medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Here's a starting point for Samhain, excerpted from my own silly little
popular dictionary of Irish spirituality.

Phyllis

Samhain (Samain)

The most important seasonal feast of the traditional Irish year, Samhain is
celebrated on 1 November.  Its name means "end of summer" (samh = summer,
fuin = end), and it marks the death of the old year and the birth of the
new, beginning with the dark season in accordance with Irish calendar
practices.  Sunset on 31 October marks the death of the old year, while the
following dawn is the beginning of the new, so Samhain night is an odd
between-time, when the normal rules of both time and space are believed to
be suspended.  The barriers between the supernatural and earthly worlds are
dissolved, spirits can interfere with human affairs, and mortals can enter
the realm of the dead.  It is also a time of prophecy.  This is a very
ancient festival.  We do not know how it was celebrated in early times; the
only source, the seventeenth-century Geoffrey Keating, is unreliable.  He
reports that an assembly of druids kindled a sacred fire and domestic fires
throughout Ireland were relit from it.  More likely, by the time Christians
wrote down tales of Samhain they no longer knew how the festival was
celebrated.  Certainly this description sounds suspiciously reminiscent of
the ritual lighting of the paschal candle at the Easter vigil.
        In pre-Christian times it was believed that the Dagda and the
Morrígan came together on Samhain, their intercourse assuring the
well-being and fertility of the tribe for the coming year.  In some
versions the goddess is a hag, revived by union, as the earth is reborn on
Samhain day.  Elements of the uncanny predominate in the old stories,
though.  The gods were believed to be particularly hostile and dangerous
then, and were propitiated by sacrifice, perhaps human sacrifice in early
times if one can believe the legend of Crom Crúaich.  The peculiarly
liminal quality of Samhain is best expressed in "The Adventure of Nera,"
part of the Ulster Cycle of tales.  In the story, a prize is offered to
anyone brave enough to tie a withe to the leg of a corpse on the gallows
outside the fort.  Nera accepts the challenge, and the corpse, revivified
by the power of the festival, gives Nera advice on how to win the prize.
Nera then goes into the cave of Cruachain, a traditional portal to the
otherworld, where he sees the ruler of the sídh surrounded by a court of
dead men.  In other stories, spells are made or broken on Samhain, human
beings can enter the otherworld, and the dead walk.  In Irish folk custom
it was believed that fairies are abroad on Samhain, sometimes dancing with
ghosts, the púca is on the prowl, and witches find it the best time of the
year to make spells.  On a more benevolent note, the souls of dead family
members would return to their homes, and should be met with signs of
welcome.  Food was offered to spirits, poured into a hole dug in the
ground, a practice that Sjoestedt reports was still practiced in the early
twentieth century.
        The Celtic festival of Samhain was given a Christian guise when
Pope Boniface IV in the seventh century moved the celebration of All
Saints' Day to 1 November specifically in the hope that the Christian
holiday would supplant the pre-Christian festival of the dead.  This is a
commemoration of all the saints of the Church.  Old customs die hard,
though.  In many Catholic countries people still visit family graves on All
Saints' Day, while the eve of All Saints', Halloween, until very recently
was regarded as a mysterious, uncanny time, when the boundaries between the
living and the dead were dissolved.

Bibliography:
Danaher, Kevin.  "Irish Folk Tradition and the Celtic Calendar."  In The
Celtic Consciousness, edited by Robert O'Driscoll, 217-42.  New York:
George Braziller 1981.

Gill, Elaine and David Everett.  Celtic Pilgrimages.  Sites, Seasons and
Saints.  London: Blandford, 1997.

Green, Miranda.  Celtic Goddesses.  London: British Museum Press, 1995.

Hutton, Ronald.  The Stations of the Sun.  A History of the Ritual Year in
Britain.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Ross, Anne.  "Material Culture, Myth and Folk Memory."  In The Celtic
Consciousness, edited by Robert O'Driscoll, 197-216.  New York: George
Braziller, 1981.

Sjoestedt, Marie-Louise.  Gods and Heroes of the Celts.  Translated by
Myles Dillon.  Berkeley: Turtle Island Foundation, 1982.

Dr. Phyllis G. Jestice
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