Sabbat Discovery - Samhain (Part 1)

Samhain   Yule   Imbolc   Ostara   Beltane   Litha   Lammas   Mabon

Observed: Sunset 31^st October – Sunset 1^st November

The Celtic New Year

This Gaelic festival marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter.

Associated with: All Saints' Day; Hallowe'en; All Hallow's Day; Calan Gaeaf; Shadowfest

Samhain is known by most as Hallowe’en, but for Wiccans and other Pagans it is considered a Sabbat to honour the ancestors who came before us. It is an auspicious time to contact the spirit world because the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest during these days of darkening skies and chilling winds…. so cast your circles, light your candles and take full advantage of the cleared mists that so annoyingly separate us from the unseen ones.

In Wicca

Wiccans celebrate a variation of Samhain as one of the yearly Sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. It is deemed by most Wiccans to be the most important of the four ‘greater Sabbats’. Samahin is seen by some Wiccans as a time to celebrate the lives of those who have passed on from this world and often involves paying respect and homage to ancestors, family members, elders of the faith; the opposite point of the wheel to the spring festival of Beltane, which Wiccans celebrate as a festival of light and fertility.

Wiccans believe that at Samhain, the veil between this world and the afterlife is at its thinnest point of the whole year, making it easier to communicate with those who have left this world.

Traditions

Wearing costumes and masks (or ‘guising’) may have been another way to befuddle, ward off or even represent the  harmful spirits and fairies. Guising or mumming was common at winter festivals in general but was particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural being were said to be amongst us. Before the 20^th century, guising at Samhain was done in parts of Ireland, Mann, the Scottish Highlands and islands, and Wales. In Ireland, costumes were sometimes worn by those who went about before nightfall collecting for a Samhain feast.

Guising and pranks at All Saints isn’t thought to have reached England until the 20^th century, though mumming had been done at other festivals. At the time of mass transatlantic Irish and Scottish immigration, which popularised Halloween in North America, brought with it the strong tradition of guising and pranks from the Celtic lands. Trick-or-treating may have come from the custom of going door-to-door collecting food for Samhain feasts, fuel for Samhain bonfires and/or offerings for the spirits and fairies. Alternatively, it may have come from the English All Saints/All Souls custom of collecting soul-cakes.

Samhain was once and to Pagan paths still is one of the four main festivals of the Gaelic calender; traditionally, a time to take stock of the herds and food supplies; cattle were brought down to the winter pastures. It was also the time to choose which animals would be slaughtered for people to survive the winter. This custom is still observed by many who farm and will raise livestock because it is when meat will keep since the freeze has come and also since summer grass is gone and free foraging is no longer possible.

As with the other three Gaelic seasonal festivals, there is evidence that bonfires were lit on hilltops at Samhain which is one of my favourite places to visit in a Samhain meditation... the chill breeze through my hair at altitude as smoke curls and twists through the air, weaving around and between a coven of witches as they chant and cast into the fire.

Beings and soulds from the Otherworld were said to come into our world at Samhain. It is still the custom in some areas to set a place at the Samhain feast for the souls of the dead and to tell tales of one’s forebears. However, the souls of thankful kin could return to bestow blessings just as easily as that of a murdered person could return to wreak revenge.

Another belief of Samhain is that those mischievious fairies would steal humans and so fairy mounds were said to be avoided. People took steps to warn off these harmful spirits and fairies – they would stay near to home or if forced to walk in the darkness, turned their clothing inside out or carried iron or salt to keep the fairies at bay. Offerings of food were left at the door for firies to dissuade the fairies wrath and keep you in their favour during the coming year.

Sabbat Discovery – Samhain (Part 2)