O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost— For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
In reading up about Samhain in Celtic tradition, it’s believed that apple bobbing (called “apple dookin'” in Scotland) is a reminder of the journey across the seas that the ancestors took to find fresh fruit.
There was thought to be a magical land, Emhain Ablach, known as the “Island of Apples” that had wonderful apples that imparted wisdom to those lucky enough to find one.
It was also believed that the festival of Samhain taught humans about their “shadow-sides,” all the fears, misgivings, negativity, and unresolved issues within them that should be recognized, accepted, and reclaimed. Celtic wisdom taught that no person could be fully whole without their shadow side, and that ignoring or fighting against your shadow in such a way that you buried it created fragile beings who were easily broken by their ego, by other warriors, and by the hardships of the world.
Samhain, rather than insisting that you ignore the ugly side of your human nature, took you down into the depths of the fear (literally, tons of tales about descent into the pits of the world were told at Samhain) so that you could wrestle with yourself and wake up whole.
It sounds very Jungian, right?
It’s actually just ancient wisdom that we keep forgetting and “discovering” again and again…
“Vanity of vanities… all is vanity. You kill yourself to get to the grave. Especially you kill yourself to get to the grave before you die; and the name of the grave is ‘success’, the name of that grave is hullabullo boom boom horseshit.”
For the ancient Celts, October was a special month. All hinge points in the wheel of the year were seen as an opening into the next phase.
January is Winter’s portal into Spring. April is Spring’s portal into Summer. July is Summer’s portal into Autumn, and October is the Autumn portal into Winter.
But within those four portals there was seen to be two great portals: the invitation into the light, and the invitation into the shadows.
April, with it’s growing light as our star decided to hang around longer and longer each day, was an invitation into the light half of the year.
October, with it’s lingering moon, was an invitation into the shadow half of the year, and was known as the “season of frost and firelight.” Indeed: many have probably lit a fire the past few mornings in the fireplace and temperatures have dropped.
The Celts called the festival at the end of October “Samhain” (pronounced “sow-wen” in Gaelic). It literally means “summer’s end.” This festival was Christianized around the 7th Century as Hallowmas (or All Hallow’s Eve) and, on November 1st, All Hallow’s Day (All Saints’ Day).
That phrase continued to evolve and is now colloquially Halloween.
Rather than some sort of time to celebrate evil or goblins or whatnot, Samhain was actually a time where the Celts explored and ushered in the gifts and mysteries of the shadow-half of the year.
Why do things seem to “go bump” in the night?
Why do we take fire for granted until we can’t see anything anymore?
What does it mean to take seriously the idea that rest and fallowness are necessary for life?
How does family time change when we’re all stuck inside, and what does that mean for us? Could it be possible that, in these intense family times, dead family members join us around the fire (as specters or ghosts)?
Why, in the shadows, are we more fearful and tempted? How do we ward off such tempters? (One solution was the Jack-o-lantern)
The shadow-side of the year, like our own shadow-sides, is not to be feared but, as the Celts did, explored and held and learned from.
The ancient Celts found October to rest under the Ivy Moon. Now half past the month, the harvest is pretty much done and everything is starting to wear its nakedness.
But they called this Autumn moon Ivy Moon because ivy has a difficult time dying, and can live on even after the host plant has died. Ivy, for them, was a reminder that everything goes on in some form or fashion: life, death, rebirth.
It’s the way of things.
Ivy is strong, evergreen, resilient. Though the Earth is wearing their nakedness in these days, Ivy reminds us that the wheel is turning, not dying. It is spinning, not stopping.
As we creep toward Halloween, Celtic tradition offers us a bit of insight into even our most current practices.
Samhain (pronounced “sow-wen” in Scottish Gaelic) was known as “mischief night” in much of the Celtic world. It was a night when people lived out their shadow sides, if just for a few hours, pulling pranks on neighbors, many of whom were tipsy with the drink celebrating the end of the harvest. These mischief-makers would carry lanterns carved out of turnips, usually in spooky designs.
A fun trick on this night, apparently, was to take apart a drunken neighbor’s cart in the middle of the night and reassemble it, horse and all, inside their front room to be found the next morning. Sometimes they’d put manure on doorknobs, or fill keyholes with honey or treacle.
These pranks were wedded to the custom of going door to door begging for treats like apples, plums, and nuts, now stored up for winter in the cellars. In some towns these troops of mischief-makers would blow trumpets upon entering the streets, causing villagers to run to their cellars to snatch some fruits, dried cakes, or coins and avoid the “tricks.” These treats were called “soul cakes” in later years when Samhain and All Saints Day were butted up together, and these travelers were said to go “a-souling.”
Underlying all of this mischief and treat gathering was a more serious ritual, one found across cultures and continents. These figures a-souling were dressed up like the dead to represent the spirits of the past. To refuse these spirits some sort of treat, some sort of offering, would be to invite them to curse the house or take vengeance on the household. The little mischief, the little tricks, would pale in comparison to the other-worldly tricks of ungenerous homes.
Instead of “trick or treat,” these door-to-door travelers would call for a soul-cake.
“A soul-cake, a soul-cake, please, good missus, a soul-cake. An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, any good thing to make one merry.
A soul-cake, a soul-cake, please, good missus, a soul-cake. One for Peter, two for Paul, and three for them who made us all…”
If you want a good rendition of this tune, Sting (on his Christmas album If On a Winter’s Night that is much better than it should be) incorporated it into a Christmas-caroling song. It’s posted below. But there are many other recordings of Halloween versions of the song out there.
Everything has an origin story. Even a few of them mixed together.
For the ancient Celts, Samhain was full of fire rituals intended to both purify land and scare off any trickster faeries and protect the farm from curses.
If you went out into the night on Samhain you’d tie a carved turnip on a string, aglow with a piece of charcoal inside. These glowing faces, called Jack-o’-lanterns referred to an old Christian tale about a blacksmith named Old Jack (sometimes called Stingy Jack) who, because he was so evil, was barred from both heaven and hell.
Instead his purgation was to roam the back roads on Hallowe’en night with nothing but a turnip lamp to light his shadowy way.
When Samhain was brought to the so-called New World (spoiler alert: not “new” at all), pumpkins were much more common than turnips, and so Irish settlers used those for lanterns instead.
O hushed October morning mild, Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild, Should waste them all. The crows above the forest call; Tomorrow they may form and go. O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow. Make the day seem to us less brief. Hearts not averse to being beguiled, Beguile us in the way you know. Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost— For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
