Pagan Festival of the Dead
In the Catholic liturgy, Halloween is the same day as All Hallow's Eve. According to folklore scholar Joseph Campbell:
"The day after Hallowe’en is All Saints’ Day, followed by All Souls’ Day. In Europe on these days people go to the graves of their beloved ones who have passed away. Hallowe’en, the eve of the holy days (that’s what the word means), is a festival of the ancient Celtic world particularly... In the Celtic world—the world with which Hallowe’en is associated—it is the dead who come to visit the homes. Hallowe’en is the night of the re-entry of the dead into their domiciles, visiting again the people with whom they had dwelled." (Joseph Campbell on the Roots of Halloween - The Daily Beast)Looking further back, scholars believe the historical origin of Halloween lies in the Celtic festival of Samhain. Larousse World Mythology refers to October 31 as "Samhain's feast." In his monumental work The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer refers to Samhain as "an ancient pagan festival of the dead":
"Halloween seems to have been the night which marks the transition from autumn to winter... when the souls of the departed were supposed to revisit their old homes in order to warm themselves by the fire and comfort themselves with the good cheer provided for them by their affectionate kinsfolk." (The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion, Sir James George Frazer)Frazer states that on Samhain, the Celts used "manifold methods of divination... for the purpose of ascertaining their destiny in the coming year." He also suggests that it may have been the Celtic new year. Nora Chadwick's excellent book The Celts also describes Samhain as "the beginning of the Celtic year, when any barriers between man and the supernatural were lowered."
Going beyond dead relatives, there was a further supernatural side to Samhain, as Frazer points out:
"It is not only the souls of the departed who are supposed to be hovering unseen... Witches then speed on their errands of mischief... the fairies, too, are all let loose, and hobgoblins of every sort roam freely about."Chadwick puts this into perspective by pointing out "the naturalness with which men, women and the gods to pass in and out of the natural and supernatural spheres (in Celtic mythology). In many circumstances, there does not seem to have been any barrier."
Based on the above, it's hard to make the case that Halloween is the Devil's holiday. Rather, Halloween seems more like a relic of an earlier belief system, in which looser rules were thought to be in effect on this one day of the year.
The Lord of the Dead
A diabolical controversy erupted when I consulted The World Book Encyclopedia, the fount of all knowledge when I was a child. The World Book describes Samhain as "the festival of the Celtic god Samhain, lord of the dead." Could this "lord of the dead" be an earlier representation of Satan?
A detailed treatment of that subject by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance maintains that there never was a Celtic lord of the dead called Samhain. Rather, they say, this was an 18th-century author's error that has been perpetuated by the popular media.
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| Cernunnos, the horned god |
That appears to be the case. After further searching, I found no scholarly source which mentions a Celtic god called Samhain. The Celts did worship a horned god, Cernunnos. He was the lord of wild things, according to The Encyclopedia Britannica. Some say he was the Celts' god of fertility, life, animals, wealth, and the underworld. To my mind, that description is too multi-faceted to support a belief in Cernunnos as an evil supernatural being.
What then was the original source of the connection between Halloween and the Devil? The most satisfying explanation I have found is that of tensions between early Christianity and the pagan religions which preceded it:
"(The feast of) Samhain, with its emphasis on the supernatural, was decidedly pagan. While missionaries identified their holy days with those observed by the Celts, they branded the earlier religion's supernatural deities as evil, and associated them with the devil. As representatives of the rival religion, Druids were considered evil worshippers of devilish or demonic gods and spirits. The Celtic underworld inevitably became identified with the Christian Hell." (Halloween: The Fantasy and Folklore of All Hallows by Jack Santino, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)
Here, perhaps, we have come to the heart of the matter: an ancient pagan festival of the dead returning from the underworld, later characterized by Christians as a night when evil beings from Hell are let loose. It's only one step from this explanation to that of "the Devil's holiday."
The Old Devil
Unless my sketchy research has missed something, it seems we safely can lay to rest the notion that Halloween is the Devil's holiday -- a conclusion made easier by the fact that I don't believe in "the ol' Devil" (as my granny used to call him) anyway. I welcome any information or opinions to the contrary. Just share your thoughts by leaving a comment in the space provided below. And have a frightfully happy Halloween.
Further Reading
- All Hallows Eve - Catholic Education Resource Center
- All Saints Day - The Catholic Encyclopedia
- Cernunnos - The Encyclopedia Britannica
- Halloween's Celtic Roots - The Archaeological Institute of America
- Halloween in Scotland, by Ben Johnson: article published in History UK - The History and Heritage Accommodation Guide
- Halloween, Samhain, All Saints Day - The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
- Samhain: Season of Death and Renewal, by Alexei Kondratiev: article published in An Tríbhís Mhór: The IMBAS Journal of Celtic Reconstructionism, volume 2, issue 1/2
A devilishly good read, full of excellent scholarship!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Rondo. Happy Celtic New Year!
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