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Samhain to Halloween - The Sacred, the Profane, and the Silly

Murfin, Patrick
http://patrickmurfin.blogspot.ca/2016_10_01_archive.html

Publisher:  Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flount - Patrick Murfin's Blog
Date Written:  31/10/2016
Year Published:  2016  
Resource Type:  Article

Patrick Murfin review the orgin of Hallowe'en and the Celtic harvest festival Samhain.

Abstract: 
Excerpt:

Halloween traces its origin to the Celtic harvest festival Samhain. It was one of the four festivals that fell between the Solstices and Equinoxes and which celebrated the natural turning of the seasons. Samhain was particularly important because it was the gate in time to the death and starvation season of winter, as well a time to celebrate the recent harvest.

Immigrants from the British Isles brought some of their customs with them to the New World, but Halloween does not seem to have been widely celebrated colonial America. The Puritans spent a lot of time trying to squelch other pagan customs like the May Pole dances associated with the spring Celtic festival of Bealtaine, but for all of their obsession with witchcraft, usually associated with those who continued to keep the old pagan traditions, there is no evidence of suppressing Samhain or Halloween.

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