Halloween
Halloween is big business and the festivities – which used to begin on Black Friday have morphed into a lengthy festival beginning well before October 31.
It’s quite lucrative for those producing plastic pumpkins, synthetic spider webs and all manner of ‘spooky’ Halloween goods. It’s been estimated at least five million Australians will be celebrating Halloween this year and splurging around $490 million.
Meantime it’s been predicted that the Americans will spend $6.1billion just on home decorations. It’s a nice little earner for traders who deal in Halloween merchandise.
The evening before All Saints Day was known as All Hallows Eve and in the sixteenth century it was renamed Halloween.
Halloween derives from the ancient Celt tradition of Samhain. It was one of the quarterly fire festivals and marked the time when harvests were gathered.
There were many myths and stories attached to Samhain and Irish heroes featured prominently. The Celts liked their folk heroes ingenious, courageous, muscle-bound and reckless.
It would be great to be in Ireland at the ancient ruins of Trim Castle in County Meath for the Samhain/Halloween festival. It takes place every year from October 28 to October 31.
Trim Castle was built back in the 12th Century. Five thousand years ago tombs were established under the mounds at Bruna Boinne. The region is steeped in ancient Irish history and the Hill of Tara is where the High Kings once held their coronations.
Puća – is the name of the modern Irish fire festival based on the ancient tradition of Samhain. Puća being the name of the changeling spirit that roams between our known world and the spirit world.
Up at Trim Castle in the dark of night, fire twirlers, musicians, fiddlers and dancers magically appear and create a dramatic spectacle. Costumed as Celtic mythical creatures, witches, ghosts and monsters they’re up for all manner of mischief and devilry. I’ve never been to the Puća Festival but apparently it possesses a fabulous steampunk style.
Samhain marked the beginning of the ‘dark half of the year.’ It took place October 31 to November 1. Folk believed the barriers between the spirit world and the physical world would dissolve during Samhain. Your ancestors might choose to cross over during Samhain and visit their kin.
The Celts believed Samhain is the dark part of the year and at this time the god of the underworld rises and is free to walk the earth accompanied by other spirits.
During Samhain offerings were left for the Sidhs (the fairies) and the Celts would dress up as monsters and animals so the Sidhs wouldn’t carry them off. Other threats were the Faery Host – a posse of hunters who might choose to kidnap the unwary. There were also the wicked Sluagh who were keen to enter folk’s homes and steal their souls.
My favourite Samhain monster is Lady Gwyn. She was a wandering headless woman dressed in white and was always accompanied by a stout black pig. She liked nothing better than to chase crapulous citizens in the midnight hours and reduce them to quivering wrecks.
But Lady Gwyn was a funster compared to the headless horsemen who carried their own heads. Their horses had flaming red eyes and nobody wanted encounter them, as their appearance was believed to be a death omen.
When you think about the mayhem, terror, fear and jollification of Samhain, it makes our twenty-first century Halloween tradition appear bland and somewhat commercial. Whereas by comparison burning wheels of fire, Lady Gwyn, headless horsemen, fabulous feasts and tankards of Mead (honey wine) seem scary and thrilling.
Photo: by Enda Casey – 2022 Puća festival at Trim Castle in County Meath, Ireland.