Opinion: The ancient Irish get way too much credit for Halloween
This time of year, I often run across articles a modern form of the pagan Irish holiday of Samhain—pronounced SAW-en. , I can tell you: Samhain is Irish. Halloween isn't.
The Irish often get credit—or blame—for the bonfires, pranksters, witches, jack-o'-lanterns and beggars who wander from house to house, threatening tricks and soliciting treats.
The first professional 19th-century folklorists were the ones who created a through line from Samhain to Halloween. Oxford University's and of the University of Cambridge were keen to find the origins of their national cultures.
They observed lingering customs in rural areas of Britain and Ireland and searched medieval texts for evidence that these practices and beliefs had ancient pagan roots. They mixed stories of magic and paganism with harvest festivals and whispers of human sacrifice, and you can still find echoes of their .
But the Halloween we celebrate today has more to do with the English, a ninth-century pope and America's obsession with consumerism.
A changing of the seasons
For two millennia, Samhain, the night of Oct. 31, has marked the turn from summer to winter on the Irish calendar. It was one of in agricultural and pastoral societies.
After Samhain, people brought the animals inside as refuge from the long, cold nights of winter. , which is on Feb. 1, marked the beginning of the lambing season, followed by spring planting. signaled the start of mating season for humans and beasts alike on May 1, and kicked off the harvest on Aug. 1.
But whatever the ancient Irish did on Oct. 31 is lost to scholars because there's almost no evidence of their except legends written by churchmen around 800 A.D., about 400 years after the Irish started turning Christian. Although they wrote about the adventures of their ancestors, churchmen could only imagine the pagan ways that had disappeared.
An otherworld more utopian than terrifying
These told of Irish kings holding annual weeklong feasts, markets and games at Samhain. The day ended early in northwestern Europe, before 5 p.m., . After sundown, people went inside to eat, drink and listen to storytellers.
The stories did not link Samhain with death and horror. But they did treat Samhain as a night of magic, when the otherworld—what, in Irish, was known as the "sÃ"—opened its portals to mortals. One tale, "," warned that if you went out on Samhain Eve, you might meet dead men or warriors from the sÃ, or you might unknowingly wander into the otherworld.
When Nera went out on a dare, he met a thirsty corpse in search of drink and unwittingly followed warriors into the otherworld. But instead of ghosts and terror, Nera found love. He ended up marrying a "ban sÃdh"—pronounced "BAN-shee"—an otherworldly woman. But here's the medieval twist to the tale: He lived happily ever after in this otherworld with his family and farm.
, either. In medieval tales, it is a sunny place in perpetual spring. Everyone who lives there is beautiful, powerful, immortal and blond. They have good teeth. The rivers flow with mead and wine, and food appears on command. No sexual act is a sin. The houses sparkle with gems and precious metals. Even the horses are perfect.
Clampdown on pagan customs
The link between Oct. 31, ghosts and devils was really the pope's fault.
In 834, Nov. 1 the day for celebrating all Christian saints. In English, the feast day became All Hallows Day. The night before—Oct. 31—became known as All Hallows Eve.
Some Pope Gregory created All Hallows Day to quell pagan celebrations of Samhain. But Gregory knew nothing of ancient Irish seasonal holidays. In reality, he probably did it because everyone celebrated All Saints on different days and, like other Popes, Gregory sought to consolidate and control the .
In the later Middle Ages, emerged as a of the saints. People went to church and prayed to the saints for favors and blessings. Afterward, they went home to feast. Then, on Nov. 2, they celebrated by praying for the souls of their lost loved ones, hoping that prayers would help their dead relatives out of purgatory and into heaven.
But in the 16th century, and Ireland quashed saints' feast days, because praying to . Protestant ministers did their best to eliminate popular customs of the early November holidays, such as candle-lit processions and harvest bonfires.
In the minds of ministers, these customs smacked of heathenism.
A mishmash of traditions
Our Halloween of costumed beggars and leering jack-o'-lanterns descends from this , storytelling and .
Like our ancestors, we constantly to suit current culture.
Jack-o'-lanterns are neither ancient nor Irish. One of the earliest references is an of an eponymous Jack, who tricked the devil one too many times and was condemned to wander the world forever.
Supposedly, Jack, or whatever the hero was called, carved a turnip and stuck a candle in it as his lantern. But the custom of carving turnips in early November probably originated in England with celebrations of All Saints' Day and another holiday, on Nov. 5, with its .
As for ancient bonfires, the Irish and Britons built them , but not Samhain—at least, not according to the .
In 19th-century Ireland, All Hallows Eve was a time for communal suppers, games like and celebrating the magic of courtship. For instance, girls tried to in one long peel; then they examined the peels to see what letters they resembled—the initials of their future husbands' names. Boys crept out of the gathering, despite warnings, to make mischief, taking off farm gates or stealing cabbages and hurling them at the neighbors' doors.
Halloween with an American sheen
Across the Atlantic, these customs first appeared in the mid-19th century, when the Irish, English and many other immigrant groups brought their holidays to the U.S.
In medieval Scotland, "" were people who dressed in disguise and begged for "soul cakes" on All Souls Day. These guisers probably became the costumed children who threatened—and sometimes perpetrated—mischief unless given treats. Meanwhile, carved turnips became , since pumpkins were plentiful in North America—and easier to carve.
Like Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter, Halloween eventually became a feast of consumerism. Companies mass-produced , and . People in Britain and Ireland blamed the Americans for the spread of modern Halloween and its customs. British schools even tried to in the 1990s because of its disorderly and demonic connotations.
The only real remnant of Samhain in Halloween is the date. Nowadays, no one expects to stumble into a romance in the sÃ. Only those drawn to the ancient Celtic past sense the numinous opening of the otherworld at Samhain.
But who's to say which reality prevails when the portals swing open in the dark of Oct. 31?
Provided by The Conversation
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