Samhain Folklore
It is at the feast of Samhain, that the image of the 'Otherworld' predominates in the mythological record. The ancient Irish year was divided into two: a winter half beginning at the Festival of Samhain (which most likely also marked the start of the New Year), and a summer half beginning at the Festival of Bealtaine. The early Irish attributed many of the great mythic events to the times of year marked by these feasts. Samhain, now given as November 1st, was held to be charged with the supernatural energy of the spirit world. Bealtaine, now given as May 1st, was held to represent new beginnings in the material world. However, at the time when these seasonal festivals were first celebrated, they were almost certainly linked to the lunar cycle of Full and New Moons. At this time, as at all of the four key festivals of the early Irish calendar, great fires would be lit at vantage points, as the centre of communal ritual and feasting.
Samhain is the first day of winter. It is the end of one pastoral year and the commencement of the next. It is the time when the hopes and plans of mortals focus below the earth and around the hearth, paralleling the germination of the seeds and plants, or the hibernation and byring of the beasts. It is the time when the night becomes longer than the day. During this festival, summer becomes winter, day becomes night, life becomes death; and the barriers between the natural and the supernatural are temporarily removed. It was at Samhain then, that the gateways to the 'Otherworld' or the 'sídh' were opened and divine beings, the spirits of the dead, and indeed mortals could move freely between one world and the next. Sídhe are the special dwelling places of the 'otherworld' people and have also been called Fairy Hills, such as Brugh na Bóinne, best known for the Newgrange site.
There are several legends recounting the ownership of the Brugh, all of which involve similar ambiguity and complexity concerning day and night and the passage of time. It would seem then, that the myths relating to Newgrange dramatise a basic idea, which is interesting when one considers the solar alignment and the possible pre-historic usage of Newgrange as a megalithic calendar.
The great assemblies of the five Irish provinces at Tara took place at Samhain, the festival being marked by horse races, fairs, markets, pastoral assembly rites, political discussions and ritual mourning for the passage of summer. Many of the more curious and supernatural events in Irish mythology are associated with Samhain, including two of the legends associated with Newgrange and Aonghus.
In more recent times Irish folk memory led to such practices at Hallow Eve as leaving pairs of chestnuts by an open fire as auguries for betrothed couples. If they stayed together on being heated then harmony would prevail. If they scattered apart there would be strife in the union. A good fire was always left burning that night for the fairies. People avoided taking shortcuts across beaches, fields or cliffs for fear the fairies would lead them astray. A candle knocked over on Hallow Eve night was an ill omen. If a girl sat before a mirror at midnight eating an apple she would see her future husband in the mirror.
Gateways
Like all main festivals, Samhain is a gateway, a transition from one season to another. In Celtic mythology, at the heart of every gateway is a paradox. The threshold is literally between two worlds but is, in itself, in neither and in both at the same time.
Samhain is the gateway to the winter. We still tend to regard the coming of winter with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. As the Green One dies and is returned to the earth, the Goddess, now the dark crone, mourns Him and all seems to die. But the bringer of death is by definition the bringer of life.
And there is a wilderness, a release in Samhain which is of great and intense beauty. It is a time to let go of all unwanted baggage, attitudes etc. as the trees let go of the years leaves. Indeed if the trees did not lose their leaves they would be a hindrance to growth.
The old tales tell how the gates of the world stand open at this time. Journeys to the "other world", either metaphorically or otherwise, may well be transformative. It is for this reason that Samhain can be seen as a time when the past and future are available to the present. It is a time to see ourselves as part of the web of past and future, a link in the great chai of being. We are not isolated in time.
But change is not always easy. Transformations may be painful. Gateways have guardians. The stereotyped Halloween images of the Demon or the Hag are shadowed, half forgotten, muddled memories of these Guardians.
The Horned one, hunter and hunted, compassionate watcher of the furred and feathered ones, when we meet Him before the gate, may seem a fearful trickster.
The Hag, "the Washer at the Ford" may remind us that change is inevitable, that if we remain static we cannot grow. But when the gate is passed and the challenge met, we can look back and see then from the other side, revealed as the laughter in the fresh forest and the Green Goddess of growth.
That is the challenge.
That is Samhain.