The origins of Halloween

Embrace the season

Halloween approaches – even though our brutal Texas summer has shrugged aside the arrival of fall like a schoolyard bully dismisses the pleas of his bespectacled, knock-kneed victims.

Despite the weather, the wife and I have embraced the season, bedecking Gunnels Manse with all manner of spooky, macabre and spine-chilling accoutrements of horror.

A skeleton has made himself comfortable in our front parlor. An ominous raven perches menacingly on our fireplace mantle, and a gigantic pumpkin chimera filled with orange lights dominates our front lawn.

We have extra incentive this year to lay on the ghost-and-goblin décor. Marice came up with the brilliant idea of combining a Halloween shindig with the celebration of our daughter Rachel’s wedding engagement.

I was immediately skeptical, which affected my wife’s party planning not one iota. I still wonder how such disparate events will meld together, but I suppose anything is possible if you have enough booze to oil the squeaky spots.

Whither, Halloween

All of which got me thinking about the origins of Halloween.

I was delighted to discover, after a bit of Internet research, that Halloween and many of its traditions started as the pagan festival of Samhain, by which the Celts marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.

While some of our most cherished Christmas traditions come from the dark forests of Germany – the Christmas tree, the yule log – Halloween is Celtic heart and soul. As a wanna-be Scot, and with a given name like Kerry, that makes me happy.

Samhaim (pronounced sow-win), observed from the sunset of Oct. 31 to the sunset of Nov. 1, was one of two major Celtic religious celebrations. The other was Bealtaine, which occurred around May 1 about midway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.

According to Irish mythology, Bealtaine represented a summer festival for the living while Samhain was viewed essentially as a festival of the dead.

The dates for Bealtaine and Samhain were significant for the pastoral Celts of what is now Ireland and Scotland. In early summer, they drove their cattle to upland pastures, bringing them down again at the beginning of winter.

Thus, Samhaim celebrated the return of the cattle and the slaughter of livestock for the winter. Like Bealtaine, it was considered a time when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld could be crossed more easily.

Souls of the dead took advantage of this “open border” to seek hospitality in their old homes and in the community. To appease them and to seek the blessings of the Aos Si – spirits from the Otherworld – people set out offerings of food and wine.

As part of the festival, people dressed in costumes or in disguise, hiding their identity from the visiting Aos Si or perhaps imitating them, to go house-to-house reciting poetry or performing short plays in exchange for refreshments.

It doesn’t take much imagination to see how these ancient rituals eventually morphed into our modern customs of children in costumes ringing the doorbell and demanding “trick or treats.”

Fun fact, Jack

Jack-o’-lanterns, a Halloween staple if ever there was one, were brought to America by Irish immigrants. And they originally were made with … turnips!

As the legend goes, a ne’er-do-well named Stingy Jack, banned from heaven and hell for his shenanigans, is doomed to walk the earth with only a burning coal in a hollowed-out turnip to light his way.

In Ireland and Scotland, folks began making their own versions of Jack’s lantern by cutting scary faces into carved-out turnips, lighting them with a candle stub to ward off evil spirits.

 Newly arrived immigrants soon discovered the native American pumpkin made much better jack-o’-lanterns, and so a tradition was born.

 Somber history

Another staple of Halloween – witches on brooms zooming across the night sky – has a more sobering history.

Its origins lie in European folklore surrounding the concept of “the hag” – a wizened old woman with magical powers and capable both of benevolence or malevolence. That myth fueled the persecution – orchestrated and encouraged by the early church – of women healers wise in the ways of herbal medicine and natural remedies, who often served as midwives in an age when knowledge of and availability to medical treatment were nonexistent.

These vulnerable women, without a tangible support network, became easy scapegoats when things went wrong in a primitive age of ignorance and brutality. A mysterious death, a miscarriage, a stillborn – all could be easily blamed on the female midwife or herbal healer. Accused of being in league with the devil, they were tortured, hanged and burned.

Over the decades, this horrific history has been sanitized, minimalized and trivialized. Through folktale and modern storytelling, it has been transformed into the innocent and only vaguely threatening image of the Halloween witch – hooked nose, wart on cheek, peaked hat and, of course, wooden broom.

Undaunted by that dismal knowledge, I still set out several witches each year for Halloween. One is more than 20 years old. Occasionally, I’ll stop and gaze at them, pondering the sad lessons of history and feeling once again a small twinge of guilt.

Happy Halloween everyone and stay safe!