On the last night of October the summer is over, the cattle are in, and the year turns in the dark. Samhain is the feast of the dead and the beginning of the witches' year.
Samhain is an Irish word, pronounced roughly SOW-in, with the first syllable as in cow. It is usually explained as meaning summer's end. Of all the Sabbats it is the one that the world at large still keeps, after a fashion, and the one that witches take most seriously.
History and folklore
In early Ireland Samhain was the first day of winter and one of the four great feasts of the year. The cattle were brought down from the summer pastures, the beasts that could not be fed through the winter were slaughtered, and the people gathered. The old Irish tales set many of their strangest events at Samhain. It was a night when the burial mounds stood open and the dwellers in them walked abroad.
The same season was marked across Britain. In Wales the first of November is Calan Gaeaf, the first day of winter, and the night before it, Nos Galan Gaeaf, was a night when spirits were about and people kept away from stiles and churchyards. The Church placed the feasts of All Saints and All Souls on the first two days of November, and the customs of the season gathered around them: bonfires, the lighting of candles for the dead, games of divination with apples and nuts, and lanterns carved from turnips. In the counties along the Welsh border, children went from door to door souling, singing for small spiced cakes in return for prayers for the dead. That custom lasted in Shropshire and Cheshire into the twentieth century.
It is often said that Samhain was the Celtic new year. That idea was put forward by scholars in the nineteenth century and the evidence for it is thinner than is generally supposed. Witches have adopted it all the same, and for us the year does turn here.
Samhain in the Craft
Samhain is the feast of the dead. The belief of the Craft is that at this season the boundary between the living and the dead is at its thinnest, and that those we have lost may come near. The rite of the night welcomes them. There is nothing morbid in it. It is nearer to a family gathering at which the absent are, for once, not quite absent.
It is also the God's season. The summer is over, the leaf is down, and he reigns now as lord of the land of the dead, the comforter who gives rest. And it is a night for looking forward. Divination has belonged to Hallowe'en for as long as there have been records, and most witches will read the cards or look in the glass before they sleep.
How our coven keeps it
In the early rites of the Craft the festival is called November Eve, and that is the name we use among ourselves. Our High Priestess has written about why in the Journal, in Keeping November Eve.
- The coven's book of names is read aloud from the first entry to the last: our own dead, and those who taught our teachers.
- Anyone who has lost someone in the year past speaks of them.
- At the supper afterwards a place is laid and a glass filled for those who are not there, and the first helping of everything goes on that plate.
- We bake soul cakes to the old border recipe, spiced and marked with a cross, and leave some on the doorstep overnight.
- An apple is cut across to show the five-pointed star at its core, and shared.
Keeping it yourself
You need no coven to keep this festival, and many people who would never call themselves pagan keep some part of it.
- Put out photographs of your dead, and light a candle beside them.
- Tell a story about one of them to somebody who never met them.
- Visit a grave, and tidy it.
- Lay an extra place at supper.
- Go out after dark, away from the fireworks, and notice that the year has turned.