Samhain

“ Evils having been or being about to be cast off in the New Year ritual, a few more added to the number can make little difference. Hence among primitive peoples New Year is often characterised by orgiastic rites. These took place at the Calends in Gaul, and were denounced by councils and preachers.903 In Ireland the merriment at Samhain is often mentioned in the texts,904 and similar orgiastic rites lurk behind the Hallowe'en customs in Scotland and in the licence still permitted to youths in the quietest townships of the West Highlands at Samhain eve. ”

“ A little play, The Rising of the Moon, which is in the present number of Samhain, and is among those we are to produce during the winter, has, for instance, roused the suspicions of a very resolute leader of the people, who has a keen eye for rats behind the arras. ”

“ In the scamper that ensues, it is a lucky sign if the woman tumbles off. All the expenses of the festivity are borne by the women, each of whom takes with her to the racecourse a large thick bannock of oatmeal, made with treacle, butter, etc.
Samhain, HALLOWMAS, is the first day of winter, and is also known as All-Saints’ Day (Latha nan uile Naomh) , Nov. 1-13. It was a sign of a bad winter if it fell upon a Wednesday, according to the saying: “When Hallowmas is on Wednesday, it is afflictive after it” (Nuair is Di-ciadaìn an t-samhainn is iargaineach na déigh) . ”

“ No place as much as Ireland has kept the belief in all sorts of supernatural spirits abroad among its people. From the time when on the hill of Ward, near Tara, in pre-Christian days, the sacrifices were burned and the Tuatha were thought to appear on Samhain, to as late as 1910, testimony to actual appearances of the "little people" is to be found. ”

“ As Lammas was a Christian harvest thanksgiving, so also was Lugnasad a pagan harvest feast, part of the ritual of which passed over to Samhain. The people made glad before the sun-god—Lug perhaps having that character—who had assisted them in the growth of the things on which their lives depended. Marriages were also arranged at this feast, probably because men had now more leisure and more means for entering upon matrimony. Possibly promiscuous love-making also occurred as a result of the festival gladness, agricultural districts being still notoriously immoral. ”

“ It appears by the life of our great S. Columba, that the Druid temples were here decorated with figures of the sun, the moon, and stars. The Phoenicians, under the name of Bel-Samen, adored the Supreme; and it is pretty remarkable, that to this very day, to wish a friend every happiness this life can afford, we say in Irish, 'The blessings of Samen and Bel be with you!' that is, of the seasons; Bel signifying the sun, and Samhain the moon. ”

“ Streams of milk, of mead,
⁠Streams of strong ale.
"There is no hunger
⁠And no thirst
In the Hollow Land,
⁠In the Land of Youth."
Sharp: Immortal Hour. She and Midir fly away in the form of two swans, linked by a chain of gold. Cuchulain, hopelessly sick of a strange illness brought on by Fand and Liban, fairy sisters, was visited the day before Samhain by a messenger, who promised to cure him if he would go to the Otherworld. Cuchulain could not make up his mind to go, but sent Laeg, his charioteer. ”

“ Where beauty has no ebb, decay no flood,
But joy is wisdom, time an endless song."
Yeats: Land of Heart's Desire.
In the first century b. c. lived Ailill and his queen Medb. As they were celebrating their Samhain feast in the palace ”

“ At the midsummer bonfires in Ireland all passed through the fire; the men when the flames were highest, the women when they were lower, and the cattle when there was nothing left but smoke. In Wales, upon the last day of October, 411the old Samhain, there was a slightly different, and still more suggestive rite. The hill-top bonfires were watched until they were announced to be extinct. Then all would race headlong down the hill, shouting a formula to the effect that the devil would get the hindmost. The devil of a new belief is the god of the one it has supplanted ”

“ But in Germany the days of St. Martin [812] and St. Nicholas [813] have fully maintained their position as folk-feasts by the side of New Year’s day, and even Christmas itself; while St. Martin’s day at least has never been quite forgotten in our islands [814] . The state of transition is represented by the [Pg 234] isolated Keltic district known as the Isle of Man. Here, according to Professor Rhys, the old Samhain or Hollantide day of November 12 is still regarded by many of the inhabitants as the beginning of the year. Others accept January 1 ”

“ Then the pastimes of Halloween and Hogmanay in Scotland, and the Walpurgis night of Germany, and the May-day in Ireland, the festival of their patron saint, and the Midsummer night when the bealfires cast an universal lumination over the fells of the green isle, and the still more sacred fire, lighted up in November in worship of their social deity, Samhuin, whose potent influence charms the warm hearts of all the maids of Erin around the winter hearth of their homes. ”

“ Each homestead, and old Christmas brow
Is crowned with evergreen tonight.
A snowy mantle's on the grass—
Old frozen Winter placed it there.
And trooping to the midnight mass,
Our hearts are filled with holy prayer
⁠To welcome blessed Christmas.
The church is all ablaze with light,
And pious hands have placed there
Festoons of brilliant green and white:
The crib arranged with holy Care,
From God's high altar there ascends
A light, like glory's brightest beam;
The organ's peal, that melting blends
Our souls into blissful dream,
⁠To welcome holy Christmas. ”

“ Christmas Eve—'whose red signal fires shall glow through gloom and darkness till all the years be done'—the season of plum-pudding and holly, mistletoe and carolling, and of kind-hearted generosity, when the traditional stocking is filled, and the green branches of the festive tree are loaded with every species of 'goodies,' for excited and expectant little folks; and 'once a year,' the eve that, of all others, makes the place of those whom death has taken seem doubly vacant, and when the baby that came since last Christmas is hailed with a new joy ”

“ In the same way the Irish witches flit on November Eve, and “on that night mortal people should keep at home, or they will suffer for it; for souls of the dead have power over all things on that night of the year, and they hold a festival with the fairies, and drink red wine from the fairy cups and dance to fairy music till the moon goes down.”15 Of the Allhallows demon Professor Rhys writes: “This night was the Saturnalia of all that was hideous and uncanny in the world of spirits. ”

“ What does anything matter but happiness? Christmas is coming! Every man, woman, and child is a hurrying Santa Claus. The first snow brings its strange hush, its strange sheltering pureness, and the sleigh-bells begin once more to jingle all about. During Christmas week hundreds of strings of colored lights are hung across the business streets. Wreaths and garlands of fragrant balsam fir, the very breath and expression of our countryside, are hung everywhere, over shop windows and doorways, in every house window, and on quiet mounds in the churchyard and cemetery. ”

“ But we have work to do before we feast to-night. For this is the Yuletide, and the heathen people of the forest have gathered at the thunder-oak of Geismar to worship their god, Thor. Strange things will be seen there, and deeds which make the soul black. But we are sent to lighten their darkness; and we will teach our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us such as the woodland has never known. ”

“ I am so cold, so cold!" sobbed little Pierre, as he stumbled through the snow which was drifting deep upon the mountain side. "Oh, I am so cold! The snow bites my face and blinds me, so that I cannot see the road. Where are all the Christmas candle-lights? The people of the village must have forgotten. The little Jesus will lose His way to-night. I never forgot to set our window at home full of lights on Christmas Eve. But now it is Christmas Eve, and there is no home any more. ”

“ The graces of outside strokes, and spread eagles, are the work of time and ambition.
But December has one circumstance in it, which turns it into the merriest month of the year,—Christmas. This is the holiday, which, for obvious reasons, may be said to have survived all the others; but still it is not kept with any thing like the vigour, perseverance, and elegance of our ancestors. They not only ran Christmas-day, new-year’s-day, and twelfth-night, all into one, but kept the wassail-bowl floating the whole time, and earned their right to enjoy it by all sorts of active pastimes. ”

“ Patrick in his Confession clearly refers to this sun-worship as an idolatrous practice prevalent amongst our pagan forefathers. “That sun,” he says, “which at His bidding we see rising daily for our sake will never reign, and its splendour will not last for ever; but those who adore it will perish miserably for all eternity.” The great November festival called Samuin, seems to have been held especially in honour of the side, or fairy-gods, who dwelt in the bosom of the beautiful green hills of Erin, and were supposed to hold high revel throughout all the land on November Eve. ”

“ The December sun shone clear and cold upon the city. It shone upon rich and poor alike. It shone into the homes of the wealthy on the avenues and in the up-town streets, and into courts and alleys hedged in by towering tenements down town. It shone upon throngs of busy holiday shoppers that went out and in at the big stores, carrying bundles big and small, all alike filled with Christmas cheer and kindly messages from Santa Claus. ”

“ Who Sanny Claw?—what’s Clismas?” eagerly inquired the child.
“Don’t you know what Christmas is?” said Dorothy. “Why, Christmas is the loveliest time of all the year. It is then that we hang up our stockings, and in the night while we are asleep Santa Claus comes down the chimney, and fills our stockings with the loveliest things—dolls and toys and candy, and, oh—just everything.” ”

“ The morning rays of eternity.”
“That Christmas is a holiday of light and victory,” begins Cassel, in his account of the day, [1] “every [Pg 73] one who has lived within its influence knows full well. This victory is more sure than the return of spring, to which we look forward in December with such cheerful hope. The Spirit of Truth dwells upon loftier heights than does the creature, and its brightness chases away the shadows of many a gloomy hour, darker than the longest night of midwinter.” ”

“ An instructive relic of the long struggle is preserved in our festival of Christmas, which the Church seems to have borrowed directly from its heathen rival. In the Julian calendar the twenty-fifth of December was reckoned the winter solstice, and it was regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to increase from that turning-point of the year. ”

“ December has the children’s great festal day,—the blessed Christmas, when the lessons of Christ’s life blossom into deeds, and a loving spirit seems to spread over all the land. The carols, the Christmas trees, the merry bells, make the heart gay, and all the air resounds with Christmas glee. ”

“ Trinity offers for contemplation an ineffable paradox of Pure Being. But the God of Christmas is no ethereal form, no mere spiritual essence, but a very human child, feeling the cold and the roughness of the straw, needing to be warmed and fed and cherished. Christmas is the festival of the natural body, of this world; it means the consecration of the ordinary things of life, affection and comradeship, eating and drinking and merrymaking; and in some degree the memory of the Incarnation has been able to blend with the pagan joyance of the New Year. ”

“ Thus there was no Christmas Tree; and Christmas Eve brought no joy to children except [pg 259] that of waiting for Christmas morning. Not until they went to sleep or feigned slumber; not until fires died down in chimney-corners where socks and stockings hung from a mantelpiece or from the backs of maternal and paternal chairs—not till then did the Sleigh of the White World draw near across the landscape of darkness. Out of its realm of silence and snow it was suddenly there!—outside the house, laden with gifts, drawn by tireless reindeer and driven by its indefatigable forest-god. ”

“ Men and women now living can remember when Washington Irving's "Sketch-book" told to them the first story of an English Christmas, and some brave women determined to hang a few boughs and red berries around the cold, barren church.
Then the tree began to bud and burgeon with gifts, and the rare glories of colour crept in upon the snows of winter. The red fire on the hearth, the red berries on the mantel, brought in the light which grew pale in winter, the hospitality and the cheer of the turkey and plum-pudding went around, and Christmas carols began to be sung by men of Puritan antecedents. ”

“ Winter had now arrived in all its severity, and the very day selected for the removal of these poor people was that which fills, or was designed to fill, every Christian heart with hope, charity, affection for our kind, and the innocent enjoyment of that festive spirit which gives to the season a charm that throws the memory back upon the sweetest recollections of life—I mean Christmas eve. ”