samhain tradition

crackernutz

what do yall do in ireland for halloween? anything for samhain? halloween here in the states has become such corporate non-sense..

Dundalk Daily

Excellent piece in yesterdays Irish Times about how halloween is an Irish thing and has been spread around the world and even has overshadowed Guy Fawkes in the UK. It also details how the even has become so commercialised and Americanised. Worth digging out.

crackernutz

Dundalk Daily wrote:

Excellent piece in yesterdays Irish Times about how halloween is an Irish thing and has been spread around the world and even has overshadowed Guy Fawkes in the UK. It also details how the even has become so commercialised and Americanised. Worth digging out.

so what is traditionally done for halloween over there? here it involves going door to door in costume, candy etc. some wiccans still do the whole samhain thing, but i'm not sure what that involves

fly_agaric

crackernutz wrote:

so what is traditionally done for halloween over there? here it involves going door to door in costume, candy etc.

This is what happens now. Some of it is traditional - some not, but I suppose it will be traditional when enough time passes.

Kids and teenagers buy a ton of illegal poorly made Chinese fireworks and set them off. Most on the night itself, but intermittantly in the run up too...Some parents buy them and supervise the detonations.

Since the week before Halloween is a school holiday children/teens often spend some of it liberating pallets and tyres from building sites, scrounging wood etc and hiding it from the City/County Council. This is then burned in illegal bonfires on the night.

Younger children will dress up and go door-to-door to collect food, sweets to "help the halloween party".
Or as Americanisation proceeds - they threaten people with "tricks" if they don't get a "treat".
In the past they may have gone in groups with older children, with a parent in tow. Now I think parents just bring their children out. And they will only knock at the doors of people who they know...

Alot of people with kids now seem to be buying plastic tat, lights etc and hanging it up in their windows for halloween like its a twisted version of Christmas or something. Whatever feeds the machine.
As well as the rubber skeletons, and pvc pumpkins of this new American trend - the shops are (and always were AFAICR) stocked with fruits, nuts sweets (even more than usual...), not to mention shelves full of the traditional barm brack, a tea-bread with raisins, currents etc and a ring hidden in the centre. If you are lucky, the ring may even be made of metal rather than plastic!
Somebody must be scoffing all this stuff.

I think alot of people go out go to parties, etc on Halloween or during the run up.

I'm not sure about that last because I tend to stay in and see if there is a decent horror film I can watch on the gogglebox (the stations showing horror films that night is another Halloween staple) while I eat some nuts and listen to the illegal fireworks and bangers exploding.

some wiccans still do the whole samhain thing, but i'm not sure what that involves

Hopefully not burning Wicker Men or anything nasty like that...or was that for Bealtine?? (joke!)

nollaig

Back in my young days, when I was about 8-9-10-11, We used to 'go out' * dress up at halloween in pairs. All we needed was a bike each, learn off a poem or a tune on the tin whistle and play that at every house we went to. We knocked on every house (prob. wasnt as dangerous in those days). But it was a local area and all the auld wans would keep us at the dor for a few mins. trying to figure out who we were.

Never realised it was an irish thing.

crackernutz

figured out throw this out there:;

"Bonfires played a large part in the festivities celebrated down through the last several centuries, and up through the present day in some rural areas of the Celtic nations and the diaspora. Villagers were said to have cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames, cattle having a prominent place in the pre-Christian Gaelic world. Victorian sources claimed the English word 'bonfire' derives from these "bone fires" but the Gaelic has no such parallel. With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit its hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together. Often two bonfires would be built side by side, and the people would walk between the fires as a ritual of purification. Sometimes the cattle and other livestock would be driven between the fires, as well.

Divination, usually involving apples and nuts, is a common folkloric practice that has also survived in rural areas. The most common uses were to determine the name of one's future spouse, and the location of one's future home. Children would also chase crows and divine some of these things from the direction the birds flew.

In parts of western Brittany, Samhain is still heralded by the baking of kornigou, cakes baked in the shape of antlers to commemorate the god of winter shedding his "cuckold" horns as he returns to his kingdom in the Otherworld. The Romans identified Samhain with their own feast of the dead, the Lemuria. This, however, was observed in the days leading up to May 13. With Christianization, the festival in November (not the Roman festival in May) became All Hallows' Day on November 1st followed by All Souls' Day, on November 2nd. Over time, the night of October 31 came to be called All Hallow's Eve, and the remnants festival dedicated to the dead eventually morphed into the secular holiday known as halloween"

Nevyn

crackernutz wrote:

so what is traditionally done for halloween over there? here it involves going door to door in costume, candy etc. some wiccans still do the whole samhain thing, but i'm not sure what that involves

Many people celebrate Samhain not just pagans.

fly_agaric

Thaedydal wrote:

Many people celebrate Samhain not just pagans.

I've never, ever, ever heard anyone call Halloween (Oíche Samhna?) "Samhain" though until the above posts about Samhain + "Wiccans" (whatever they really are when they are at home?).

I though the OP was kind of pulling peoples' legs.

OP, I had the impression "Wiccans" is an American term for new-ager types who pray to crystals and such. Is that correct?

Nevyn

fly_agaric wrote:

I've never, ever, ever heard anyone call Halloween (Oíche Samhna?) "Samhain" though until the above posts about Samhain + "Wiccans" (whatever they really are when they are at home?).

I though the OP was kind of pulling peoples' legs.

OP, I had the impression "Wiccans" is an American term for new-ager types who pray to crystals and such. Is that correct?

You post seems to be to more of a leg pull.

I suggest you goggle both the terms Samhain and wicca and learn a few things.

fly_agaric

Thaedydal wrote:

You post seems to be to more of a leg pull.

I suggest you goggle both the terms Samhain and wicca and learn a few things.

I've heard of the word "Samhain" (Irish for November, celtic/prechristian harvest- festivals around that time of year - remnants of which may live on in some of our "Halloween" things) but never actually heard it used the way above (people actually doing things to mark "Samhain" at Halloween in the here-and-now - "how will you celebrate Samhain?").

I've heard the terms "Wicca"/"Wiccan" on US tv programs which is what gave me my hazy impressions of new-age/crystal-holding/worship Mother Earth types rejecting nasty organised religion.
Never really considered that they (or anyone else?) might celebrate "Samhain" as a living festival today.

I will use google now.:)