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Halloween
the ancient festival of Samhain [part 3]
- After the advent of Christianity 'parshell' crosses were made and
fixed to house, byre and stable doors. Bonfires were lit as the
'Samhain pile' and ashes and burning brands were thrown out.
There were also parties of 'guisers' going about collecting apples,
nuts or money and the hobby-horse, or a horse's head, figured in the
ceremonies. The evil powers were the Formorians and in earlier times
human sacrifice was said to be practised; this was not only to
propitiate the powers but also to bring fertility.
- Traces of human sacrifice are also seen in the Welsh "Black Sow"
ceremony in which everyone ran downhill as fast as possible shouting
"the Black Sow take the hindermost", the last person being the victim.
The Black Sow was the spirit of evil, cold and death.
- The wholesale killing of animals was not only for winter food, but
because there was not enough feed for them in the fields in winter.
The slaughter took on a ritual and sacrificial aspect among the Celts
and Teutons and bore the marks of an earlier pastoral festival with
the emphasis on semi-divine animals. Feasting followed and the
dead were also feasted. In Germany and Gaul, boisterous processions
took place and men dressed in animal masks and skins, thus gaining
contact with the sacred animals and with the deities.
- At Samhain, a sheaf of corn, a branch of evergreen or mistletoe
symbolically carried on the dying powers of vegetation. Carrying or
decorating with evergreens demonstrates that life has not died.
Pliny gives an account of a Druid festival of the cutting of the
mistletoe from an oak tree: it was cut with a golden sickle and
caught in a white cloak, as it must never touch the ground. Two white
bulls were sacrificed and a feast held.
 Samhain was also a time of truce, when no fighting, violence or
divorce was allowed; hence it was a time of marriage. Accounts were
closed, debts collected, contracts made and servants hired.
- So Halloween has an extensive history, reaching back into the mists of time. The rituals we so light-heartedly employ today have their origins in the most serious protective rites, designed to keep the world of the supernatural at bay.
This concludes the article. Click to return to the start of Halloween!
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