Samhain

Today marks Samhain, the Celtic New Year festival, closely associated with Halloween, and the cause of much twitchyness and unease among some Christians. "A Pagan festival", they say, so it must be bad!
I have long been interested in the interface between paganism and Christianity and continue to be amazed at how, when a new religion comes along, everything that went before it tends to be immediately written off as sinful and the "work of the devil" by the adherents of the new faith. I, for one, intend to lobby for the rehabilitation of Samhain.

The word means "summer's end" and is still the word used in Irish Gaelic for "November". It marked the last day of harvest and was associated with a festival of the dead when the dead were honoured and tales were told of the ancestors. Nothing un-Christian in that. Most Christian churches have a "harvest festival", though usually a bit earlier in the year now. They also celebrate All Souls Day and All Saints Day at this time of the year to celebrate and honour the dead. In fact this is a widespread custom in many religions and cultures and usually follows the end of the harvest.

Bonfires were associated with Samhain and, in fact this is where the word "bonfire" comes from. It is derived from "bone fire". The day marked the start of the winter season when difficult decisions had to be made. Food was in short supply and would not be plentiful enough to feed all the cattle through to spring. So a proportion of the cattle and sheep were killed at this time. Some of the meat was used for the feast and the bones were burnt in the big fires. Christians too indulge in bonfires at this time of year in commemoration of the Gunpowder Plot and I have never heard calls for their abolition as being un-Christian.

The only thing about Samhain that could possibly be interpreted as un-Christian is that it marks the start of "the Dark season", whereas, six months later, Beltane marked the start of "the Light season". Before Christianity the dark season was often associated with evil ........ it was cold, it was dark, nothing grew, many of the flocks and herds died due to lack of food or being buried in snow drifts. It was definitely not a pleasant time. Modern advances, however, have allowed us to cope with winter much better. It is no longer the threat it once was. Although, last week, we had the first October snowfall in London since 1934, winters, in general, are becoming much milder and some years we get no snow at all. The only "evil" that remains is the long dark nights and we can't do much about that. It is a consequence of the latitude we live at.

At the start of the "dark season" let us remember and look forward to the fact that "the light came into the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out". Happy Samhain.