The End of Summer and All Hallows Eve

I'd like to thank Celestial Elf for sharing this wonderful, informative article with us.  You can read more about Celestial Elf and his amazing machinima film work in the Artist Interview we conducted with him earlier this year.

The most magical night of the year,
All Hallow's Eve on 31st October is more important than All Hallows Day itself.
The Celts called this time Samhain (pronounced Sow-in), which means 'summer's end' and this marked the end of the Old and Beginning of the New Year for the Ancient people, as the New day begins at dawn, so the Ancient New Year begins at the darkest time, the turning point.
(The Christian clergy later co-opted Samhain not as a feast for All the dead, but only those hallowed (made holy) by obedience to God - thus creating All Hallow's Day.)

The Celts were a pastoral people and the end of Summer was significant to them because it was the time of year when their lives changed, the cattle were brought down from summer pastures in the hills and the people gathered into the communal halls for the long winter nights of story-telling, which held a very important role in earlier times....

To commemorate Samhain, the Druids built huge bonfires ( bone-fires ) where the people gathered to honour their deities with burned offerings of crop and creature.
During these celebrations they wore costumes of animal masks, horns & skins.
When the celebration was over they would re-light their home fires from the sacred bonfires as this consecrated fire would protect them during the coming cold and dark of winter.

In the Celtic belief system such turning points as the turning of one year into another, as well as the time between one day and the next, the meeting of sea & shore, were considered as very magical times.
The turning of the year was the most powerful of these times.
This was the time when the 'Veil Between Worlds' was at its thinnest.

They also believed that when their beloved people died, they went to a land of eternal youth and happiness called 'Tir Nan Og'.
At this time they held a Feast for the Dead, as it was believed the dead could return to this land of the living for just one night, to celebrate with their family, tribe, or clan. Thus the great burial mounds were opened up, with lighted torches lining the walls, so the dead could find their way & extra places set at the table for any who had died that year.

The dead were sometimes believed to be dwelling with the Fairy Folk, who lived in the fairy mounds or Sidhe (pronounced Shee) that dotted the countryside.
The Celts did not have demons & devils in their belief system, nor the concept of heaven and hell that the Christian church introduced.
The fairies however, were considered potentially hostile & dangerous to humans because men had taken over their lands.
On this night then, they might trick humans into becoming lost in the 'fairy mounds', where they could be trapped forever.
This would seem to be the origin of 'Trick-Or-Treating' & possibly of the 'Jack-O-Lantern' as well, which was used by people who traveled this night to frighten away spirits or faeries who might otherwise lead one astray.
Set on porches and in windows, the Jack-O-Lantern cast the same spell of protection over the household.
An offering (often food or milk) was left out for the fairies and spirits on the steps of the house or hall, so the homeowner or clan could gain the blessings of the 'good folk' for the coming year.


Such Halloween 'Games' as we have today clearly devolved from earlier rituals and beliefs..
Divination was practiced at Samhain and thought most likely to succeed at this time because the Ancient New Year's Eve exists outside of normal time, as the cyclical order of the universe collapses before re-establishing a new cycle, and therefore may be used to view any other point in time.
Young women placed hazel nuts along the front of the fireplace, each to symbolize one of her suitors,
& to find their future husbands they might chant:

'If you love me, pop and fly;
if you hate me, burn and die.'
They might also peel an apple, making sure the peeling comes off in one long strand, reciting,
'I pare this apple round and round again;
My sweetheart's name to flourish on the plain:
I fling the unbroken paring o'er my head,
My sweetheart's letter on the ground to read.'

Bobbing for Apples (sacred fruit to The Celtic people) evokes a Pagan baptism called a 'Seining' in which the water-filled tub is a Cauldron of Regeneration, into which the novice's head is submerged.
That the participant in this game was blindfolded & with their hands tied behind their back also evokes a 'Craft' initiation ceremony.

There are often two Halloween/Samhain celebrations,
The First, a Halloween party for non-'Pagan' friends,
& The Second a more private Samhain gathering held on Halloween night,
At which invisible friends may be present...


About the painting: 
This picture, which looks like a John Anster Fitzgerald painting and was titled 'Going to the Masked Ball', reveals the elusive nature of faeries, particularly at this time of year (Samhain) as it has been proven a fake/perhaps it was painted by the faeries themselves .....
Bought by London Art dealer who took it to his restorer, they removed the "over paint"and discovered the use of nickel titanium yellow, a substitute for the 19th-century "Naples yellow". Nickel titanium yellow was not patented until 1939; Fitzgerald died in 1906.

Dr Nicholas Eastaugh, a scientific consultant specializing in the analysis of paint, made a detailed study of the painting technique under a microscope, and compared it with known fairy paintings by Fitzgerald in Tate Britain and other collections. What he discovered, which was again hardly visible to the naked eye, was that Going to the Masked Ball lacked the precision of brushwork and finer details found in the other paintings.

For me however the mystery over authorship of this work adds to the fascination of this very beautiful painting.

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Book Review: The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween

The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween

By Jean Markale, published by Inner Traditions

It is early autumn and the days are cooler, the air crisp, and night arrives more quickly. I have pulled my sweaters out from the closet and am wearing long velvet skirts. The food I buy at the farm stand is round and orange or yellow, and satisfying in a very earthy way. It is harvest time, the fields will soon be bare and most creatures will be inside somewhere (house, barn, nest, den). We are entering the cold, dark half of the year.

It is this half of the year that Halloween welcomes in, and it is these aspects of it that inspired celebration among the Celts, hundreds of years ago. As a largely agricultural people, the Celts relied much on their farms and livestock. They prepared themselves every Samhain (the original name for Halloween) for the colder months, for dwindling food and slowing growth, and for a change in daily lifestyle. It made sense to them to also conduct business affairs on this holiday, because to them, one year was coming to an end (with the finality of harvest), and another one was being conceived in the dark womb of nature. Author Jean Markale explains:

“A shepherd people, raising cattle for milk products and meat, and raising pigs, a food favorable for procuring immortality – such are the Celts, or, at least, such are the Gaels of Ireland, the Celtic people who have most authentically preserved their original traditions. Under these conditions, one cannot help but comprehend the dating of this people’s principal holiday on the full moon closest to November 1. This is the end of summer, when it becomes important to protect the herds – of cattle or of pigs – that constitute not only the wealth but also the survival of the community. … There is, however, one fact for certain: within the framework of an essentially pastoral society, the holiday of Halloween, heir of the Celtic Samhain, is perfectly at home in the calendar at the end of the summer and the beginning of winter, in the specific neighborhood of November 1.”

In addition, it was a time of shifting thresholds. The interplay of day and night, light and dark, fertility and dying away brought with it a spiritual note. Lines could be crossed, from the seen to the unseen, and vice versa.

The Celtic holiday of Samhain, originally longer than the one night of modern Halloween, was a time of heady brews. One might get wildly drunk, but for the more serious purpose of rising spiritually higher. Deals were made, between partners, between the living and the dead, or the mortal and the immortal.

“Samhain thus concerns a complete festival, during which the religious element permeates all manifestations, even those that appear to be most profane, because everything paradoxically leads to a vision of the invisible world. In some way, the festival reduces death to the state of nothingness, even if usually there is a separation between the living and the dead. During the time of Samhain, humans see the dead who have temporarily lost their gift of invisibility. We find these beliefs again in the Christian All Saints’ Day and the carnival-like rituals of Halloween, although they deviate somewhat from their precursors owing to the slow but steady evolution of spirituality during the early days of the Celtic people’s conversion to Christianity.”

This fantastic holiday, like many other pagan traditions, influenced Christian practice as Christianity spread through Western Europe, especially Ireland. The symbols we have for Halloween today - the brightly sinister jack o'lantern; the gaudy, ghostly costumes; and laughing witches on brooms, are the result of a gradual evolution of this important, ancient festival.

Through Markale's book we can find the real legitimacy for Halloween as a holiday. It is not simply about children traipsing from door to door looking for candy (or else! Trick or Treat!). It is not simply about a reverence for ancestors, or a time to let go of all inhibition. There is a reality to it that gives it a deeper presence, and which beckons us to seek its true meaning, in addition to its true history.

Jean Markale's telling of many traditional stories illustrates this history vividly and causes us to reflect on the essential nature of the holiday. Identifying, through Markale's exploration, with our pagan ancestors, gives Halloween the serious reflection it deserves. We can look now at this black and orange night and see beneath the mischievous spectacle, a holiday of changes, of reverence, of comprehension and wisdom.

This book is not always an easy read. Translated from the French, some of the writing is dry and a little stiff.  It educates more than it entertains, and informs more than it inspires. There are no fun spells to be learned here, no spooky games, and no popular tales of hauntings – as there might be in other books on the holiday. But, it is a good thing to learn the original meaning and power of our holidays, I think. The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween shines a broader light on a very popular and generally lighthearted holiday, giving it more meaning and form than what we are accustomed to.

~ Nellie Levine 
http://northernskystudio.com/

http://fionnmara.com/

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