What is Samhain?
Samhain is the Gaelic festival that marks the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, the darker half of the year. It was kept in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man; Wales, Cornwall and Brittany had a related festival, known in Welsh as Calan Gaeaf. The name is usually linked to the Old Irish samain, often glossed as “summer’s end”.
Why it starts at sunset
In the Gaelic calendar a day ran from one sunset to the next, so Samhain began on the evening of 31 October and continued through 1 November. This countdown therefore runs to sunset on 31 October where you are, rather than to midnight, and the festival is shown as lasting until the end of 1 November.
Samhain in the old stories
Samhain appears in the earliest Irish literature, written down from around the ninth century. The tales place great gatherings and feasts at Samhain, and they treat it as a time when the boundary with the Otherworld grew thin: the burial mounds known as the sĂde were thought to open, and the aos sĂ, the people of the mounds, could pass between worlds. Some much older monuments point to the season too; a few Neolithic passage tombs in Ireland, such as the Mound of the Hostages at Tara, are aligned with the sunrise around this time of year.
Customs
Later records describe bonfires, the bringing of cattle down from summer pastures, offerings left for the aos sĂ and games of divination about marriage and the year ahead. Many Halloween customs, including guising (going from house to house in disguise) and carved turnip lanterns, grew out of the way the season was kept in Ireland and Scotland and travelled with emigrants to North America.
Samhain today
Samhain is celebrated in Ireland with festivals, parades and bonfires, and it is a religious festival for many modern pagans. If you visit a ceremony, treat it as you would any other place of worship.