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Halloween

By Robin DuMolin

The Eve of Allhallows

The earliest halloween celebrations were held by the Druids in honor of Samhain, Lord of the Dead whose festival fell on November 1. It was also the Celtic New Year's Day, the beginning of winter, and the time of "the light that loses, the night that wins." The Druids had a lot of contact with the Greeks and ended up worshipping many of the same gods and goddesses called by different names.

A joint festival was held for Samhain and the Sun God on November 1. The sun, ripener of the grains, was thanked for the harvest. Samhain assembled all souls who'd died the previous year. For their sins these souls had been confined in the bodies of lower animals; on New Years their sins cleared, they were released to go to Druid heaven.

Horses and humans were sacrificed at this time of year. The humans were usually criminals. They were imprisoned in wicker and thatch cages in the form of giants or animals. The cages were set on fire by the priests. Horses were sacrificed at the feast of Samhain as late as 400 AD. Even after Christians had taken over pagan temples and consecrated them to the Christian God, oxen continued to be sacrificed on Hallowmas.

The final incorporation of the feast of Samhain into the Christian calendar took somewhat longer. Allhallows is a feast of the Church celebrated in honor of all the saints, known or unknown. All Saints' Day was introduced into the Church calendar because the year was not long enough to dedicate a special day for each saint of the Catholic Church. The day chosen was one already associated in the popular mind with a thronging of spirits of the dead and was in line with the Church policy of incorporating harmless pagan ideas. Outside the Church, the belief in Halloween as a gathering time for sanctified and unsanctified spirits continued. To the ghosts originally assembled by the Lord of the Dead were added troops of goblins and fairies.

Long after the Church had triumphed over organized paganism, country people everywhere in Europe continued their ancient practice of placating local spirits and strengthening fertility by magical rites. During the Reformation these rites were considered heresy by the Church. The result was that witchcraft emerged as an organized cult in opposition to the Church. The Prince of Darkness, witches and warlocks gathered to mock the Churchs' All Saints Day by unholy revels of their own.

On the eve of Samhain, pagan cults lit bonfires on the hills to welcome the winter season and ward off evil spirits. The idea that ghosts and spirits fear fire is widespread and with the rise of the witch cult, fire became the weapon against the powers of darkness. The burning of witches was a rite of purification even more than of punishment.

All Soul's Day
This festival of the Catholic Church is dedicated to those who have passed away during the past year and whose souls can be helped on their journey through purgatory through the prayers of the faithful. There is a widespread belief that the spirits of the dead return to visit their former homes on one particular day of the year. This day is All Souls Day and the Day of the Dead.

In ancient Egypt the Day of the Dead was celebrated on the winter solstice. This feast was in honor of Osiris, the god of death whose death symbolized the death of vegetation. On this anniversary of his death, the souls of the dead returned to the land of the living. Food was laid out in houses for the homecoming spirits, and at dusk rows of oil lamps were fastened outside all houses. This was so ghosts would have no problems finding their way home.

In medieval times criers dressed in black marched through the streets ringing a mournful bell and calling upon people to remember the souls in purgatory. Throughout London the "soulers" used to walk the streets singing and begging.

Alms were given them in return for the soulers to say extra prayers for the donor's dead relatives. The more prayers said, the more rapid the passage of the dead soul through purgatory.

Halloween Games and Customs

In both pagan and Christian times the period from nightfall on October 31 to sunset on November 2 seems to have held special significance. It is a time when the unseen world of spirits is closer to the mundane sphere than at any other time of the year. The souls of the dead return. Elves, trolls and witches are about. Since these spirits can see into the future, all sorts of divination games are included in Halloween celebrations. In Scotland and Ireland these games were very popular and it is mostly from these countries that Halloween customs in the U.S. have been taken.

There has been wide use of nuts and apples being used in games since they are in season during this time of the year. A custom of naming nuts for a girl and a boy who are lovers and placing them side by side on the fireplace was believed to foretell their future. If one catches fire and the other doesn't, the one whose nut flames will love madly and be rejected. If one or both nuts crack and jump in the fire, the lovers will quarrel and separate. If both nuts burn quietly together, the pair will be happily married within the year.

Another divination practice calls for a girl to go alone into a dark room carrying a lighted candle, an apple, knife and a mirror. She cuts the apple in nine pieces, looks into the mirror, eats eight pieces, spears the ninth and holds it over her shoulder. The apparition of her future husband comes to take the apple section and his face is mirrored in the glass beside hers.

Halloween In Ireland

Fairies for Ireland dominate during this time more than ghosts, devils and witches. The fairy as it first appears in Scottish and Irish legend was not made up of gauzy-winged little people, but of beings larger and more beautiful than men. they were the ghosts of ancient kings and heroes mingled with elder gods. Stunned by the sound of Christian bells and shriveled by holy water, the fairy folk dwindled to "little people". Another myth about them was that God made them, but did not give them souls. Another is that at the time of the rebellion some angels sided with Lucifer and were cast into hell where they became demons. Others remained true to God and stayed in heaven. The indifferent ones were cast out and condemned to dwell on earth as fairies until Judgment Day.

Fairies are immortal, but on Judgment Day they will die, whereas good mortals will have eternal life. For this reason they are jealous of humans and like to play tricks on them. The fairies, like the witches, hold one of their meetings on Halloween. But their meetings were gay festivals with dancing and merriment. Fairies often stole newborn babies and left a fairy child behind. They also bewitched adults as in stories like Sleeping Beauty. The best time to rescue victims of such enchantment was on Halloween.

The jack-o-lanterns carved from pumpkins are also an Irish tradition. The name jack-o-lantern comes from a tale about a man named Jack who was notorious for his drunkenness and meanness. One Halloween night, Jack was so drunk and his soul began to slip away from his body. The Devil appeared to claim his doomed spirit. But Jack made several deals with the Devil, always putting off his death and the claim the Devil had on him.

Finally, one Halloween, Jack's body just wore out and his soul had to find a place to go. He was turned away from heaven because he had been too mean and stingy all his life. When he got to the gates of hell, the Devil shouted, "Go away! You tricked me into promising that I'd not claim your soul. I must keep my word; you cannot enter hell."

"But where am I to go?"

"Back where you came from."

"How can I find my way in the windy dark?"

The Devil answered by throwing a chunk of live coal from hell's furnace. Jack put it inside a turnip. This "jack-o-lantern" has been wandering Earth ever since, a lost soul with no place to go.

Editor's note: We thank Ralph and Adelin Linton for their book, Halloween Through Twenty Centuries, from which much of this research was derived.