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Samhain (pronounced "sow-in" "sow-een" or "sah-veen") is the old Celtic festival that falls on October 31st. It is also know as All Hollows Eve, Halloween, Hallowe'en, All Saints Day, Feasts of the Dead, Feasts of Apples, and by many other names. It means "summers end" and in Wicca today, its the last harvest festival and the witches New Year - its the start of the winter, or dark half of the year.

The Celts, who lived in areas such as England, Scotland and Ireland, divided the year in two seasons, Summer and winter. Beltaine was the light half and Samhain was the dark. Samhain is the night when the dead are able to return to earth. Because it was the day between the seasons, its the night when the veil between the world are the thinnest and we can communicate with loved ones whom have passed away. Samhain was a Celtic festival, but Rome had its own as well. This was the festival of Pomona held on November 1st to celebrate the goddess of the orchards and the harvest. Since the Celts had their festival and the Romans had theirs around the same time, the ideas and traditions had a habit of blending, especially since Rome had such an influence of the rest of the world. So there was a time when the people lived peacefully with their festivals, that is untill Constantine, in 314 CE declaired Rome a Christian state. So that was the end of the Roman harvest festival and since Christianity spread through the various conutries, that was also the end of Samhain for the Celts. Or so they thought. With the attemps to Christianise the ancient peoples, the Church, in the 7th century made November 1st All Saints day when they honored the saints who died for the Church. Later it became Hollowmass, or Hallows Eve, which later became Hallowe'en or Halloween .The Church thought that if they could not get the people to give up their celebrations, they would just make one that was like it. Their attempts were futile however - the traditions survived and the Church banned the celebrantion all together untill 1928 when it was once again restored to the calendar.

To the Celts death was not an ending, but a continuation of the cycle of life, death and rebirth. Witches today celebrate this phases of the cycle. They pray to and honor their ancestors.Today divination is also a popluar activity to do, as well as communicating with the dead.Young girls would try to see who they would marry by peeling an apple peel untill it fell to the floor, in the shapes of their future husbands first initial. Another thing they did was line up hazel nuts in front of a fire and give each the name of a man. Whichever nut cracked first was the man whom she would marry.

This is the night when bonfires were lit at dusk all across the country side in hopes to drive away all bad spirits and powers on the darkest night of the year.This was also a means for getting rid of all the debris from the past year.Today witches may symbolically burn things to get rid of influences from the past year. Sacrifices were thrown into the fire to please the gods and ask for blessing for the people.

By this point in the season, the people were finished working with the land. The crops were harvested and stored for the winter. Apples, corn, oats, barley and other fruits have been harvested and put away to sustain the people through the cold months. The cattle are put away in the barns and those that would not live through winter were slaughtered to provide food for the cold winter season. Families worked hard together in the summer months preparing for this time, and now they could relax, bake and preserve the food that would keep them alive in the coming year.

At this time, the leaves have already turned golden yellow, bright orange, dark brown and deep red, but the now they fall to the ground and litter the earth with a protective blanket of mulch. The days grow shorter and nights longer. There is a chill in the air and the smell of buring leaves travels through the wind. Huge pumpkins sit along roadsides and apples are being harvested and made into cider and delicious pies and desserts. You can feel winter in the air - the earth is brown and dry, nothing is growing and everything is slowely dying.

The Goddess is in her crone stage. She rules this time of year, transforming the souls of the dead into new lives. The God resides in the underworld where we will return in another 6 weeks at Yule. He rides through the land as the leader of the Wild Hunt, his hounds chasing those souls which are reluctant to leave this earth and go to the land of the dead.
Today Halloween is a popular holiday in American. Children dress up in costumes going around from house to house trick-or-treating for candy. Popular symbols are goblins, witches, ghosts, and anything spooky and frightening. Many people don't know that these symbols came from the past, and they sure don't know why this whole Halloween even started! Way back in the day....think Roman time, when the Christian Church tried to get rid of the pagan festivals they often had to use bribes and threats to get their ideas to spread. When that wasn't working, they made the pagan festivals something bad. The Celts had no concept of heaven or hell, but the Church made the Land of the Dead into hell and the peoples loved ones into ghosts and evil spirits. A lot of people think that Samhain was a Celtic God of the death, but thats not true. The Church thought this as well and made Samhain the night where Satan ruled. The Church thought that if they could make Samhain bad and evil, people would no longer want to celebrate it. Of course on such a wicked night, witches were soon thrown into this day!

However it happened is hard to pinpoint, but the folk customs of All Hollows Eve were brought to America with the first peoples. Most of those practices revolved around the church, but later during the Victorian era the holiday was given a new meaning. It was a time for divination (something the Victorians participated in quite often) matchmaking, parties, games and treats. They pretty much took the historical and religious meaning out of it and turned it into a fun holiday. It was a time for fun and eventually became a time for tricks and mischeif. Children would play tricks on the towns people on Halloween and it was actually the Boy Scouts who started the idea of Trick-or-Treating to keep people from playing tricks. During World War Two Halloween was a moral booster and the people used it as an excuse to have fun in a time of such depression. Today its still a time to have fun and have parties and in one of the most popular holidays in America.
The symbols of Halloween can be seen everywhere at this time, but where did they come from? The idea of carving pumpkins comes from the Celts. They did not have pumpkins, however, those are an American vegetable, but they did have other vegetables. It is believed they hollowed these out to use as lanterns. They could have used them to scare off evil spirits but historians are not too sure where the carving of faces came from. They also could have been put in windows so the dead could find their way to their families. However, there are many tales of the Jack-O-Lantern, but how and why they were told is hard to pinpoint. There is one where a man named Jack cannot enter neither heaven nor hell but is forced to walk around earth with only a turnup lantern.

Trick-or-Treating originally started with the Celts who would leave out food for the dead, and also people would come from house to house laughing, eating and celebrating with each other. This is where the American version of trick-or-treating comes from. There was also a practice in England where peopel would go "mumming" (which included the people dressing up in costumes) or rhyming from house to house around this time of year. They would dance, sing, say a rhyme or something like that in exchange for money or food. In Scotland men would wear scarry masks, carry a hallowed turnup lantern and sing rhymes expecting to get treats from people. Its still being debated whether the idea of wearing masks and costumes came from the Celts, but these is the idea that costumes and masks disguised people so evil spirits could not know who they were.

For Wiccans, this is a very important holiday. They honor the dead by communicating with them and doing divinitions for the coming year. They get rid of the negative influences of the past and do rituals to welcome in the new year. Its a time of endings, yet a time for new beginnings.

Correspondence of Samhain

Here are some activities to do for Samhain.
- Make a Spell Pumpkin
- Carve pumpkins to symbolize something you want for the coming year.
- Make a bonfire and do a spell for protection, or burn something that symbolizes the past year.
- Bake foods like apple pies and pumpkin breads for your ritual feast
- Make an altar for yoyur ancestors to honor them on Samhain. Decorate it with pictures of loved one whom have passed and decorate it with items they liked.
- Give thanks to the Goddess for the harvest
- Do divinations with apples and nuts

Herbs and plants for Samhain-Chrysanthemum, acorns, broom, wormwood, apples, pears, mullein, hazel, thistle, pomegranates, all grains, harvested fruits and nuts, pumpkins, gourds, corn, Mugwort, Allspice, Catnip, Deadly Nightshade, Mandrake, Oak leaves, Sage and Straw.

Symbols and Decorations for the Samhain altar
Pumpkins
Cornstalks
Apples
Gourds
Cauldron
Black and orange candles
Harvest print or black altar cloth
Fall leaves
Pictures of loved ones
Goddess in the crone stage
God of the underworld

Various other names for this Greater Sabbat are Third Harvest, Samana, Day of the Dead, Old Hallowmas (Scottish/Celtic), Vigil of Saman, Shadowfest (Strega), and Samhuinn. Also known as All Hallow's Eve, (that day actually falls on November 7th), and Martinmas (that is celebrated November 11th), Samhain is now generally considered the Witch's New Year.

Symbolism of Samhain:
Third Harvest, the Dark Mysteries, Rebirth through Death.

Symbols of Samhain:
Gourds, Apples, Black Cats, Jack-O-Lanterns, Besoms.

Foods of Samhain:
Turnips, Apples, Gourds, Nuts, Mulled Wines, Beef, Pork, Poultry.

Incense of Samhain:
Heliotrope, Mint, Nutmeg.

Colors of Samhain:
Black, Orange, White, Silver, Gold.

Stones of Samhain:
All Black Stones, preferably jet or obsidian

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