30/10/2023
𝐒𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐄! In ancient Ireland the new day began at sundown not at midnight as it does today. This is why the ancient festival of Samhain (now Halloween) appears to be celebrated a day early on the 31st of October. Oíche Shamhna traditionally falls on November 1st which according to ancient calendar begins at sundown on the 31st of October and not at sundown on the first of November which one might expect.
Oíche Shamhna falls on one of the four "cross quarter days" which are the days marking halfway point between the solstices and equinoxes. Upon these days are when the most important festivals of the ancient Irish occur. Known as Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh, each festival marks the start of a season, winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Knowledge of the seasons was important for survival in northern climes as late planting could be disastrous in a short growing season. Thus equinoxes were of lesser importance. (Samhain, Bealtaine and Lughnasadh are still the names in Irish of November, May and August, respectively.)
Julian calendar was reformed by Pope Gregory in 1582* (hence the Gregorian calendar which we use today) and ten days were annulled so that October 5, 1582, became October 15. However, the old cross-quarter days kept their old dates, so Samhain/Hallows, which was celebrated on the night of October 31, is still celebrated on that date, despite the fact that the actual revised date would be on November 11. The time or season of Samhain/Hallows began on the actual cross-quarter or half-quarter day between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, which was November 8, while the night of November 10 to 11 was considered the beginning of Hallows proper, the night when the hallows, or spirits of the dead, returned to this world. This period when the veil is open between this world and the next continues until November 16, referred to as Gate Closing and which coincides with what is also known as Hecate Night and also when the Leonid meteor shower begins.
According to Irish mythology, Samhain (like Bealtaine in May) was a time when the 'door' to the Otherworld opened enough for fairies and the dead to dwell among the living. Bealtaine was a summer festival for the living, in contrast to Samhain, which "was essentially a festival for the dead". The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn says that the sídhe (fairy mounds or portals to the fairy world) "were always open at Samhain".
Apart from each being potentially a night of scary happenings, all the great Gaelic festivals like Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Imbolc, Samhain involved great feasting.
The ancients believed that at Samhain/Halloween/Last day of October, that the veil separating the world of the living from the world of the dead (Otherworld) became sufficiently thin to allow Otherworld spirits to mingle with the living. Like most spirits they came in two varieties, good and bad. Good spirits were welcomed into homes and were honoured through merriment and feasting.
Evil spirits also made the crossing and it was believed would roam the earth searching for souls to take back to the Otherworld. Consequently, the ancients developed a number of strategies to thwart the evil spirits and thereby avoid going prematurely to the Otherworld.
Would you believe that one of the most interesting/counter intuitive things about evil spirits is that they are easily frightened by evil looking creatures! Think of gargoyles and you will find that they are the stone version of a Jack-o'-lantern and serve exactly the same purpose.
When Christianity arrived in Ireland it simply blended the ancient traditions with the new, thereby forming a symbiotic relationship with Christianity.
Some of these evil spirits were like modern celebrities, known by name in every household. Stingy Jack was one of the more famous and his soul roams the earth at Samhain along with an all-star line-up of evil spirits.
After dark, the easiest way to terrify an evil spirit is to have evil looking faces pierce through the darkness. Their frightfulness would be enough to ward off Stingy Jack and the plethora of other pokies. However Stingy Jack also carried a lantern but it was not a counter offensive weapon!
According to the story, Stingy Jack invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay for his drink, so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin that Jack could use to buy their drinks. Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it into his pocket next to a silver cross, which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil, under the condition that he would not bother Jack for one year and that, should Jack die, he would not claim his soul. The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing into a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until the Devil promised Jack not to bother him for ten more years.
Soon after, Jack died. As the myth goes, God would not allow such an unsavoury figure into heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack had played on him and keeping his word not to claim his soul, would not allow Jack into hell. He sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved-out turnip and has been roaming the Earth with ever since. The Irish began to refer to this ghostly figure as “Jack of the Lantern,” and then, simply “Jack O’Lantern.”
Irish immigrants in the US carried on the traditions of their homeland but used pumpkins instead of turnips which are much easier to carve. For this very reason the American tradition has travelled back across the Atlantic and nowadays it is mostly pumpkins which are carved into Jack O’Lanterns in Ireland.
Oíche Samhna sona daoibh – Happy Halloween night to you all.
Image: William Murphy. Present day Halloween event the Bram Stoker festival in Dublin 2017.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/infomatique/26272156029/in/photostream/
*Note: the Gregorian calendar did not come into effect in Ireland until 1st January 1752 because it was under the control of protestant England who were very reluctant to use a Catholic calendar!
Approximate pronunciation guide
Bealtaine – be-all-tin-ah
Oiche – ee-ha
Samhain – sow-aon
Lughnasadh - loo-neh-sah
Imbolc - im- bolc
