The Original Halloween

Herald Staff
15 minutes ago
6 min read

by Mavis Benner

The Most Famous Pagan Fire Festival

In honor of the spooky season, I thought I would talk about the holiday Samhain. Pronounced “Sow-Win,” the holiday originates from ancient celtic tradition and their practice of the pagan religion. “Pagan” actually refers to a person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main or recognized religions. Put more simply, pagan describes people of uncommon religious practices. There is not a word that represents celtic religion due to the variety of people who were considered a “celt” and the variety of religions they believed in. For the sake of the article I will use “pagan” to represent the religious practices of celtic polytheism. To add, “Wicca” refers to the modern practice of ancient celtic polytheism. Samhain is considered the most important fire festival, the word meaning “summer’s end.” The other festivals include Beltane, Imbolc and Lughnasadh. These holidays often relate to the changing of a season, a solstice, an up-coming harvest or an ancient folktale. If you're planning on celebrating this October, you can stay traditional and follow the ways of the ancient celtics or see how the Wiccans interpret this summer's end.

How to Celebrate like a Celt

It's October 31st in your tiny village and in your tiny house, sits you and your family. You add wood to your hearth (fireplace) and let it burn while you collect this year's harvest. You leave a little out and call it the Púca’s share, because come November 1st it’s the Púca’s day and they will cause mayhem if not taken care of. You and the rest of the village gather round a big pile of sticks, the local king uses a stick in the center of a wheel, shaped as the sun, to make a spark. The large pile ignites into a beautiful bonfire. You dance and sing to celebrate the new year. You watch as a chosen cattle is killed, as is tradition. You say your thanks and appreciate its sacrifice so that this winter won’t be a hard one, seeing as your family will have their share of the meat. This year mom says you're old enough to light the stick so that you can bring it home and relight your hearth, so you do just that. Once at home, you help your mom peel the potatoes and cut the carrots you picked earlier. Your family sits at the table to have dumb supper, a feast that can't start until you invite your departed ancestors. The wall between the spirit realm and your world is thin tonight, so you try to make the most of the small amount of time you have. You open the windows to let the spirits in and dance to entertain them, while your parents recall recent events. You stop by each of your neighbors' houses to sing to the spirits, each giving you a small piece of cake to celebrate (this is called mumming)! You head home, feeling thoughtful and full. The day is over and your happiness keeps you up, but your excessive celebration tuckers you out. Your mom retells the story of The Second Battle of Mag Tuired and you fall asleep peacefully, knowing the Púca’s and Aos Sí (fairies) will leave you alone tomorrow.

Ancient Monsters and Stories

First, let’s delve into the story of the Púca and Aos Sí (pronounced “Ees shee”) that I mentioned, then we can work our way to The Second Battle of Mag Tuired. The Púcas (meaning ghost in Irish) are little mischievous shape shifters. The rumor goes that if a little kid was caught eating over-ripe blackberries, it meant they had been taken over by a Púca. The story was most likely told to prevent kids from eating moldy berries. The Tuatha Dé Danann, which will be important later, are a god-like race that represents the beauty and goodness of nature. They are progenitors of the Aos Sí. The next monster is The Lady Gwyn, a headless woman dressed in all white who would chase anyone wandering around after hours. She was accompanied by a black pig and together they would guard treasure. The Dullachan, which is undoubtedly the most well known celtic monster, is more commonly referred to as The Headless Horseman. He rides a black horse with fiery red eyes and holds his head in his hands. The word Dullachan means “hobogoblin” and a little spooky fun fact: he uses a human spine as a whip.

Now onto a quick summary of The Second Battle of Mag Tuired. A king by the name Bres was born from two battling races, the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fomorians (not yet discussed, the Fomorians are supernatural like the Tuatha Dé Danann. Creatures from deep underground and undersea. Opposite the Tuatha Dé Danann, they represented the destructive powers of nature). Bres was born to the two races and chose to resent the Tuatha Dé Danann and due to this bias he is replaced as king by a hero named Nuada. Bres, feeling vengeful, hires the Balor of the Evil Eye to battle the Tuatha Dé Danann. During the battle, Nauda is sadly killed by Balor, but a man named Lugh who fought alongside Nuada avenges him. Bres is found alive and is only kept that way on the account that he teaches the Tuatha Dé Danann how to plough, sow and reap.

A Modern Take

If this holiday has been speaking to you with its fiery festivities, here’s how you can celebrate! You already know how it was celebrated in the past and most of what we do today remains the same. Seeing as it’s a fire festival, a big old bonfire is what makes Samhain the day that it is and what's a festival without your friends and family? Gather around your bonfire, big or small, with a lot of people or a little. People like to dress up as the person they aspire to be, as Wiccans believe intention goes a long way. To decorate your house you can hang acorns, dried leaves and flowers; maybe even carve a pumpkin! Open a window and invite your grandpa in for a true dumb supper, consisting of dishes involving pumpkins, apples, root vegetables, roasted meats and ciders. You might want to dress you and your house in blacks, browns, yellows, reds and purples. Symbols of cauldrons, cats, bats and black birds should adorn your walls and tables. Maybe even pop some sunflowers and wormwood in a vase and place it on your mantel!

Deities - The Who and Why

You might be wondering how an ancient celtic religion applies today and why people like you and me, who might not be especially Irish, would celebrate a holiday like Samhain. You know about its history, but what about the belief system? Mostly centered around nature, the practice is mostly spiritual with a focus on divinity, such as reading tea leaves. Then there's the worship of multiple deities. There is a famous ancient polytheistic pagan religion that you already know, having values based in nature and a heavy belief in magic. You guessed it: the ancient Egyptians with the ritual of mummification and gods like Ra, Isis, Osiris and Anubis. In paganism, there is no correct collection of gods, any ancient god is on the table to believe in, including Anubis himself.

Now that you understand why, let's talk about who. The most prominently celebrated goddess during Samhain is Persephone. Persephone has been a symbol of late October since she was celebrated in ancient Greece. The story goes that she was taken away from her mother (Demeter), who was so distraught she created winter; then when her daughter was returned, she created spring. While with Hades, she was tricked into eating a few pomegranates which forces her to return to the underworld each year. Her themes of death and rebirth are why she is a great goddess to think of this fall. Consider taking a walk through nature, writing poetry or lighting a few black candles in her honor.

The Switch to Halloween

You might think modern day Hallows’ Eve has a vague connection to Samhain and was only an inspiration for our now beloved Halloween, but this is unfortunately wrong. St. Gregory, the pope from 590-640 C.E., advised a missionary going to England to “convert” pagan religious practices instead of trying to outright ban them. This unfortunately is an extremely successful method of appropriation. Pagan temples were turned into churches along with yule and Samhain being turned into Christmas and All Saints’ day. The good news is Samhain wasn’t going down that easy. People didn’t resonate with a day of honoring saints so tradition stuck, but the damage had already been done. All Saints’ day turned into All Hallows’ Eve, Halloween.

Pagan Appropriation Continues - Was Halloween originally a Christian festival?

The research for this article was mostly cut-and-dry. A lot of people have touched on this topic so I had countless sources of information, but I found something interesting. An article written by Matt Arnold (that is behind a paywall once you try to visit the website for a second time) writes, “The actual origins of Halloween are solely rooted in the Church, not any fictitious religious pagan feast from ancient times.” This is the same article that has written, “By following Christ, we shall know the truth and it will set us free (John 8:32),” in the introduction. I found this to be an amazing example of a biased article considering everything I had just learned disproves his theory. Mr. Arnold calling a pagan festival fictitious shows the scary success of pagan appropriation. As a quick reminder to Matt Arnold, many christian churches were built after and on top of, entirely real, pagan temples.

Sources:

The Rustin Herald

The Original Halloween

Recent Posts

Comments