The witches' new year
By LEAH RAYToday, Oct 31, is summer’s end, according to ancient Celtic traditions, and the origins of Halloween. LEAH RAY explains the significance and spookiness of this quintessentially American holiday that is gaining popularity elsewhere.
HALLOWEEN is a favourite holiday for kids, with its fantastical trappings of ghosts and monsters, black cats and Jack-o-Lanterns, candy and costumes. You may not know it, but it is also celebrated by modern witches, or followers of Wicca, as their New Year.
It’s easy to understand why in the Northern Hemisphere: the harvest has ripened, the crops have been brought in, it’s the culmination of the planting cycle. Soon the days will become shorter and colder, the trees will become bare, Earth will sleep under a blanket of snow. It’s the perfect time to celebrate the gifts of agriculture and look back over the year, bidding farewell to loved ones who have passed on.
Celtic roots
The Celts of France, Ireland, Scotland and Wales called Oct 31 Samhain, (pronounced “sow-en”), which means “summer’s end.” They believed that the veil between the worlds of the living and dead was at its thinnest on this night. Which provided an opportunity for a variety of spooky things to happen.
For instance, on this night, the Lord of the Dead would gather up the souls of all those who had died in the past year and lead them into the next world. (Interestingly, the Celts believed the souls of the dead spent their waiting time in the form of animals.)
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From left: Kathy Najimy, Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker play witches in "Hocus Pocus". |
Nuts and apples were popular snacks. (We see a similar tradition in the Japanese o-bon and the Chinese Feast of the Hungry Ghosts.) The bonfires were also useful in warding off unfriendly spirit visitors.
This open door between our world and the next also meant that Oct 31 was a highly effective time for spell-casting and divination. In Ireland, the Druids, or priests, of the Celts devised particularly gruesome methods, involving human and animal sacrifice, for exploiting the omen-reading potential of the festival.
From summer’s end to Halloween
During the 4th century AD, Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire. The empire proceeded to stamp out the older, pagan religions wherever it could, banning traditional festivals and rituals, executing stubborn priests and generally making it hard for anyone to say no to the new order.
One of the perks of being the winner in such a conflict is that you get to redefine the losing side for the history books. The gods and goddesses of the old religion became devils and demons, their priests and followers became witches and their festivals became Satanic orgies. At least, that is how the story is interpreted by modern witches and many scholars.
Around 900 AD, the reigning pope changed the Catholic celebration of All Saints’ Day, which honours the early Christians who died for their faith, from May 13to Nov 1, in an effort to finally supplant the pagan Samhain in the hearts of the masses. All Saints’ Day was also called All Hallows’ Day, so the night before became known as All Hallows’ Eve? which is just a short slur to Halloween.
Eventually, Halloween became what it is to most of us today: a children’s holiday. The Irish, Scottish and others of Celtic origin who emigrated to the United States brought their Halloween customs with them. And Halloween, as we know, became immensely popular in its new home, and is known wherever American popular culture has been introduced.
The Wiccan new year
Modern witches generally celebrate eight sabbats, or festivals, in the cycle of the year, with Halloween perhaps the most important and best-loved of all. It is the end of one year and the beginning of a new one. It is a harvest festival, a day of the dead and a potent night for magic and divination.
Whether the Celtic elements of the Wiccan way are, as some say, survivals of an old religion maintained in secret over the centuries or antique customs self-consciously revived, modified and melded into a new faith in modern times is irrelevant. One obvious adaptation is the inversion of the dates of the annual cycle to fit the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere. October isn’t harvest time in Australia! Witches in Oz celebrate Samhain on 1st May.
Some Wiccans believe in a Horned God and a Goddess, who symbolise the sun and moon and embody the male and female principles of the universe. Many of these witches believe that Halloween marks the annual death of the Horned God and his passage into the underworld. They honour his self-sacrifice with rituals and prayers, and look forward to his rebirth at the Winter Solstice.
For other witches, Halloween is simply a time of rejoicing and reflection; remembrance of loved ones who are gone; divination and spell-casting; and celebration with friends. Not to mention enjoying the same things other folks do at Halloween: dressing up in costumes, carving pumpkins and taking their children trick-or-treating! All customs that have their roots in the ancient Celtic religion...
Three spells to try
APPLES, mirrors and candles are famously connected with Halloween and with magic. You don’t have to be a witch to try these folklore-based charms:
Wiccan do’s and don’ts
Things Modern Witches Don’t Do Kill and/or eat babies.
Dig up dead bodies.
Fly through the air on broomsticks.
Worship the devil.
Kiss goats, at least as a part of a ritual!
Black magic of any kind.
Things Modern Witches May Do on Halloween
Gather with friends/fellow witches to celebrate.
Made an altar and pray to their God and Goddess.
Write letters to their deceased loved ones.
Light candles and/or Jack-o-Lanterns.
Meditate on the past year and the upcoming year.
Bury an apple in the ground to nourish the Earth and the dead.
Divine the future with mirrors, cards, and other traditional means
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