An old Celtic holiday called Samhain is marked from October 31 to November 1st night. It marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker part of the year. Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man all celebrate Samhain, a holiday with deep pre-Christian roots. It is thought to have given rise to modern Halloween. Samhain stayed the same, but Halloween was made by joining it with All Souls’ Day, which is celebrated on November 2. People get them mixed up sometimes.
Even though it had supernatural meanings, Samhain was mostly a useful holiday. It meant that cattle were moving from summer fields to winter pastures, and cows that were going to be killed were being picked out. Before, big bonfires were a big part of the custom. Now, only people in Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ireland light them. Bringing lights from bonfires inside is a common way to show that the sun will always be there. The Celtic holiday of Samhain has deep roots in farming and is still very important to their culture.
History of Samhain
The ancient Celts used Samhain as a farming holiday to mark the end of summer and check on food stores before winter. As the harvest season came to an end, so did the number of ghosts and other supernatural events.
The Celts of the past made big fires to make the gods happy and protect their animals and crops. The change from light to dark at this event meant that summer was over and winter had begun. People used to think that at Samhain, there was a temporary break in the usual order of the universe that let the spirit world and the human realm talk to each other directly.
The Celts started dressing up in different ways so that people wouldn’t recognize them as humans and instead think of them as magical beings. Animal heads, skins, and horns were often used to make their outfits. In honor of the Celtic gods, animals were sacrificed, and ashes from the main fire were used to heat homes.
It was Pope Boniface IV who created All Saints Day as a Christian alternative to Samhain in the 7th century. It was later changed to November 1. The night before this holy holiday became known as All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween. Halloween began in Celtic areas and then spread to other places. Irish people who came to America in the 1800s to escape the Potato Famine took some of Halloween’s traditions with them.
Samhain Day 2024 is on Thursday, October 31, 2024
On October 31 in the northern hemisphere, people celebrate Samhain, which is also called the Festival of the Dead. In the southern hemisphere, people celebrate it on May 1. It is the start of winter and a time to remember and honor our elders. It falls halfway between Yule and the autumn equinox (Modron). In Wicca, Samhain is a time to celebrate death as an important part of life. This is because it is a special time when there is not much between the living and the dead. This point of view sees the thought of accepting the dark in a good light.
In Celtic culture, Samhain was a turning point in the year that gave people a chance to start over. Bede, an 8th-century monk, called November the “blood month” because that’s when people killed animals to eat during the winter. Most likely, our ancestors saw Samhain as a big change from the old to the new cycle. They burned summer’s extra supplies over a bonfire to make peace with the dead and start getting ready for winter. As a result, modern pagan festivals often call it the Celtic New Year to emphasize that it is both the start of winter and a time to start over.
5 Interesting Facts About Samhain
Stories about the dead rising from the underworld to harm fire during Samhain inspired the creation of zombies.
During this party, human heads were used as props. In Irish custom, turnips were carved with scary faces to keep away evil spirits. Before turnips, Celtic fighters would cut off the heads of their enemies and parade them around the villages to keep away evil spirits.
In ancient Ireland, they were dressing up kept people safe. They dressed up as ghosts and wore masks and costumes to protect themselves from threats from other worlds.
It is written in the “Book of Invasions” that people used to do something horrible on Samhain: they would give a lot of their children along with milk and corn to appease supernatural forces.
In Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, people have been dressed up and robbed of their food since the 1400s. Rituals like trick-or-treating, which started with people dressing up as devils, helped make those events possible.
Things to do on Samhain
Take the natural beats as they come.
The holiday of Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and the change from one season to the next. Show that you care about nature by noticing and enjoying the beauty of how things change over time.
Dress in a classy way.
Go to or host a fun party while dressed up in a creative and complicated outfit. Go for it, do something new, and spend the day with the people you love.
Locate the Festival’s Heart
Explore how the event started and how it has grown over time. Realize that it has a bigger meaning and purpose for the community as a whole as well as for followers. Find out about the many rituals that have grown up around Samhain over the years.
Why We Love Samhain
Honoring the Earth
In old times, Samhain was a celebration of nature and the harvest. It’s the end of the harvest season and the start of winter because it happens between the fall equinox and the winter solstice.
Social Connections
Samhain is all about groups of people getting together to celebrate happily. Dressing up and going trick-or-treating are both fun ways to celebrate the day with other people.
Rug from the Past
Samhain is linked to important events in Irish folklore, and its roots go back to the time of the Celts. One of the most interesting things about Samhain is how it has changed over time in different countries. This makes the holiday even more mysterious and complex.
What is the true date of Samhain?
Neopagans usually celebrate Samhain on 31 October–1 November in the Northern Hemisphere and 30 April–1 May in the Southern Hemisphere, beginning and ending at sundown.
Every year, at the end of October, people celebrate Samhain, an old Celtic holiday that is often seen as the origin of Halloween. Other fall holidays, like All Saints’ Day and Dia de Los Muertos, are also influenced by Samhain. This celebration has been going on for hundreds of years and is important because it takes place during a “liminal” time that lets ghosts and live people interact with each other. Today, Druids, Wiccans, and other Pagans enjoy Samhain all over the world.
Along with the well-known Halloween customs, Samhain is mostly linked to the beginning of winter. It marks the halfway point between summer and winter in the fall. It was a very important time for farming towns to get ready for winter. In the beginning, it was a celebration of farming.
The ancient Celts believed that Samhain was a holy time because it marked the change of seasons and was a way to reach the spiritual world. They saw it as a place where light and darkness met. The spirit of the holiday goes far beyond the simple practices that we celebrate on Halloween these days.
Who is the god of Samhain?
Deities associated with Samhain, in Irish mythology, are the Morrigan and Crom-Cruach. While Morrigan is known to be the threefold goddess of the dead, theories abound about Crom-Cruach. In some legends he is said to be the personification of darkness; archeological evidence points to him being a fertility god.
Even though Halloween may have come from the Celtic holiday of Samhain, it has become a secular holiday that gets people of all religions together every year. Many individuals need to remember this.
Some religious groups link Samhain to Satanism and say it comes from the Irish death god Sam Hain, which means Samhain has dark roots. However, information from history and archaeology directly contradicts these ideas.
The history records are clear about the Irish gods of death, and none of them are called “Sam Hain.” Sam Hain is not a pagan god. Scholars also agree that Samhain, whose name means “Summer’s End,” came from the word for the end of summer. Rather than a god, this is a reference to a day: a Celtic cross-quarter day, which happens exactly halfway between the winter solstice and the October equinox. Samhain is the Celtic New Year. It marks the end of the farming year and the start of the new one.
Is Halloween called Samhain?
Yet, the Halloween holiday has its roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “SAH-win”), a pagan religious celebration to welcome the harvest at the end of summer, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts.
Haunted houses with pumpkin carvings, trick-or-treating, and dressing up in scary outfits are all fun things to do on Halloween. In any case, this widely observed holiday comes from the old Celtic festival of Samhain, which is pronounced “SAH-win” in Gaelic. Samhain was an ancient religious holiday held at the end of summer to honor the harvest’s completion. For this party, people decorated their outfits and built bonfires to scare away ghosts.
In the seventh century, Pope Gregory III made November 1 All Saints Day to honor the saints. Some customs from the previous holiday, Samhain, have been added to All Saints Day over time. Halloween came about because of All Hallows Eve, which started the night before All Saints Day.
Looking into the history of these well-known Halloween traditions can help us understand how our complicated past has shaped how we celebrate this fun and scary holiday today.
What is the true date of Samhain 2023?
31st October 2023
Tuesday 31st October 2023, 10.00pm GMT, 3.00pm MST
Just as they saw dusk as the true beginning of a new day, so Samhain’s delivery of us into darkening days is a delivery into Nature’s New Year. We are born in darkness during the nine months or thereabouts in our mother’s womb.
The date for Halloween is October 31, 2023. Every year, October 31 is a holiday. People first did this when they lit bonfires and dressed up as ghostbusters for Samhain, an old Celtic festival that celebrated the end of summer and the harvest.
In the 800s, Pope Gregory III made All Saints Day by combining parts of Samhain traditions with November 1. The night before this special day, called “All Hallows Eve,” turned into Halloween, which most people celebrate today.
Over time, Halloween has grown into a day with lots of things to do, like trick-or-treating, making jack-o’-lanterns, going to parties, dressed up, and eating lots of candy. As old and new Christian practices have come together, Halloween has grown into a lively and complicated holiday.
What country is Samhain from?
Samhain marked the transition between the year’s lighter and darker halves and was celebrated throughout the ancient Celtic communities of Europe, including Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.
In old Celtic societies across Europe, like those in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, Samhain was a big event that marked the change from summer to fall. Halloween comes from the ancient Celts’ view that Samhain was a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead began to blur.
It’s interesting that the word “Samhain” has also changed over time to become the modern Irish word for November. In Ireland, the Hill of Ward in County Meath was very important because it was the holy place for the Samhain fire celebration. Recently, celebrations of Samhain have been brought back to life. On Halloween, people gather at the Hill of Ward to take part in a modern retelling of this ancient event that respects Samhain’s rich cultural history.
As the harvest season comes to an end and winter begins, Samhain is a very important cultural event. Magical changes and reunions happen at Samhain, which is thought to be the time when the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is thinnest.
Most of the traditions we have today about Halloween come from the old Samhain celebrations. Trick-or-treating, carving pumpkins, and making costumes are all complicated traditions that have their roots in Samhain rites.
Let’s honor and celebrate the spirit of Samhain by gathering around a magical fire and lighting candles in honor of this wonderful holiday. As we respect the natural cycles and the mysterious interactions between worlds, may this celebration bring us a sense of connection to our ancestors and a joyful awareness of the magic that is present at this holy time.
