TODAy is October 31, celebrated in many countries across the world as Halloween (sometimes spelled Hallowe’en), which acknowledges its etymology…
Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve is a celebration observed in a number of countries on 31st October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day or Samhain
Read on and follow my logic … You’ll see that I wrote “we Scots” because most historians accept that Halloween has its origins in ancient Ireland with the Celtic celebration of Samhain , which is a Gaelic word meaning summer’s end. That’s because it was a huge point of division within their year, the marking of the end of summer and the beginning of winter.
I wonder why more people do not recognise that modern Halloween draws much of its ritual from Samhain. That was very much an activity associated with Samhain, during which people wore a disguise, usually animal skins, horns and mud or paint, to make themselves terrifying so they could pretend to be evil spirits who in turn would bypass them.The custom derives from the old Scottish way of arming yourself against the dark side, using a hollowed-out turnip, or tumshie, with a menacing face carved on one side and lit from within by a candle.
We know that there was no fixed date for Samhain except that it was usually held in late October, but along came missionaries such as St Patrick, St Columba and their followers. Rather than decree that Samhain should be stamped out, those early Christian leaders knew that would be counter-productive, so they made a feast day of Samhain and dedicated it to all the saints.
The church back then usually held vigils to be observed the evening and night before major feast days and thus All Hallows’ Eve came into being. Obviously there was no longer a pagan belief system at play, but Christianity could not suppress all the rituals associated with Samhain, and Halloween began to be celebrated.
Prior to that, in 1517, Martin Luther had posted his famous Ninety-five Theses to the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, to start the Reformation. He chose the date carefully – October 31, All Hallows’ Eve, and it is still celebrated as Reformation Day by many Protestants.
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