How did Halloween Begin?

How Did Halloween Begin?

Samhain, an Ancient Celtic festival 

Halloween’s origins can be traced back to antiquity. Most point to Samhain, a Celtic festival which commemorated the end of the harvest season & the blurring of the physical & spirit worlds, as Halloween’s origin. Over the ages, the ancient, pagan Celtic holiday evolved, taking on Christian influences, European myths, & American consumerism.  

Samhain was one of the most important & sinister calendar festivals of the year. At Samhain, held on November 1, the world of the gods was believed to be made visible to humankind, & the gods played many tricks on their mortal worshippers; it was a time fraught with danger, charged with fear, & full of supernatural episodes.

Sacrifices & propitiations of every kind were thought to be vital, for without them the Celts believed they could not prevail over the perils of the season or counteract the activities of the deities. Samhain was an important precursor to Halloween.

Ancient Celts marked Samhain as the most significant of the 4 quarterly fire festivals, taking place at the midpoint between the fall equinox & the winter solstice. During this time of year, hearth fires in family homes were left to burn out while the harvest was gathered.

After the harvest work was complete, celebrants joined with Druid priests to light a community fire using a wheel that would cause friction & spark flames. The wheel was considered a representation of the sun & used along with prayers. Cattle were sacrificed, & participants took a flame from the communal bonfire back to their home to relight the hearth.

Early texts present Samhain as a mandatory celebration lasting 3 days & 3 nights where the community was required to show themselves to local kings or chieftains .the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. Failure to participate was believed to result in punishment from the gods, usually illness or death.

There was also a military aspect to Samhain in Ireland, with holiday thrones prepared for commanders of soldiers. Anyone who committed a crime or used their weapons during the celebration faced a death sentence.

Some documents on Samhain, the Celtic festival mention 6 days of drinking alcohol to excess, typically mead or beer, along with gluttonous feasts.

By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.

The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain might explain the tradition of bobbing for apples that is still practiced on Halloween.

On May 13, A.D. 609, the Christian Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, & the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, & moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with & supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades & dressing up in costumes as saints, angels & devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) & the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve &, eventually, Halloween.

All Saints' Day

On May 13, A.D. 609, Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome in honor of all Christian martyrs, and the Catholic feast of All Martyrs Day was established in the Western church. Pope Gregory III later expanded the festival to include all saints as well as all martyrs, and moved the observance from May 13 to November 1.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints’ Day) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween.

See: History.org, Halloween 2023, August 11, 2023

Library of Congress Blog, The Origins of Halloween Traditions, October 26, 2021, by Heather Thomas 

Halloween's Celtic & Christian Origins over 2,000 years ago.

More than 2,000 years ago the Celtic people believed summer came to an end on October 31st, so in anticipation of the end of "the season of life" & the beginning of "the season of death," Celts would celebrate Samhain or Samain (pronounced "sah-win") or "Summer's End."

In the 19C, one academic explained, "The Samhain feast...was, like the Greek Apaturia, partly devoted to business...other wise the feast, which occupied, not only Samain or the first of November, but also the three days before and the three days after it."

The festival segment of Samhain focused on the harvest & death of crops & the approaching season of cold & darkness, to symbolize the the transition from life to death. The Celts thought the veil between this world & the next was thinnest during Samhain & that spirits & fairies could more easily move between the two realms. Some might pass from the living to the dead, and some dead ancestors might come to visit during this time. The Celtic celebration of Samhain was the New Year’s Day on the Celtic calendar.

In ancient times the festival was said to be celebrated with a great assembly at the royal court in Tara, the archaic hill fort and bastion of the Irish kings. The festival began after a ritual fire was set ablaze on the Hill of Tlachtga. This bonfire served as a beacon, signaling to people gathered atop hills all across Ireland to light their ritual bonfires. 

This ritual was called the Féile na Marbh in old Irish, meaning the 'festival of the dead' took place on the night of Samhain, or “Oíche Shamhna” and and was said to fall on the 31st of October. 

The word 'bonfire' itself is a direct translation of the Gaelic tine cnámh or Bone Fire, because villagers were said to have cast the bones of the slaughtered livestock upon the flames. October was the traditional time for slaughter - for preparing stores of meat and grain to last through the coming winter. 

With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires and then each family then solemnly lit its hearth from the local common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together with the symbolic bones of their ancestors. English travelers of the 19C are said to have witnessed this ritual.

In some homes, a door would be opened to the west & a beloved dead relative would be specifically invited to attend the celebration. Villagers might leave a candle or other light burning in a western window to guide the dead home. 

On Samhain Eve, the Celts lit their bonfires & laid out harvest gifts for the souls traveling through the corporeal plane on their way to the next realm. Families would leave food & wine on their doorstep to aid the souls passing over & to keep the pesky ghosts at bay. 

Many wore costumes when leaving the house hoping to be mistaken for ghosts themselves. The Celts believed dressing up both honored the good spirits & helped avoid the bad ones.

Ancient Celtic legends supported this concept of transition from life to death.

 In one, Nero, while begging from door-to-door on Samhain, discovered a cave leading directly into the fairy realm. 

In another, gods called Fomorians demanded tribute from Celtic mortals, who offered harvest fruits to these gods at Samhain. 

This story reinforced the Celtic tradition of setting out harvest gifts for souls crossing over & for the ghosts gathered near at Summer's End.

Sometime in the 8C, Pope Gregory IV changed the date originally set for All Saints' Day to the same day as Samhain, essentially merging the traditions connected to those holidays & making the church more attractive to non-believers. The Catholic Church established November 1st as All Saints Day (also known as All Hallows) & November 2 as All Souls Day.

A traditional Irish Halloween carved turnip jack-o-lantern

Incorporating the existing Celtic custom of going door-to-door on Samhain, the church encouraged a practice called "souling." The practice of dressing up in costumes & begging door to door for treats on holidays goes back to the Middle Ages. 

Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of “souling,” when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas (November 1), receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day (November 2). 

It originated in Ireland & Britain, although similar practices for the souls of the dead were found as far south as Italy. Shakespeare mentions the practice in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593), when Speed accuses his master of “puling [whimpering, whining], like a beggar at Hallowmas.”

In 19C England, one writer reported, "The custom of "souling"...is carried on with great zeal in this neighbourhood." Another wrote of "children who are singing their "Souling Song" under my window." One noted, "Soul-cakes...to give away to the souling-children."

James Elder Christie (British artist, 1847-1914) Halloween Frolics

The traditions of "guising," & "mumming" grew into an event where masked individuals would go door-to-door disguised as spirits dancing & singing in exchange for food & wine. 

A 19C Scottish song noted, "In a guizing excursion, he sung some verses." 

The custom of mumming was first written about in the 1400s in English. In 1546, it was noted, "The disguising and muming that is vsed in Christemas tyme." 

By 1801, one writer explained, "A sport common among the ancients...consisted in mummings and disguisements." (The Danish word mumme meant to parade in masks. The term guising was first used in written English in 1563. )

In order to see as they paraded at night, Irish participants would carve faces into turnips & potatoes to light as lanterns, as they passed from house to house, & to set outside their doorways to light dark steps & to scare away evil spirits.

Women & Gardens Europe

 

Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)  Morning Graden

Women & Gardens Europe

Archibald George Barnes (British artist, 1887-1972) Woman Beside a Chestnut Tree 

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Oscar Bluhm (German artist, 1867-1912) In the Pergola 1892

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Claude Monet (French painter, 1840-1926) Alice Hoschede in the Garden

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Harold Harvey (English Painter, 1874-1941) Woman Reading in a Garden

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Olga Boznanska (Polish Impressionist painter, 1865-1945) Dziewczynka z koszem jarzyn w ogrodzie

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Umberto Veruda (Italian artist, 1868-1904) Young Woman in a Rosegarden 1899

Women & Gardens - Europe

Peder Severin Kroyer (Norwegian-born Danish painter, 1851-1909) Marie in the Garden

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

Édouard Manet (French artist, 1832–1883) In the Garden 1870

Women & Gardens - Europe

 

 Gaston La Touche (French Painter, 1854-1913)  Peonies 1889

Euro Gardens Women & Gardens - Europe

  George Hitchcock (1815 - 1930) Dutch woman in a garden

 Mary E Harding. (English artist, 1880-1903)

 Norman Prescott Davies (British artist, 1862-1915), Iris

  Harold Harvey (British artist, 1874–1941) Picking Flowers

 Edward Killingworth Johnson (British artist, 1825 - 1923) Lady   picking flowers

 Emile Baes (Belgian artist, 1879-1953)  In the Garden

 Emma Ekwall (Swedish artist, 1838-1930)

 Hermann Seeger (German artist, 1857-1945) Picking Wild Flowers 1905

Alfred Émile Stevens (Belgian painter, 1823-1906) Afternoon in the Park

Claude Monet (French artist, 1840-1926) Girl in the Garden at Giverny

Alfred Émile Stevens (Belgian painter, 1823-1906) Reverie

Laura Muntz Lyall (Canadian painter, 1860-1930) Oriental Poppies

Archibald George Barnes (British artist, 1887-1972) The Parasol

Jean Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)  Morning Graden