The Celtic Feast of Samhain and Hallow'een

by Arthur Russell

Aerial view of the earthworks on Tlachtga's Hill

Celebrating Samhain 

The Hill of Ward near Athboy in Co Meath is regarded as the site where the traditional celebration of Samhain was centred in pre-Christian Ireland. The ancient Celtic name for the Hill is Tlachtga (from the old Gaelic words meaning “Earth Spear”). This derives from the name of the Celtic goddess of Fertility. An associated legend about her tells that Tlachtga (pronounced Clackda) was a Witch and the daughter of the powerful wizard and chief Druid, Mug Ruith.

Note – Older legends of Mug Ruith suggest he was a Sun God.

The legend speaks of Tlachtga and Mug Ruith journeying to Italy to put themselves under the tuition of a powerful wizard called Simon Magnus. In course of this, the three constructed a flying wheel called the Roth Rámach, which they used to sail through the air to demonstrate their powers. Mug Ruith and Tlachtga returned to Ireland and brought the flying wheel with them. The legend also relates that the wizard’s three sons raped Tlachtga and fathered triplet sons on her. She died after giving birth and the earthworks that can still be seen on the summit of the Hill of Ward (Tlachtga) were raised over her grave and the annual Samhain festival inaugurated to her honor.

Whatever the Festival’s origin, the Hill of Ward, then known as Tlachtga, was established as a center of Celtic religious worship over 2,000 years ago focusing on the celebration of the feast of Samhain. From the beginning it was overshadowed by the more famous and prestigious neighboring site at the Royal seat on the Hill of Tara less than 10 kms to the east, but it remained for centuries the center of the annual Great Fire Festival of Samhain that signaled the onset of winter. 

The rituals and ceremonies carried out here by the pre-Christian Irish offered assurance to the people that the powers of darkness, which had by that time of year become strongly established over the land would be overcome, and the powers of light and life would eventually prevail. Animal bones were cast into the fires of Samhain, which added a special spiritual significance to the ceremonial flames. The fire was called 'tine chnámh' (pronounced tina kin-awve) or bone fire, from which the English word ‘bonfire’ is derived. The Celts believed that Oiche Samhain (the Night of Samhain) marks a time of year when the veil between the world of the Living and the world of the Dead melts away for a short while. During those hours the souls of all who had died since the last Samhain moved into the next life and there was relatively free movement of the dead as they made return visits to their former lives. The Celtic Druids considered the Hill of Tlachtga to be a place where the veil between living and dead was at its thinnest on that night.

The pre-historic landscape of the Boyne Valley. 

Map of the Boyne Valley area showing pre-historic sites

The ceremonial Hill is located midway between the Royal site on the Hill of Tara and the Neolithic burial sites of Loughcrew to the North-west; both of which have their own burial structures which are aligned to the seasonal position of the Sun as it goes through its annual cycle around the sky.

Mound of the Hostages at Tara

Note - The Mound of the Hostages on the crest of the Hill of Tara is actually aligned to the rising sun on November 1st. Tlaghtga is located at the edge of the Boyne Valley, an area which is already rich in pre-historic sites. These include – Tara, the ancient site for the Irish Árd Ríthe (High Kings), Brú na Bóinne encompassing Newgrange (associated with the Winter Solstice), and the structures of Knowth and Dowth, Tailteann – which is associated with Loughcrew – which has a complex of passage tombs aligned to the equinox sunrises in March and September. 

Samhain Rituals

The Celtic feast of Samhain (Samhain is the Gaelic word for November) marks the beginning of Winter. The tradition was to extinguish all fires across the countryside before sunset on the eve of the feast. After darkness fell, the druids who had gathered on top of the Hill called Tachtla lit the first fire. The fire from this was transported by chariot to both Tara and Loughcrew as well as to five other designated sites throughout the land to relight fires there. From these fires all other fires in the land would be relit. The night sky would be illuminated by the spreading Samhain fires as they worked their way through the countryside. After Christianity arrived, the old pagan festival of Samhain were transformed into a celebration of All Souls or All Hallows to honour their dead who had passed to a better world. The notion that it was possible to more easily communicate with the dead during the darkening days as winter approached seemed to persist. From this came the name Hallow'eve (the eve of All Souls day) or Hallowe'en. Many of the associated traditional practices and games were kept and developed over succeeding centuries to what we know today.

Note – Among the many Hallowe'en traditions that developed over the centuries in Celtic countries such as Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man was the making of Hallowe'en lanterns using the humble turnip grown on many farms. Selected turnips were chosen and had the central pulp removed; holes were cut in the shell of the bulb to represent eyes, nose and mouth and a lighted candle placed inside to be placed on gateposts and on windows on the night of Hallowe'en. Emigrants to the New World during the 18th and 19th century brought the lantern making tradition with them but adapted the much bigger and softer pumpkin as Hallowe'en ware. It is interesting to note that the tradition of using pumpkins (not turnips) as Hallowe'en lanterns has during the last century effectively come from the New World to replace the turnip as the favoured vegetable for the Hallowe'en lantern.

It is also interesting to note that the Pilgrim Fathers were not in favour of celebrating Hallowe'en at all, so it awaited the arrival of later waves of immigrants from Europe, especially Ireland and Scotland, to establish the celebration of Hallowe'en in the New World.

The Samhain Festival revived at Tlachtga’s Hill: 

In recent years, the Samhain celebration has been revived at the Hill which is regarded as the centre for Samhain celebrations. It is expected that on the evening of each October 31st over 1000 people from many countries will gather in the Fairgreen of Athboy to observe the ancient ritual of Samhain on the ancient site. Tlachtga’s Hill is close to the town of Athboy in Co Meath, where on the evening of October 31st townspeople and anyone who cares to join them will assemble in the centre of the town, some wearing druid costumes and carrying lanterns, to walk the short distance to the hill outside the town. There they will light the traditional Samhain bonfire. In doing this, they will repeat and recall the actions of their ancestors of centuries before as they mark the passing of another year and the beginning of the coming winter.

 As always, the emphasis will not be just to look back but also to look forward. The dead will duly remembered and honoured, as they should be.

 The living, those who have lived through the year that is winding down to its annual sleep and who are alive to see this night, will be reminded by the fire that the dark winter days of November and December will pass. Light and life will return once more, all in due time, for everything under the Heavens has its season.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Arthur Russell is the Author of Morgallion, a novel set in medieval Ireland during the Invasion of Ireland in 1314 by the Scottish army led by Edward deBruce, the last crowned King of Ireland. It tells the story of Cormac MacLochlainn, a young man from the Gaelic crannóg community of Moynagh and how he and his family endured and survived that turbulent period of history. Morgallion has been recently awarded the IndieBRAG Medallion and is available in paperback and e-book form.

More information available on website - www.morgallion.com

In Celebration of Life

by Anna Belfrage

Tomorrow is the 30th of April, which for us here in Sweden is one of the more important days in the year. Not only is it our king's birthday, but it is also Valborgsmäss, the day when we traditionally light bonfires and sing to welcome back the sun - most understandable in a country as cold and dark as ours is during the winter.

The Celts called this day Beltane. It fell more or less halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice (and us Swedes have a major field day with the summer solstice, let me tell you...) and was a day in which to embrace life, to celebrate having survived yet another winter and the difficult months of March and April, when food stores were depleted and nature as yet had not revived enough to offer much in the way of edible stuff.

Beltane is a purely pagan rite. There is no saint to commemorate, no holy event to celebrate as per the Christian church. But no matter the established Church's determined efforts to eradicate this primitive feast, it has lived on, surviving irate apostles and harsh Conventicle Acts. Somehow, this celebration is imprinted in our DNA, harkening back to a time when the year was measured in solstices, equinoxes and quarter days, when human life was fragile enough for us to implore the gods to give us warmth and sun, continued life and good harvests.

Beltane was a major feast day for the Celts - a fire feast, and as mentioned above that tradition lives on up here in the north. Having said that, as far as I know there weren't all that many Celts up here, in Scandinavia, but seeing as they were a trading people I assume their cultural influence was massive - plus feasts such as Beltane, Samhain, and Midsummer are probably rooted in an even murkier past. Fire, for example, has played a major role in spring festivals since life began in the Fertile Crescent, and to this day the tradition of leaping over fires to cleanse yourself persists in countries such as Iran.

C F Hill - apple tree in blossom

The advent of spring was of utmost importance for our ancestors. Today, 3-7% of the population in the developed world are farmers, producing huge excesses of food they can sell to the rest of us. A century ago, roughly 50-60% of the population had their outcome from the agricultural sector. Before the Industrial Revolution, 80% depended on the land - and what little surplus they produced was sold to acquire necessities such as an iron plough, or salt. For them, an early spring was the difference between life and death.

The Celts, however, were more herders than farmers, and on Beltane the cattle were let out to pasture after months and months cooped up in byres. However, as any Celt knew, with the advent of spring came the increase in mischief from spirits and fairies, so to protect their cattle they lit two bonfires and drove their beasts between them, hoping the smoke would offer some protection against evil. These traditions lived on for a long time. As late as in the 19th century, Scottish Highlanders were lighting their bonfires on Beltane and driving their cattle through the resulting smoke. For good measure, the people would also run through the smoke - or leap across the embers. Similar traditions existed throughout the British Isles. For such a bonfire to be truly effective, it should be lit the traditional way, i.e. by rubbing two sticks together, but I suspect people cheated on this one, as it is very, very hard work to get a blaze going that way!

Sidney Richard Percy, Grizedale

Not only was the bonfire important as a way of cleansing cattle and people from the potential bad influence of the spirits. It was also seen as a representation of the sun, and on Beltane eve, households would extinguish their tallow candles and douse the fire in their hearths before rekindling them from the bonfire - a symbolic "here comes the sun" moment, which supposedly was to ensure the safety and fertility of the people in the household. And once the bonfire had run its course, the ashes were spread over the fields and gardens to protect the growing crops.

Originally, Beltane also included some element of sacrifice. As described in a previous post on this blog, sometimes the sacrifice made was the ultimate one - that of killing a man or a woman. This was done when circumstances were particularly dire, and generally the victim would be chosen by lottery. An oatmeal cake would be baked, it would be broken into pieces, and one of those pieces would be burnt. The pieces were then put in a bowl and passed round. Whoever got the burnt piece of cake was - so to say - toast.

The ritual of baking that oatmeal cake is known to have survived well into the 18th century in Scotland. Just like those long-dead Celts, the Scottish bakers would make a cake, break it and burn one piece. Whoever got the burnt piece had to leap the blazing bonfire on behalf of all of them. In some cases, the person who got the burnt piece was symbolically thrown into the fire and was treated as "dead" by his companions for some days.

Mostly though, the gods were appeased by somewhat less dramatic sacrifices. A cup of mead, a newly made loaf - maybe a chicken or two. And then, once the gods had been given their due, our ancient forefathers went a bit wild and crazy round the bonfire. It was party time, and there were bards singing, people dancing, mead and ale, food, more ale...Men and women retired to engage in more intimate pursuits, yet another variant of celebrating the return of life.

Van Gogh - flowering garden

In our neck of the woods, such pursuits would have to be undertaken indoors - or under a gigantic bear pelt or something. Chances are the last day in April will be cold - even very cold. But the evenings are light - where I live twilight lingers to well beyond 21:00 p.m. - and all around are signs of returning life.

The birches are decorated with minuscule leaves of brightest green, the shrubs shift into an emerald haze, and everywhere tits and blackbirds and lapwings and larks and ... well, birds in general - call and hoot that spring is here and so are they. In the woods anemones poke heads of brightest white through drifts of russet coloured leaves, the lake-shores are here and there still edged with ice, but a couple of swans sail by on the deep blue of the open waters.

Over by the bonfire, there is a smell of sausages burned to a crisp. Couples snog, or hold hands, or hug each other close, and the air is filled with the impressive sound of the male choirs singing in spring. That's what we call it; "Singing in spring". Us Swedes have books full of these spring songs, all about the melting drifts of snow, the return of the sun, of warmth, of hope that soon the ground will break out in full flower. Songs that rather unabashedly praise that first deity of human life; the sun.

For me, Beltane always brings home just what a miracle life is, an eternal cycle of dark and light. It behoves us to at times remember just how blessed we are to live on this green planet of ours. It behoves us to keep in mind that we are but the caretakers of a delicate sphere of life, as ephemeral in time and space as a soap bubble.

Monet - springtime

I'd like to end this post with one of my favourite poems - an ode of joy and gratitude for the world that surrounds us, in this case directed to God, but it could just as well be directed to Mother Nature. I don't know why it always springs to the forefront of my head this season of the year, maybe it's the sheer exuberance in it that speaks to me.

Glory be to God for dappled things - 
For skies of coupled-colour like a brinded cow;
For rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced; fold, fallow and plough;
And all trades; their gear and tackle and trim

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 - 89)

Happy Beltane, everyone! May the day be long and bright, may the sun warm your skin, may a soft breeze caress your cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anna Belfrage is the successful author of seven published books, all of them part of The Graham Saga. Set in 17th century Scotland, Virginia and Maryland, this is the story of Matthew Graham and his wife, Alex Lind - two people who should never have met, not when she was born three centuries after him.

Anna's books have won several awards and are available on Amazon US,  Amazon UK, or wherever else good books are sold.
For more information about Anna and her books, please visit her website. If not on her website, Anna can mostly be found on her blog.