Heroic Dreams - All Things Medieval

Today is Halloween and this is another occasion where we get the opportunity to see how the past still has a strong presence in modern day. Did you ever wonder about the whole tradition of halloween and how it came to be?

It comes to us from the ancient celtic festival called Samhain and during this festival the Celts would build large bonfires and wear costumes.

Halloween is thought to be about 2,000 years old and it comes to us from the ancient Celts who lived in Ireland and Great Britain and for them the year ended in autumn on November 1st. So October 31st was the last day of the year. And they had the belief that the transition between the last day of the old year and the first day of the new year was a time when the past dead were awakened and returned to walk the earth.

It very much is in tune with a culture that was in touch with the world around them. Isn’t fall the demarcation line between life and death - symbolically? The earth itself goes through a transition where the plants of the world die off and fall into a slumber not to be awakened until the following spring.

But the tradition of Halloween also shows how the past changes over the centuries. Halloween isn’t the same for us as it was for them. We don’t, after all, call it Samhain. So how did it change?

The Roman empire had its influence on the tradition and rather than eradicating Samhain they changed it by blending it with their festival of Feralia which commemorates the dead. They also declared it a day to honor the goddess Pomona who was the goddess of Fruit and this could explain the tradition of bobbing for apples on halloween.

The Catholic Church also had an effect on Halloween. In the seventh century the pope declard Nov 1st as all all saints day which in middle english translates as All Hallows Day. And around the tenth century the church changed it into a three day holiday with Oct 31 being the eve of all saints day, Nov 1 being all saints day and Nov 2 being all souls day. During this three day celebration they incorporated many of the ancient celtic traditions including the building of bonfires and the wearing of costumes and masks.

We owe a great deal of the present to the past and the timeline of events of the world over the centuries. And maybe today we don’t really think about halloween as a remembrance of people that have passed but that is where it came from.

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