Samhain (usually pronounced SOW-in) is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter, traditionally running from sunset on 31 October into 1 November. In Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man it was a time of bonfires, gatherings, divination games and stories about the dead and the Otherworld, and many of its customs flowed into what is now Halloween. Today it's also a major festival for many modern pagans.
What Samhain is
The Gaelic year was marked by four great seasonal festivals: Imbolc at the start of February, Bealtaine at the start of May, Lughnasadh at the start of August, and Samhain at the start of November. Samhain closed the harvest. Crops were in, livestock were brought down from summer pastures, and households turned toward the dark half of the year.
Days were reckoned from sunset, so the festival began on the evening before. The word survives in everyday language: in modern Irish, Samhain is simply the name of the month of November, and Scottish Gaelic and Manx have their own forms of the word.
You'll often read that Samhain was the "Celtic New Year." It's a popular idea and may hold some truth, but historians point out that the evidence for it is thinner than most retellings suggest, and much of it comes from nineteenth-century scholarship rather than early sources. It's fair to call Samhain a turning point of the year; calling it New Year's Day is more of a guess.
What the old Irish stories say
Much of what we know about early Samhain comes from medieval Irish literature, written down by Christian scribes but preserving older tales. In these stories, Samhain is a time of great assemblies and feasting, and a night when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld grows thin. The sídhe, the mounds where Otherworld beings were thought to live, stand open, and their inhabitants can cross over.
One well-known tale, Echtra Nerai (The Adventure of Nera), is set on Samhain night. On a dare, a young man named Nera goes out into the dark, encounters the dead and follows an Otherworld host into the cave at Cruachan, in what is now County Roscommon. That cave, Oweynagat, was long believed to be a gateway to the Otherworld.
Tradition also links Samhain with fire. The hill of Tlachtga, now the Hill of Ward in County Meath, is associated with a great fire festival at Samhain, from which, the story goes, other fires were lit.
These are literary and folk traditions, not eyewitness accounts of pre-Christian ritual, and it's honest to keep that distinction. But they show what Samhain meant in the Irish imagination: a hinge between seasons, and between the living and the dead.
Folk customs in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man
The customs best documented come from later centuries, recorded by folklorists from rural communities. Many will look familiar.
- Bonfires on hilltops and in villages, lit against the coming dark.
- Guising, going door to door in disguise, often performing a song, rhyme or trick in return for food or coins. Disguises were sometimes said to protect people from wandering spirits by hiding who they were.
- Turnip lanterns. Long before pumpkins, people in Ireland and Scotland hollowed out turnips, carved faces in them, and set a coal or candle inside. The National Museum of Ireland holds an old carved turnip lantern in its collection.
- Divination games, usually about love and marriage. Two nuts named for a couple were set by the fire: if they burned quietly together, the match was good; if they jumped apart, it wasn't. An apple peel thrown over the shoulder might land in the shape of a future partner's initial.
- Barmbrack, a fruit loaf baked with small objects inside. Finding the ring in your slice foretold a wedding. Shop-bought barmbrack in Ireland still often contains one.
- Apple games, such as bobbing for apples or trying to bite an apple hung on a string, using the season's harvest.
- Remembering the dead. Some households left food out or kept a light burning for the family dead, customs that blended with the Christian All Souls' Day on 2 November.
On the Isle of Man, 31 October is still celebrated as Hop-tu-Naa, when children carry carved turnips from house to house and sing a traditional song.
How Samhain became Halloween
From around the eighth and ninth centuries, the Church in the West kept All Saints' Day, also called All Hallows, on 1 November, and later added All Souls' Day on 2 November for praying for the dead. The evening before All Hallows became All Hallows' Eve, shortened in time to Halloween.
Historians still debate exactly how much of Halloween comes from Samhain and how much from the Christian feasts; the honest answer is that both strands wove together over centuries. In the nineteenth century, Irish and Scottish emigrants carried their customs to North America, where pumpkins, larger and easier to carve, replaced turnips, and guising slowly turned into trick-or-treating.
Samhain in modern paganism
In the twentieth century, Samhain was taken up by Wicca and other modern pagan traditions as one of eight festivals in the Wheel of the Year, a calendar that pairs the four Gaelic festivals with the solstices and equinoxes. For many pagans today, Samhain is a solemn and joyful religious holiday centered on honoring ancestors and the dead, and on reflecting at the turning of the year. Some groups, often called Gaelic reconstructionists, aim to stay especially close to the historical Irish and Scottish sources.
Because the festival follows the seasons, many pagans in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate Samhain around 30 April and 1 May, when their own autumn is ending.
Quiet, respectful ways to mark it
Samhain is both a living part of Irish, Scottish and Manx culture and a religious festival for many people. You don't need to belong to either to mark the season thoughtfully, but it helps to approach it as a guest: learn the real history, and don't call newly invented rituals ancient.
Some simple ways to mark the night:
- An ancestor evening. Set out photos of family members who have died, cook a dish one of them made, and tell stories about them. A small home altar is a natural place for the photos.
- A candle in the window, in the old spirit of light against the dark. Keep it on a stable, heat-proof surface away from curtains and never leave it unattended; our candle ritual for beginners covers the basics. An LED candle is a safe alternative.
- Carve a turnip. It's harder than a pumpkin, and the result is wonderfully eerie.
- Bake a barmbrack and hide a ring wrapped in baking paper inside. Warn everyone before they bite.
- A seasonal walk at dusk, noticing what the year has finished with.
- A reflection on endings. Write down what this year has brought to a close. The Death card, which in tarot usually signals an ending and a change rather than literal death, is a fitting image; the Death card's meaning explains why it's less grim than its name.
- Gratitude for the harvest, literal or otherwise: a gratitude ritual for what the year has given you.
- The old love divinations. If you enjoy the nut and apple-peel games, a love tarot reading is their modern cousin, best taken in the same playful spirit.
From Samhain, the year runs on toward the darkest point; our guide to winter solstice rituals picks up the story there.
Questions readers ask
Is Samhain the same as Halloween?
Not quite. Samhain is the older Gaelic festival of summer's end; Halloween takes its name from the Christian All Hallows' Eve. Many Halloween customs, from disguises to carved lanterns, grew out of Samhain folk traditions in Ireland and Scotland, so the two are closely related.
What does Samhain mean?
The word is usually explained as relating to the end of summer, and in modern Irish it is also the word for November. The festival marked the close of the harvest and the move into winter.
Is it okay to celebrate Samhain if I'm not pagan or Irish?
Many people mark the season with family remembrance, bonfires, seasonal food and storytelling, and that's widely welcomed. The respectful approach is to learn the real history, treat it as a festival that is sacred to some people, and avoid presenting invented practices as ancient tradition.
When is Samhain celebrated?
Traditionally from sunset on 31 October through 1 November in the Northern Hemisphere. Some modern pagans time it by the astronomical midpoint between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, which falls in early November, and many in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate around 30 April to 1 May.
