Ancient Celts celebrated a holiday called Samhain (essentially “end of summer”), where they would extinguish their hearth fires and host large ceremonial bonfires, sacrificing animals and crops. This didn’t occur on October 31 but around the same time, depending on the phases of the moon. It marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of a season where the people would be dependent on food stores and shelter from the elements. Superstitious Celts associated winter with death and thought that the season’s transition was marked by the close proximity of spirits; they believed this thin veil would help their Druid priests make prophecies, enabling them to survive the harsh winter. There is an accrued mythology that Druids also wore masks on this night and went from door to door, but historical evidence does support this theory; it seems more like creative fiction manufactured to explain the evolution of modern customs.
The name of our present-day holiday, Halloween (or “All Hallows’ Eve“), actually stems from a celebration for saints formed by the early church. A celebration day for all saints emerges in church history as early as the 4th century, but it was originally set in May or the day following Pentecost (some records suggest this also paved over a similar Roman day of the dead). It was the Germans who initially shifted the custom to November 1st, and whether or not this had to do with the practices of the Irish Celts is questioned by historians to this day.
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HT: Mars Hill Blog
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