As the season turns from lush green grasses and warm air to dead leaves and blankets of snow, the citizens of Scotland prepare for the Samhainn (pronounced sow-en), or the Celtic New Year. This marks the end of the pure, vibrant reign of Brighde and the beginning of a cold, painful season of punishment brought by Cailleach. On top of the hills and peaks carved by Cailleach and her magic hammer, bonfires are lit to symbolize a thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest before the ground began to freeze over. These bonfires are also thought to bring good luck to future harvests, and citizens of Scotland - particularly the Highlands of the west - take them very seriously. Neighbors compete with each other over who has the largest fire, and children play games outdoors in the brisk autumn wind. Families eat meals outdoors with their neighbors, celebrating the New Year and congratulating each other on bountiful harvests. Young men run from village to village claiming that the "witches" must be burned, and villagers make a game out of "defending" their fires from the young men.

During Samhainn, servants are allowed to change masters if they desire to do so. As the day was a holiday, the servants sing a song every year celebrating their day off:

"This is Hallaeven,
The morn is Halladay;
Nine free nichts till Martinmas,
As soon they'll wear away."

Children whose births fall on the Samhainn, or Hallowe'en, are more inclined to have the ability to connect with supernatural elements than those who are born at any other time. They see spirits of the dead when others cannot, and it is during this festival that they gather entire villages around to tell stories of fallen ancestors. During Hallowe'en, the spirits that haunt Scotland give the villagers one night to celebrate without interference. Even Cailleach does not appear until the next day, allowing festivities to continue. The only spirit in the country during the Hallowe'en celebrations is the Samhanach (sow-en-ah), who the villagers send to Ireland to steal children from their homes.

On this night, children also dig out the insides of a large turnip from the harvest, carving the outside into the shape of a terrifying face. It is illuminated from the inside by a single candle and placed either in the center of the village or on the doorstep of the family. Cabbage stalks, a vastly important and magical crop in Scotland, are placed in stacks outside of the family's home in order to alert returning fairies that a new child was wanted in the home. Unmarried men and women venture out to cabbage patches and pull stalks from the ground - the shape of the stalk is rumored to parallel the shape of the future husband or wife.

Traditional harvest dishes are important to the Samhainn celebration. Mashed potatoes, cabbage soup, apples, and cakes are all served throughout the village. Bobbing for apples is a common game held during the festival, and the cakes symbolize the past, present, and future. A ring and a key are baked into the cake, with the ring symbolizing marriage and the key representing a journey that the recipient of the cake was to take.

Cailleach makes her appearance known on November the first, All Souls Day, but the night before belongs to the citizens of Scotland and their Samhainn celebration. The harvest is bountiful, the weather is beautiful, and for one night, the community comes together for songs, dance, laughter, and trickery.


Author's Note: Since Halloween is Saturday, I really wanted to give a history of the event as my last story. The story of Samhainn is so interesting to me, but there are just so many traditions to talk about! I had to condense a lot of them and leave out even more. The ones I left in are some of the more interesting traditions about marriage, and some harvest ideas that still survive today (like jack-o-lanterns and bobbing for apples.) Whenever I think of fall, I remember picking pumpkins and bobbing for apples, so it was really interesting to see where some of these traditions came from in my family (which is quite Scottish!) I thought will all of the doom and gloom of Cailleach and how she makes people absolutely miserable throughout the winter, that it would be nice to give the townspeople a little break and let them celebrate for a night. The holiday reminds me a lot of the Spanish-speaking world's Day of the Dead celebration, and there are many parallels to it in Samhainn - the cult of the dead and speaking to deceased ancestors, the cakes (which make me think of pan de muerto,) and the divination rites. It is very interesting to see how Halloween has evolved from its pagan roots into what it is today, and I am incredibly glad to have found this story.

Bibliography:

"Chapter VIII: In Scotland and the Hebrides" by Ruth Edna Kelly, from The Book of Hallowe'en (1919). Web Source: Sacred Texts Archive.

Introduction | Beira | Brighde | A'Cailleach | Samhainn