Hallowe'en: a horror show of commercialism

Hallowe'en, as we know it today, had its origins in our Celtic past. It was a special time of year for the first settlers to our shores thousands of years ago. When its influence spread around the world, especially to America, we had no idea it would be handed back to us a century later as an over-commercialised dog’s dinner.

Distant origins 

Google the word Hallowe'en and you will be directed to pages offering costumes, party ideas and hideous decorations. Hallowe'en’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. Our Celtic ancestors from 2,000 years ago, who mostly populated the area that is now northwestern Europe, celebrated their New Year at the start of what we now know as November.

These days marked the end of harvest and autumn and so the beginning of a dark, cold winter; a time of year associated with human death. The Celts believed that on the night before their New Year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. At the end of October, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth.

In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the vagaries of the natural world, these prophecies were as eagerly anticipated as a Met Eireann long-range forecast.

Ritual and celebration 

History.com outlines some of the fun and games that were associated with the ancient Samhain celebration.

To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other’s fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.

One of the first twists in the Samhain ritual took place with the arrival of the Romans into northern Europe. They had rituals and things of their own to add to the Celtic mix, among them, apples, one of the first fruits cultivated by humans.

By A.D. 43, the Roman Empire had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the 400 years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honour Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of bobbing for apples that is practiced today on Hallowe'en

Winds of change 

The influence of the Roman Empire changed things with regard to the celebration and activities associated with Samhain but it was nothing compared to the next Roman influence, Christianity. While loosely allying themselves to the ancient beliefs of the Celts, the new order linked their celebration to all the souls of the faithful departed and the saints – and that’s a lot of links. History.com picks up the story again.

By the 9th century, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands, where it gradually blended with and supplanted older Celtic rites. In A.D. 1000, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honour the dead. It’s widely believed today that the church was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, church-sanctioned holiday.

All Souls’ Day was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels and devils. The All Saints’ Day celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse) and the night before it, the traditional night of Samhain in the Celtic religion, began to be called All-Hallows Eve and, eventually, Hallowe'en.

Clever trick 

Off all the blurring of the ancient Samhain rituals and celebration, the greatest smudge came from the celebration being adopted by commercial America. Our lost population in the New World, in an effort to maintain their Irishness, had their ritual hijacked by bad men. The up-and-coming commercial hot shots in a new consumerist American culture licked their lips at the prospect of making a few handy bucks out of Hallowe'en. I imagine a conversation a bit like this.

“These crazy Irish will buy anything. I have a whole field of pumpkins that I can’t sell, maybe the Irish will buy them… and if they buy them - and let’s face it we all want to celebrate like the Irish - maybe the Italians and the Poles will buy them too. And that gag about their souls coming back from the dead? Oh man, that just kills me. Let’s give them real ghosts and haunted houses. Those guys will love that; they can brag about it in their letters to folks back home.” 

And so, the ancient, and indeed sacred, festival of Samhain got lost in a tangle of pesky pumpkins, chocolate candy, mad movies, flaming fireworks and mad monsters. Hallowe'en howarya!

Childhood memories 

Thankfully, I still remember a Hallowe'en before the days of commercialism, a time when there was still some influence of the ancient festival of Samhain left in the Ox Mountains. I recall the importance of remembering the dead and knowing that they were closer to us on these special nights than at any other time during the year. There is no doubt that our ancient ancestors feared the coming of the dark months of winter; it was always a matter of life and death to them, especially for the very old and the very young.

The harmless, if often annoying, act of kicking someone’s head of cabbage down the road was a tame trick compared to putting a firecracker through an old-age pensioner’s letterbox. Carving a turnip was a much more authentic experience, despite the increased risk of injury, than taking into an oversized Carolina pumpkin with a set of power tools. Interestingly, turnips (not pumpkins) were the first jack-o’-lanterns? And as for Trick or Treat… what’s all that about?

I liked playing Grab Apple, ducking for a shilling in a basin of warm water and getting the ring in the Barmbrack… at a time when those rings were real rings!

Next week… the life and times of the Moy salmon.