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Samhain (IPA:
/sawən/) is the word for
November in
Irish; the
Scottish Gaelic name
Samhuinn is closely related. The same word was used for the
first month of the ancient
Celtic calendar,
and in particular the first three nights of this month, the festival marking the beginning of
the winter
season. Elements of the
festival are continued in the traditions of
All Souls Day
and Halloween. The name
is also used for one of the sabbats in the
Neo-Pagan
wheel of
the year.
Etymology
Irish samhain is from
Old Irish samain, samuin, samfuin
, referring to
1 November (lathe na
samna, "samhain day"), and the festival and royal assembly at that date in medieval Ireland
( oenaig na samna, "samhain night"). Its meaning is glossed as "summer's end", and the
frequent spelling with f suggests analysis by
popular
etymology as sam "summer" and fuin "sunset, end". Old Irish
sam
"summer" is from PIE *semo- ,
cognates are Welsh
haf, Breton
hañv, Old
Norse language sumar all meaning "summer", and
Sanskrit
sáma "season".
W. Stokes in KZ 40:245 (1907)
suggests an etymology from Proto-Celtic *samani with a meaning "assembly", cognate to
Sanskrit sámana,
Gothic samana). Compare to this
cetemain "
1 May, beltane", related
to Middle Welsh kyntefin " 1 May,
calan haf,
May" from *kintu-samino-
"beginning of summer" (G. Murphy in Early Irish Lyrics 52), mehefin "June,
middle of summer". J. Vendryes in Lexique Étymologique de l'Irlandais Ancien (1959)
concludes that these words containing *semo- "summer" are unrelated to samain,
remarking that furthermore the Celtic "end of summer" was in July, not November, as evidenced by
Welsh gorffennaf "July".
We would therefore be dealing with an
Insular Celtic word for "assembly",
*samani or *samoni , and a word for
"summer", saminos derived from *samo- "summer" (alongside samrad <
*samo-roto-).
Irish samain would be etymologically unrelated to "summer", and derive from "assembly".
But note that the name of the month is of Proto-Celtic age, c.f.
Gaulish
SAMON[IOS] from the
Coligny
calendar, and the association with "summer" by popular etymology may therefore in principle
date to even pre- Insular Celtic times.
Confusingly, Gaulish Samonios (October/November lunation) corresponds to GIAMONIOS, the
seventh month (the April/May lunation) and the beginning of the summer season. Giamonios, the
beginning of the summer season, is clearly related to the word for
winter, PIE *g'hei-men-
(Latin hiems, Slavic zima, Greek kheimon, Hittite gimmanza), c. f.
Old Irish gem-adaig "winter's night" (the vocalism of gam "winter" is influenced
by sam, Thurneysen KZ 61:253). It appears, therefore, that for some reason already
in Proto-Celtic the first month of the summer season was named "wintry", and the first month of
the winter half-year "summery", possibly by
ellipsis, "[month at the
end] of summer/winter", so that samfuin would be a restitution of the original meaning
after all. This interpretation would either invalidate the "assembly" explanation given above,
or push back the time of the re-interpretation by popular etymology to very early times indeed.
Bealtaine, Lúnasa and Samhain are still today the names of the months of
May,
August and
November in the
Irish language.
Similarly, Lùnasdal and Samhain are the modern
Scots Gaelic names for August and November.
Ancient Celts
The Celtic calendar divided the year
into two halves, the "dark" half, beginning with the month Samonios (the October/November
lunation), and the "light half", beginning with the Giamonios (the April/May lunation). The
entire year appears to have been considered as beginning with the "dark" half, so that the
beginning of Samonios may be considered the Celtic New Year's day. All months began at full
moon, and the celebration of New Year took place during the "three nights of Samonios" (
Gaulish trinux[tion]
samo[nii]), the full moon of nearest 1st November. Likewise, the beginning of the summer
season was celebrated at the full moon nearest 1st May (see
Beltane). The full moons
marking the middle of each half-year may also have been specific festivals, the Coligny calendar
marks the mid-summer one (see
Lughnasadh), but omits
the mid-winter one (see Imbolc).
Note that the seasons are not oriented at the solar year, viz.
solstice and
equinox, but that the
mid-summer festival would be considerable later than summer solstice, around
1 August. It appears that
the calendar was design to align the lunations with the agricultural cycle of vegetation, and
that the actual movements of the Sun were less important.
In medieval Ireland, samain remained the principal festival, celebrated with a great
assembly at the royal court in
Tara, lasting for
three days, consistent with the Gaulish testimony.
Celtic folklore
The Samhain celebration survived in several guises as a festival dedicated to the dead. In
Ireland and Scotland, the
Féile na Marbh
, the "festival of the dead" took place on Samhain.
Samhain Eve, in Irish and Scots Gaelic, Oidhche Shamhna, is one of the principal
festivals of the Celtic
calendar, and is thought to fall on or around the
31st of October. It
represents the final harvest.
In modern Ireland and Scotland, the name by which Halloween is known in the Gaelic language is
still "Oíche/Oidhche Shamhna".
Bonfires played a large
part in the festivities. Even into Christian times, villagers cast the bones of the slaughtered
cattle upon the flames, cattle having a prominent place in the pre-Christian Gaelic world. The
English word ' bonfire'
derives from these "bone fires," but the
Gaelic has no such
parallel. With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then
solemnly lit its hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village
together.
According to Irish mythology, during that night the great
shield of
Scathach was lowered,
allowing the barriers between the worlds to fade and the forces of chaos to invade the realms of
order, the material world conjoining with the world of the dead. At this time the spirits of the
dead and those yet to be born walked amongst the living. The dead could return to the places
where they had lived and food and entertainment were provided in their honour. In the three days
preceding Samhain, the Sun God Lugh,
maimed at Lughnassadh
( August 1), dies by the
hand of his Tánaiste (counterpart or heir), the
Lord of Misrule.
Lugh traverses the boundaries of the worlds on the first day of Samhain. His Tanist is a miser
and, though shining brightly in the winter skies, he gives no warmth and does not temper the
breath of the Crone,
Cailleach
Bheare, the north wind.
In parts of western Brittany
Samhain is still heralded by the baking of kornigou, cakes baked in the shape of
antlers to commemorate the
god of winter shedding his "cuckold"
horns as he returns to his kingdom in the
Otherworld.
The Romans
identified Samhain with their own feast of the dead, the
Lemuria.
This, however, was observed in the days leading up to May 13.
With Christianization, the festival in November (not the Roman festival in May) became
All Hallows' Day
on November 1st
followed by All
Souls' Day, on November
2nd, after which the night of
October 31 was called
All Hallow's Eve, and the remnants festival dedicated to the dead eventually morphed into the
secular
holiday known as
Halloween.
Neo-Paganism
Samhain is one of the eight solar holidays or
sabbats of
Neopaganism. It is
celebrated in the northern hemisphere on
October
31 or November 1
and in the southern hemisphere on May
1.
The holiday, with Beltane,
is one of the most popular among Neopagans, and public Samhain rituals invariably attract large
gatherings. It is the last of the harvest festivals (after
Lammas
and Mabon); in some traditions it
symbolizes the death of the old god.
Among the sabbats, it is preceded by
Mabon and followed by
Yule.
From an astrological perspective, the setting of
Pleiades, the winter
stars,
heralds the supremacy of night over day and the start of the dark half of the year that is ruled
by the realms of the moon.
