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Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca

Liber XXXV · Witchcraft & Wicca · Chapter VI: The Wheel of the Year

Samhain: History, Folklore and Modern Pagan Celebration

Samhain explained: the Gaelic festival of 1 November in Irish myth, its links with All Saints and Hallowe'en, folk customs and modern Pagan practice.

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Samhain (pronounced roughly "SOW-in") is the Gaelic festival held on 1 November, beginning on the evening of 31 October, which marked the end of the pastoral summer and the start of winter in medieval Ireland and Scotland. In early Irish literature it was a time of royal assemblies and of contact with the Otherworld, and its customs merged with the Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls to form Hallowe'en. Modern Pagans and Wiccans celebrate Samhain as one of the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year, often as a festival of the ancestors.

The Name and Date of Samhain§

In Old Irish the festival was Samain; modern Irish Samhain is also the name of the month of November, and Scottish Gaelic has Samhainn. A long-standing folk etymology explains the word as "summer's end", but linguists consider this doubtful. Many connect the name with the Gaulish month Samonios on the Coligny calendar, a fragmentary bronze calendar found near Coligny in eastern France in 1897 and usually dated to the second century AD. An entry in the calendar is usually read as referring to "three nights" of Samon-, which some scholars link to a seasonal festival, but how the Gaulish month relates to the Irish feast is uncertain.

The Irish year was traditionally divided by four festivals: Samain (1 November), Imbolc (1 February), Beltaine (1 May) and Lugnasad (1 August). Samain marked the point at which herds were brought down from summer pastures, surplus animals slaughtered, and rents and debts settled. Its practical importance to a farming and cattle-keeping society underlay its ritual and legal significance. The wider religious world of the Gaels is described in Celtic religion.

Samain in Early Irish Literature§

Most of what we know about Samain before the modern period comes from Irish narrative texts written down by Christian scholars between about the eighth and twelfth centuries, drawing on older oral tradition. In these stories Samain is a time when the boundaries between the human world and the Otherworld grow thin.

  • Assemblies. The Ulster heroes gather for a great assembly at Samain in The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn, and later texts describe the royal feis (feast) of Tara at Samain.
  • The Otherworld. In The Adventure of Nera, set on Samain night at the royal site of Cruachan, the hero follows a host of the dead into a fairy mound and lives for a time among its people.
  • Gods and battles. In The Second Battle of Mag Tuired, the Dagda meets and lies with the war goddess the Morrígan at Samain before the battle between the Túatha Dé Danann and the Fomoire.
  • Annual threats. Fenian tales tell of Aillén, a being who lulled the defenders of Tara to sleep with music and burned the hall every Samain until Finn mac Cumaill killed him.

These stories show Samain as a hinge of the year, charged with danger and possibility. Scholars caution, however, that they are literary works shaped by medieval authors, and that they say little directly about pre-Christian ritual. Later writers, such as the seventeenth-century historian Geoffrey Keating, describe a Samain fire at Tlachtga in County Meath, but this is a late and uncertain source.

Was Samhain a Celtic New Year or Festival of the Dead?§

Two popular claims about Samhain go back largely to the nineteenth century. The Welsh scholar John Rhŷs proposed in the 1880s that Samhain had been the Celtic new year, partly on the basis of Welsh and Manx folk customs that treated 1 November as a beginning. James Frazer's The Golden Bough then presented it as an ancient festival of the dead, when the souls of the departed returned to their homes, and linked the bonfires and divination of Hallowe'en to pagan sacrifice.

Ronald Hutton and other historians have pointed out that the early Irish sources do not clearly call Samain the beginning of the year or describe it as a feast of the dead. Many of the death-related associations may come from the Christian commemoration of the dead on 1 and 2 November, which overlaid the older festival. Others argue that the Otherworld themes of the Irish tales and the widespread folk belief in wandering spirits at this season suggest older roots. The question remains open, and careful writers distinguish what is attested from what is inferred. For ghost beliefs more broadly, see ghosts and hauntings.

All Saints, All Souls and the Making of Hallowe'en§

The Christian feast of All Saints (All Hallows) on 1 November developed in the eighth and ninth centuries. Pope Gregory III (731–741) dedicated a chapel in St Peter's in Rome to all the saints, and the 1 November date was adopted across the Frankish empire in the 830s under Louis the Pious; it may already have been observed in England and Ireland. All Souls' Day on 2 November, for prayers for the dead in purgatory, was promoted by Abbot Odilo of Cluny around the year 1000 and spread through western Christendom.

The eve of All Hallows, "All Hallows' Even", became Hallowe'en. In late medieval Britain it was marked by bell-ringing for the souls of the dead, candles and prayers. After the Reformation, Protestant authorities suppressed prayers for the dead, but popular customs continued in modified forms. In Gaelic Scotland and Ireland the Christian feast and the older Samhain festival merged, so that the night of 31 October gathered both seasonal and Christian associations.

Folk Customs of Samhain and Hallowe'en in Britain and Ireland§

By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, folklorists recorded a rich set of Hallowe'en customs, especially in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man:

  • Bonfires, called samhnagan in parts of the Scottish Highlands, lit on hillsides on Hallowe'en.
  • Divination, particularly about love and marriage: pulling kale stalks blindfold, roasting pairs of nuts in the fire to see whether they burned quietly or jumped apart, and ducking for apples. Robert Burns's poem Halloween (1785) describes many of these in Ayrshire. On the history of such practices, see what is divination.
  • Guising, in which young people in disguise went from house to house performing and receiving food or money, an ancestor of trick-or-treating.
  • Lanterns carved from turnips or mangel-wurzels, later replaced by pumpkins in North America.
  • Spirits at large. In Wales, Nos Galan Gaeaf (the eve of the winter calends) was a noson ysbrydion, a spirit night, and children were warned of the hwch ddu gwta, a tailless black sow said to take the last person home from the bonfire. On the Isle of Man the night is still celebrated as Hop-tu-Naa.

In parts of England, "souling" at All Souls' tide involved going from house to house singing for soul cakes. Irish and Scottish emigrants carried Hallowe'en to North America in the nineteenth century, where it developed into a major popular festival that was later re-exported to Europe.

Samhain in Modern Paganism and Wicca§

Modern Pagans revived the name Samhain in the twentieth century. Margaret Murray had listed Hallowe'en as one of the witches' great sabbats in her 1921 Witch-Cult in Western Europe, and Gerald Gardner's Wicca adopted it as one of four "greater sabbats". The eight-festival Wheel took shape in the late 1950s, when Gardner's circle added the solstices and equinoxes to the Gaelic quarter days, a development often linked to his friendship with the Druid Ross Nichols.

In Wicca, Samhain is usually understood as the festival of the dead and of the ancestors, the point at which the God of the waning year passes into the Otherworld, and in many covens the start of the ritual year, a modern interpretation drawing on Rhŷs and Frazer. Rites commonly include remembrance of those who have died, the lighting of candles or a fire, divination, and sometimes a silent meal with places set for the dead. Some Wiccans associate the season especially with the Horned God as lord of death and the hunt. A historical outline of a Wiccan rite is given in the spellbook entry on the Samhain sabbat.

Modern Druids, including members of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, keep Samhain as a festival of the ancestors and of the year's end (see Druidry), while many Heathens observe the related but distinct Norse "Winter Nights" in mid to late October. Celtic reconstructionists try to follow the Irish and Scottish evidence more closely. In the southern hemisphere, Pagans generally celebrate Samhain around 30 April or 1 May, so that it falls at the onset of the local winter.

Frequently asked questions§

How do you pronounce Samhain?§

In Irish it is usually pronounced "SOW-in" (rhyming with "cow-in"), and in Scottish Gaelic approximately "SAV-in" or "SOW-in" depending on dialect. The "mh" represents a sound like a "w" or "v", which is why the spelling and pronunciation differ so much in English.

Is Halloween based on Samhain?§

Partly. Hallowe'en takes its name and date from the Christian eve of All Saints, but in Ireland and Scotland it absorbed older customs associated with Samhain, such as bonfires, divination and beliefs about spirits. Historians debate how much of modern Hallowe'en is pagan in origin.

Was Samhain the Celtic new year?§

This was proposed by John Rhŷs in the 1880s and is widely repeated, but the early Irish sources do not clearly say so. It remains a hypothesis. Many modern Pagans nevertheless treat Samhain as the start of their ritual year.

When is Samhain celebrated?§

Traditionally from sunset on 31 October through 1 November. Some modern Pagans prefer an astronomical date midway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, around 7 November, and southern hemisphere Pagans celebrate it around 1 May.

Sources and further reading§