All mischief comes after All Hallow; the Origins of Halloween, Samhain, and an Irish Feast

How fit our well-rank’d Feasts do follow/ All mischief comes after All Hallow

-Richard Crashaw

For this post, we made Shepards Pie a la Alton Brown, a dish commonly attributed to the United Kingdom and then adopted by the Irish. While not a Samhain dish, in particular, it is still one we typically associate with a hearty meal and Ireland, and seemed like a good fit for the topic at hand. For reference, potatoes were domesticated in the Americas, not Ireland. And if you want to make shepherds (not cottage) pie, make sure to use lamb!

I also made soul cakes, which you will read about below. They are more or less a shortbread biscuit with warming spices.

Jump to Recipe for Shepards Pie

Jump to Recipe for Soul Cakes

Many people believe that Halloween’s traditions are inherently “pagan” and largely an American tradition adopted from the early Irish Celtic/Gaelic festival of Samhain (pronounced sah-win). The Celts were a collection of peoples that shared a common language, cultural traits, and religious beliefs, originating in central Europe, and began to spread across western Europe, including Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain, around 1200 BCE. Samhain (or Summer’s End) was an agrarian festival meant to be celebrated on October 31 (the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice), before the coming of the long nights of winter. It was thought of as a liminal (transitional) time when supernatural forces escaped from the low hills, mounds, and barrows in the countryside. To ward off the spirits, the Celts supposedly built enormous bonfires, engaged in sacrifice, and feasted. Gaelic, on the other hand, refers to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic languages within the Celtic language family.

For those wondering, “pagan” generally refers to a range of religious practices and beliefs that are not part of the major monotheistic religions; however, historically, it referred to polytheistic and nature-based religions that were practiced in ancient Europe and other regions before the advent of Christianity.

But, it turns out, the historical evidence for the connection between Halloween and the Celtic/Irish Samhain is sparse. So, where did Halloween come from?

As I read up on Halloween, the point scholars came to again and again is that it can more accurately be described as part of the Catholic celebrations of All Hallows and All Saints’ Day. In fact, “Halloween” is a derivative of All Hallow’s Eve.

But if Halloween is more Christian than pagan, why has this idea persisted through time? And what is the connection between Celtic people, Gaelic/Ireland, and paganism? If there is a rich history of Halloween being celebrated in Europe, why do we think of it as a traditional American holiday now?

As usual, the more I read the more I realized I did not know. So to unpack my journey into the history of Halloween, I made a timeline (a very basic one) to help sort through the chaos.

The Timeline.

12th century BCE (the Iron Age). “Celtic” origins and first celebrations of Samhain (most likely).
1st century BCE. The Roman Empire starts assimilating the Celtic people.
1st century CE. Pliny the Elder of Rome writes of Celtic traditions, including animal sacrifice by the Druids (notably, he does not mention Samhain).

Let’s pause here to address the elephant in the room. Celtic? Turns out “celt” is a vague and misleading term for a diverse group of people. The term “Celts” was assigned by classical scholars to various groups, not by the groups themselves. Archaeological evidence does not support the idea of a mass migration of Celtic people to Britain and Ireland. Medieval Irish and Welsh people did not view themselves as sharing common ancestry or cultural heritage. The modern concept of “Celts” and “Celtic literature” emerged during the early modern and Romantic periods (circa 15th century BCE and on), and was not based in historical fact. As a result, recent scholarship has come to question the validity of the terms “Celt” and “Celtic.” Instead, stating we should use more culturally appropriate terms for each group, perhaps such as Gaelic, or include additional descriptors to better convey the nuance of the term.

Illustration from an 1882 magazine showing people singing under a window for soul cakes

Illustration from an 1882 magazine showing people singing under a window for soul cakes.

Okay, back to the timeline.

Pre-5th century CE. Christianization of Ireland.
8th century CE. Pope Gregory IV ordered All Saints Day be moved from May to November 1. This correlating date with Samhain may not be a coincidence, as the Church has often moved holidays to appropriate “pagan” ones in an effort to stop their converts from practicing non-Christian festivals; but then again, maybe it is. Samhain is a harvest festival and All Saints Day is a day of feasting.
10th century. All Souls Day was added to the calendar and the two became linked, often referred to as Hallowtide or Hallowmas.
10th-century. First Irish Folklore accounts of Samhain are recorded, supposing Celtic ties.
16th century. Samhain becomes completely absorbed into the dual festival of All Saints and All Souls.
10th-18th centuries-Europe. The celebration of Hallowmanss grows in popularity, with traditions burgeoning and regional variations developing. Some of these include;
- “Souling” wherein a household bakes” dozens of “soul-cakes,” small cakes decorated with crosses to give out to the unfortunate who would go door to door and accept the cakes in exchange for prayers for the inhabitant’s deceased loved ones”.
- Making lighted turnips by hallowing them out and placing candles inside, which were meant to represent souls trapped in purgatory.
- The use of masks by the poor as they visited the houses of the wealthy.
- In England, people would carry candles through the countryside before midnight to ward off witches and safeguard their crops.
- Playing snap-apple,” (apple bobbing) to use up the surplus apples from the year’s harvest.
- Divination and future-telling games.
- In Wales, people would engage in “church porch”, the practice of standing by a church window to witness a sermon delivered by the devil himself, who would reveal the names of those destined to die in the coming year.

15th century. Europeans arrive in the Americas.
16th century-Europe. Courtship becomes a common tradition on the holiday.
18th century-Europe. People begin carving grotesque faces into turnips or beets.
19th century-Europe. Halloween becomes associated with the dead.
1830s-Americas. Pumpkins began to be used (domesticated in Central Mexico circa 8,000 BCE).
1845. The Irish Potato Famine led to mass immigration from Ireland to the United States. They face discrimination in the U.S.
1866. The National Irish League in New York hosts the first Halloween ball in the United States. In Philadelphia, the New Arch Theatre hosted a storyteller on Halloween to tell stories of “legendary dreams of Old Ireland.”
1890s (ish). Irish people began finding acceptance into American society. Halloween’s popularity continues to grow.
1939. The phrase trick or treating was first used.
WWII. Trick-or-treating was halted due to sugar rationing.
1970s. Growing movements to cast Halloween as pagan and evil by Evangelicals.
Modern day. Growing commodification and consumerism!

Reading through that timeline it becomes clear that large bonfires to ward off the evil spirits are perhaps the only tradition that may tie back to the pre-Christian Samhain. Most of the other traditions tie back to Christian rituals. While these have changed through time (we no longer center divination or engage in courtship as a Halloween activity), many have transformed into new practices with clear ties to the past (we carve pumpkins, not turnips, we dress up as non-goulish characters, etc.).

In this view, perhaps Halloween can be better characterized as neither (or both?) a pagan nor Christian holiday; but a sort of a global festival rooted in numerous traditions and ideas that have been shaped by different cultural, religious, and political forces through time. A view that only becomes clearer if we consider that at its core, it is a harvest holiday, tied to seasonal change, a communal experience of most people living in the northern hemisphere. That different cultures would have a period of celebration at this time is unsurprising. In fact, many places have celebrations at this time (such as Dia de los Muertos in Mexico/Mesoamerica, or St. Martin Day in Europe, to name just two). The relationship between periods of change (such as fall), liminality, and ritual is well established. Thus, Halloween, in many ways, would have been a palatable festival across continents, cultures, and religions.

So, is Halloween a Christian or pagan holiday?

It is somewhat ironic that Samhain was likely appropriated into Christianity through the Christianization of Ireland (and beyond) and the intentional calendar moving of All Saints Day to November 1, only to now be intentionally separated from Christianity through the revival of the notion that it is a “pagan” holiday riddled with pagan ritual practices.

However, in the transition of Halloween from Christian to pagan in the modern era, we often overlook a potentially more powerful theme, that of resistance. As I mentioned in my Dia de los Muertos post, religious syncretism (the sometimes intentional blending of different religious beliefs and practices into a new system, or the incorporation of elements from various religions into an existing tradition) isn’t always just a story of control and power of one group over another, though it certainly can be! Much like Dia de los Muertos, the holiday’s continuation today can also be framed as an active form of cultural resistance in which claims of pagan and Celtic origins are used as a means of preserving agency over cultural practices and historical memories. By maintaining, or perhaps even creating, ties to Celtic heritage, the celebration of Halloween allows these traditions to persist despite the historical Christinianzation of its rituals and practices. Likewise, this narrative of its origins in the United States today serves to give acceptance to Irish people and their heritage, an especially powerful idea when we consider the initial mistreatment and villainization of Irish people in this country in the 19th to early 20th century.

After writing this, I am left with the thought that the question we should ask is not whether is Halloween Christian or pagan, but what do these traditions and beliefs about the holiday through time reveal about the creation, preservation, and transformation of cultural identities in the face of shifting beliefs, powers, and a globalizing world.

The Takeaway

If Halloween is a liminal time when the veil between our world and the otherworld is lifted, perhaps then, it is not surprising, that it exists in-between definition as neither and yet both Christian and pagan, Celtic and Irish; as a time of celebration and sorrow, life and death, light and dark, and with a sprinkle of trickery.