The Origins of Halloween - Samhain (Thread)

Halloween, as most know it, is a festival where you dress up, go trick-or-treating, try apple bobbing, attend parties and carve pumpkins.

Although Halloween is now a separate entity, its origins lie in the Pagan religious festival Samhain (Sow-in - sow as in 'how').

And even with Samhain being a Pagan festival, it further holds roots in Celtic tradition, which I will explain a little further on in this thread.

The Celtic territories are: Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Isle of Man, French Brittany and possibly Galicia.

The Meaning of Samhain

Samhain is one of 4 Celtic seasonal fire festivals and is considered the most important one.

I've marked the 4 fire festivals on this image.

Spread over 2 days from October 31st to November 1st, Samhain welcomes in the darker half of the year. This is also considered the Celtic New Year.

At this time, it's said that the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world is at its weakest or non-existent.

This allows spirits of the otherworld to interact more freely with the living. This included people's ancestors and kind spirits but also more devious spirits who were a threat.

Celts would leave offerings at the edges of their properties for the kind spirits, in exchange for protection from the devious ones who wanted to drag them to the otherworld.

The journey could be dangerous, so Celts disguised themselves as animals or monsters to avoid harm.

This is where the modern dressing up of trick-or-treating comes from.

Additionally, 'guising' (Scottish word) was a tradition of children dressing up and going door-to-door, receiving offerings to ward off evil spirits.

Druid Involvement

Celts wouldn't start the evening traditions until the harvest was complete. Then, they met with Druids and burned sacred bonfires, sacrificing cattle and crops to Celtic Deities (we had a lot of Deities). It's also said that flames from communual bonfires