.
- The cycle of living and dying – after a time of harvest and plenty, the plant life dies
- Of honouring the dead, and those who have passed before us
Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities that include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, as well as watching horror films!
What is All Saints Day?
It was the Christians who added the dead to the Samhain celebrations when they established the feast of All Saints on November 1. Purgatory was a central concept of All Souls Day. It was the hinterland of the afterlife where most Christian souls could expect to go after death. Neither heaven nor hell, purgatory was the place where the not wholly righteous served their time before they were finally deemed worthy of heaven.
To help your deceased loved one shorten the time in purgatory, families could dedicate as many prayers as possible during Mass to aid the souls of their ancestors. Those who could not afford a full mass or who merely wished to buy extra prayers could recruit the poor to say prayers for them. And so the tradition of Souling was established.
For many poor people, it was also a useful way of gathering alms over the colder months. Now instead of offering prayers when they went door to door, the poor would sing for their supper, asking for “soul cakes, a pear, a plumb, a cherry’ in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers’ friends and relatives, with the added hint that if the householder gave the alms, the Soulers would stop making a nuisance of themselves.” This was called “souling”.
“Soul cakes were small cakes baked as food for the deceased or offered for the salvation of their souls. They were therefore offered at funerals and feasts of the dead, laid on graves, or given to the poor as representatives of the dead. The baking of these soul cakes is a universal practice”.
Soul cakes were also offered for the souls themselves to eat, or the ‘soulers’ would act as their representatives. As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating they were baked as alms.
‘Trick or Treat’
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children & early teens on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, “Trick or treat?” The word “trick” implies a “threat” to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. Soulers added pranks to their repertoire of door-to-door entertainment. Knock and run became a favorite prank, or else doors were pelted with cabbages. Livestock or goods could also be ‘misplaced.’These pranks led to Halloween becoming known as ‘Mischief Night.
In the 1840s, a large-scale influx of Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine took up residence in the New World. In 1866 that the Daily News of Kingston Ontario recorded the first use of a pumpkin lantern during festivities in the town. Some years later, in 1911, the same publication described the resurgence of souling and guising as part of the new tradition of trick or treating. The reinvention of Halloween had begun.
CELTIC LORE……Should the gift or the donation not be generous, “Muck Olla” is said to destroy the house of anyone who was not generous (Muck Olla may have been an ancient Celtic god named Macalla).
Guising
“It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints’ Day, and All Hallows’ Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes”.
Guising or dressing up in disguise was a practice that went hand in hand with Souling. Guises were to fool the spirits at Samhain by making the wearer appear to be one of them or at the very least unidentifiable, and so able to escape their fury. Later, disguises were assumed when souling door to door, based on characters associated with the season with the intention of hiding the identities of the guisers from neighbors, not any spirits of the season.
This year the most popular costumes are coming from popular movies/series such as the guard from Squid Games, or the comic book character Harley Quinn. Other popular costumes are witches, ghosts, vampires, and ghouls. So one could argue that if you’re wearing a Halloween costume that is associated with human death, you could be in the spirit of Halloween! Samhain is a holiday of death.
Still, that’s not to say you shouldn’t have fun on this holiday and enjoy the festivities with your friends and family. Anything to do with the dark spirits, dark energies, ghosts, and the afterlife is fun!
Halloween is a time of celebration.
The Thinning of the Veil
During this period, the veil between the material and spiritual worlds diminished. This thinning allowed those on either side of the invisible barrier, a passage between the two worlds. What does this mean and what should you know as somebody in the wonderful world of witchcraft:
- You could penetrate the veil and gain insight into the unknown.
- The spirits from beyond the veil, are free to explore our world
These spirits could be helpful but they could also do great harm. It very much depended on their mood and whims. These unpredictable attributes explain why these nature spirits are personified today as tricksy fairies, evil witches or demons. Because the spirits were easily offended- and the after-effects of their ill will would linger even after the veil closed, it was essential for people to court them at the same time as protecting against their fury.
The fear of the malevolent aspect of these gods has translated down the ages into folk customs and beliefs that people widely observed in parts of Britain up until the nineteenth century. Each region had a particular personification. In Wales, for instance, Hwch Ddu Gwta personified the malevolent spirit of the season, a tailless black sow that caused mayhem, and chased anyone it found out abroad on Nos Calan Gaea.
Elsewhere, as in Ireland, the capricious nature of the gods was preserved in the Puca, a nature spirit/goblin who was good or bad, depending on mood. In the Shetland Irelands, Norse beliefs prevailed, and every measure was taken to protect the newly gathered harvest and cattle in the home pastures from marauding trolls.
These spiritual threats were probably ways of interpreting the natural dangers of winter. Tribes and families, therefore, did the best to win the spirits over, to protect the gathered harvest and their remaining livestock- and the people themselves. So one of the aspects of Summer’s End/Winter’s Beginning was the sacrifice- the sharing of some of the summer’s bounty with the spirits in the hope that this would satisfy.
So, the beasts culled in preparation for winter would become part communal feast part collective sacrifice, as the community offered a portion to these gods.
The Bonfire & the Jack-o-lantern
Fire has always been a tool of protection, and during this time of celebration, it has several fabulous purposes. “As soon as night fell on Samhain Eve, the clan would light the flames.” Personally, we like to have lights at our windows, to light a path for the spirits especially the lost souls! For other people, a candle placed in the window would warn off the evil spirits and keep them away from your door.
Rosemary Guiley, in the Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft, and Wicca, wrote, “According to most legends, the jack-o’-lantern is a wandering soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell. In Ireland, children who are caught outdoors after dark are told to wear their jackets inside-out in order not to be lured astray by a jack-o’-lantern. In Sweden, the spirit is believed to be the soul of an unbaptized child, who tries to lead travelers to water in hopes of receiving baptism. In American lore, the jack-o’-lantern is associated with witches and the Halloween custom of trick-or-treating. It is customary for trick-or-treaters to carry pumpkin jack-o’-lanterns to frighten away evil spirits.”
There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o’-lantern, which in folklore is said to represent a lost soul:
On route home after a night’s drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest!
What else to do when the Veil is thin?
With the Veil between the realms of the living and the dead the sheerest, it’s the time around the world to:
Contact your ancestors – At Samhain, the “spirits” were appeased to ensure the people and livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for them.
The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures. In 19th century Ireland, “candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin”
One way to do this is an interesting tradition called a Dumb Supper. This feast is for any ancestors or loved ones who had passed away, and you keep them at your table tonight with one extra place set for the dearly departed.
- Food is served on their plate
- All of the guests should eat in silence
- The door is left open for the dead to join.
- After the meal was finished, the meal is taken outside and left in the open.
Necromancy – One could also engage in necromantic practices of various kinds.
Lost & Wandering Spirits – Hungry ghosts & lost souls are also believed to abound:
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- Place offerings of milk and barley outside under the stars to ease the ghosts’ hunger, prevent their mischief, and to accrue their blessings.
- Those ghosts without family or friends to feed and honour them, should be fed and honoured too!
- If you don’t want them hanging out with you, hang fresh boneset branches over doorways, or burn young boneset branches and twigs within a cauldron to drive away existing ghosts.
- Keep ghosts happy and goodnatured by maintaining the fragrance of benzoin and sandalwood in the home.
- To provide relief from destructive and mischievous ghosts and poltergeists, place bay laurel branches and/or leaves within the home.
- At midnight on Halloween bury apples at crossroads to feed hungry ghosts.
Something to think about
It’s important to remember that before modern religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, we were all following earth-based religions/spiritual practices, and all of these religions were based upon nature where humanity lived in tune with mother earth. As Pagans, we followed and celebrated the cycles of the sun and of the moon. Celebration of the seasons and respect of our ancestors and those who have recently passed. So the celebration of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) is the celebration of the end of the Summer.
To be objective, one could argue that the medieval Christian festivals of All Saints’ and All Souls’ provide a foundation for the way we celebrate Halloween today? From emphasizing dead souls (both good and evil) to decorating skeletons, lighting candles for processions, building bonfires to ward off evil spirits, organizing community feasts, and even encouraging carnival practices like costumes, the medieval and early modern traditions of “Hallowtide” fit well with our modern holiday.
So what does this all mean? It means that when we celebrate Halloween, we are definitely participating in a tradition with deep historical roots. But, while those roots are firmly situated in the medieval Christian past, their historical connection to “paganism” and specifically Samhain is rather more tenuous.
So on the lighter side, you could say that like everything else in history, this time of year has evolved to be a celebration with something for everybody. Samhain and Halloween could be celebrated as two distinct events in your calendar, or as strictly the original Pagan holiday without all of the commercialized bling, or something of your own creation! The reality is that for most people who are celebrating Halloween, the history of both, is completely forgotten and it’s all about the costume, the treats, and the party. Thankfully these are not the burning times and you do have a choice.
For example, our friends in the southern hemisphere, are also starting to celebrate Halloween. Australians, New Zealanders, and others in Southern Asia, love to dress up and trick-or-treat within their neighbourhoods. For the southern hemisphere Pagans, Wiccans, and Witches, it is the time for the celebration of Beltane[1] on October 31st. Samhain is celebrated on April 30/May 1. Therefore, you could argue that those who celebrate Halloween in the southern hemisphere, are participating in Halloween either exclusively for the Christian traditions & festivities, or just for the party! Happy Halloween.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter, or what you’re doing as a modern man or woman at this time of year.
References:
- https://frightgeist.withgoogle.com/
- “Guess what? Halloween is more Christian than Pagan”. Barr, Beth Allison (28 October 2016).The Washington Post.
Black Witch Coven is first and foremost, a group of individuals with a deep respect for our environment, the spirits of the land, and nature. The guardians of these elements are those which we follow and connect with for our wisdom and guidance. These are the TRUE Gods.
