The Origins of Halloween by Eileen O'Finlan

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In my new historical novel, The Folklorist, main character, Charlotte Lajoie, puts together an exhibit on the history and evolution of Halloween for the New England Folklife Museum where she works. To accurately describe the exhibit, I had to do research on the subject. For this I relied heavily on a wonderful book by Halloween expert Lisa Morton called Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween.

I could not possibly relate all I learned in one blog post, so I will just offer an overview of the origins of the Halloween. 

As many people know, the holiday we celebrate on October 31st had its beginnings in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which means "summer's end." A Druid religious holiday, it was a three-day festival celebrating the reaping of an abundant harvest and the belief that souls journeyed to the other world, which they called Tir na tSamhraidh (Land of Summer) at this time. They believed that the veil between this world and that one was very thin at Samhain, allowing the dead to return to the living, and creatures called sidh (fairies) to cross to our side. On Samhain, a gathering was held that featured feasting, sports, repayment of debts, and legal trials, followed in some cases, by executions. Story-telling featured prominently at the festival, most stories having an eerie, supernatural element to them. Fortune-telling was also a favored element of Samhain.

Interestingly, by the 7th century, when the Celtic lands were Christianized, Samhain didn't totally disappear. It was transformed, yet it remained a religious holiday. By the 8th century, Pope Gregory III moved the feast of All Saints to November 1st, and 100 years later Pope Gregory IV declared it a universal Church holiday. Because "hallow" comes from the Old English word "halga", meaning holy, the night before All Saints Day became All Hallows' Eve, eventually morphing into Hallowe'en and finally Halloween.

Like Samhain, it was a three-day celebration consisting of All Hallows' Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. Though the Church purposely supplanted Samhain with these three days, the Celts were unwilling to entirely give up their ancient roots. They celebrated with traditional foods reminiscent of those used for the ancient festival and retained the mix of joyful celebration and somber contemplation of death.

By 1350 the Black Death had killed 60% of Europe's population. Popular culture changed along with this calamity bringing about a morbid fascination and obsession with death. The invention of the printing press allowed for the dissemination of artwork. Especially popular was an image known as the Danse Macabre which featured skeletons and Grim Reapers. These images soon became incorporated into the All Hallows' Eve festival especially since the belief that the dead cross over at this time had not left the Celtic lands. 

With the tens of thousands of women executed for witchcraft in the 1480s,  another Halloween icon arose - the witch. Suspected witches were often accused of causing or spreading the Plague and were believed to have a close association and sometimes a sexual relationship with devil. They soon became incorporated into the holiday as well. The traditional  image of the witch with a broom, cauldron, and cat, all symbols of female housekeeping, began to appear at this time.

It was in the mid-19th century that Halloween finally made its way to America along with Irish and Scottish immigrants.  As the newly emerging middle-class tried to imitate the British, they became fascinated with Queen Victoria's 1869 Halloween visit to Balmoral Castle in Scotland reported on in American newspapers. If the queen could celebrate Halloween, so could they!

By the early 20th century, Halloween was becoming established in America, though it was still very much an adult affair. That's not to say kids had no part in it. Children's Halloween parties became popular by the by the 1920s. On the downside, teen boys became so enamored of Halloween pranks that they grew in intensity and became so out of control that by the 1930s Halloween was nearly outlawed.

Civic organizations saved the day by offering parties, parades, costuming, carnivals, and contests to supplant the pranking. Handbooks, popular from 1915 to 1950 were written with instructions on how to celebrate the holiday. In the 1930s, neighbors pooled resources to create "house-to-house parties" in which groups of kids were taken from one house to the next, each house hosting a different theme - the precursor to trick-or-treating.

 

Finally, Halloween in America as we know it today came into its own shortly after World War II with the development of suburban neighborhoods and the ability to safely trick-or-treat for candy.

So, as you celebrate Halloween this year, remember you are taking part in a holiday with a long, varied, and fascinating history! 

 

Ancient Celts by Katherine Pym

 

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Aligned Stones for worship?

So, I was surfing about the net the other day and found this article: Sacred Sites & Rituals in the Ancient Celtic Religion and began reading. You can’t find a lot on the Celts, so actually, if you think about it, how would scholars know the depth of the Celtic life?

They had an oral language where their priests memorized history and whatnots, but very little written has been found. Everyone speculates on the stones that are about the countryside, but no one really knows for certain why they are there, or if the Celts put them there. People are found in bogs, and scholars think they were used as human sacrifices when bad tidings knocked on their door.

The Norsemen preferred sleeping in the open. Celtics worshiped in the open. Under starry skies. I wouldn’t have lasted more than a day, maybe two in those sort of conditions.

Scholars say springs, river sources, and groves were sacred. Druids would stand in a grove and pray to their gods. They performed rituals and sacrifices. I’ve read people were sacrificed when great trials came upon them, such as war and invasion.

 The Celts were once a great people, and immigrated from the south before spreading across Europe & Great Britain. Burial sites were found somewhere in the mid-East, the bodies tall and slim with red hair and lots of jewelry. Were those Celts too? Where did they come from?

Their religion was the interpretation of nature’s events. The Druids, or priests, were very knowledgeable and considered filled with wisdom. What did they say during these rituals? What did they do? Who rolled the big megalithic stones across country and up-ended them? What did they mean to the Druids, the Celts? It must have been important considering the time and effort expended.  

A Druid Priest

The World History Encyclopedia states temples and sanctuaries cleared spaces on flat ground, “surrounded by earthworks”. They had a “rampart, outer ditch, and a single gate most often on the east side”.  Were there ever buildings on those sites? The pictures I saw did not seem to have had any.

Pottery and some statues of human beings seem to be the only artifacts that remain, except for the standing stones which may or may not be astronomically profound. Some say the head is where the soul is found. They say on the summer solstice some of these stones shine with moonshine or sunshine, depending on when you gather.

There’s a myth that the stones in Brittany come alive and dance the night away on certain celebratory times. If people get caught in the dancing, they are stone the following day.

 Julius Caesar found the Celts complexing. The tribe he ran into was the Carnutes, which is not dissimilar to the original tribes of Greenland and the territories of Canada, the Inuits. Did they travel the high seas to scatter with the winds on Greenland, Iceland and North America? We don’t know, but the idea would be fascinating.

 Were the Carnutes Druids or Celts? Did they explore the land and find something truly amazing, ethereal to worship? Is that why they worshiped in groves and near the crux of streams? How did they develop? It’s hard to read the articles I found because almost right at the first they state no one knows how the Celts were since nothing is written down. We can only surmise.

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Many thanks to : Ancient Celtic Society by Mark Cartwright and World History Encyclopedia, and another article by Mark Cartwight – Sacred Sites & Rituals in the Ancient Celtic Religion