Samhain E-Book

Luke Eastwood

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 174

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

'An excellent and comprehensive exploration of this fascinating subject.' - Philip Carr-Gomm, author of Druid Mysteries 'Samhain was the entry point into winter, a time of hardship, cold and hunger … It was also a time of introspection, of communing with the dead and the otherworld – themes that have somehow survived, albeit distorted, into the modern era.' The modern celebration of Halloween is derived from the ancient festival of the dead known in Ireland as Samhain. It is from Ireland that we have inherited most of our Halloween traditions, mainly through the diaspora. Delving into the ancient past, this book uncovers the history of this festival in Britain, Ireland and Brittany, including the forgotten goddess Tlachtga and the sacred temple of the Druids in Co. Meath, where the first Halloween fires were lit.

Leseprobe

In memory of Hugh Brennan and John Wyse-Jackson.

First published 2021

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Luke Eastwood, 2021

Dead tree illustration by Jazella from Pixabay

Moon illustration by Arek Socha from Pixabay

The right of Luke Eastwood to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9845 1

Typesetting and origination by Typo•glyphix

Printed in Great Britain

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Luke Eastwood’s book is filled with the long-forgotten lore of this very important festival, brought back to life. He gathers information from many different sources and brings it all together in this informative work which should be read by all who celebrate the festival of Samhain. Well researched and well written, this work is a little gem for all who follow a Celtic spirituality.

Jo van der Hoeven, author of Zen Druidryand The Stillness Within.

An eloquent, evocative and well researched book which restores Tlachtga to her rightful place at the centre of the memories, traditions and celebrations of the ancient Fire Festival of Samhain, the Celtic New Year. One to be savoured.

Dr Karen Ward, Co-Founder of Slí An Chroí Irish Celtic Shamanism, author and editor of Soul Seers:an Irish Anthology of Celtic Shamanism.

Luke Eastwood gives a thorough and comprehensive overview of the origins and traditions of Samhain in Ireland, especially in relation to Tlachtga, an ancient site, the importance of which is largely forgotten and Samhain’s modern reincarnation as Halloween internationally.

Treasa Kerrigan Archaeologist, Tour Guide, Bean Draoí.

From the moment we are born we begin slowly dying.

Live, live your life and shine brightly;

For when your candle has run down and spluttered out,

There is no going back, only the next step – into the unknown.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface by Morgan Daimler

Introduction

Chapter 1   Irish Cosmology and the Otherworld

Chapter 2   The Festival of Samhain

Chapter 3   Tlachtga and Mogh Ruith

Chapter 4   Tlachtga – the Sacred Site

Chapter 5   The Evolution into Halloween

Chapter 6   The Neo-Pagan Revival of Samhain

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Friends of Tlachtga, Joe Conlon and the owners of the Hill of Ward for reviving celebrations at Tlachtga (The Hill of Ward). Thank you to Gemma McGowan for organising ceremonies at the hill over many years, and for her help and advice in finishing this book. Many thanks to Michelle Alú for her thesis on Tlachtga and the use of quotations from Máiréad Bryd and Gemma McGowan. Many thanks to John Gilroy for his seminal book on Tlachtga, which inspired me to build on his research to create this book. I’d also like to thank Con Connor for showing me the original Druids’ well, near Tlachtga, many years ago. Thank you to Billy Mag Fhionn for the use of excerpts from Blood Rite: The Feast of St Martin in Ireland and to Joe McGowan for use of extracts from Echoes of a Savage Land. Thanks to Treasa Kerrigan for assistance with the archaeological aspects of Tlachtga and for extra proof-reading! Thanks to Dr. Karen Ward for corrections and to Searles O’Dubhain for assistance with the cosmology. Thanks to Duchas for the use of extracts from the Schools’ Collection and to Dr Stephen Davis of University College Dublin (UCD) for the use of archaeology reports. Thank you to Elena Danaan for the wonderful illustrations and to Del Richardson for the proofreading (and the best bread in Ireland). Thanks to Cyril Harrington for the History Ireland magazine, which proved very useful. A big thank you to Rachel and Micheline Scoazec for their testimony on Breton customs. Thank you to Morgan Daimler for the preface, kindly written at short notice. Thanks, as ever, to my partner, friends and family for their continual support and to my comissioning editor, Nicola Guy, and project editor, Ele Craker, for helping bring this book to fruition so quickly.

Preface

In the last twenty years Samhain had seen a surge in popularity in popular culture, showing up in references on well-known television shows, albeit usually mispronounced, and even personified by named characters. It has also remained one of the most well-loved holidays among various pagan followers and witches who embrace the ideas of Samhain as the start of a new year and as the so-called season of the witch. And yet in the middle of all of this renewed attention and excitement for the pagan holiday that represents the roots of the modern Halloween, those very roots are often overlooked or ignored. Material written about Samhain often focuses on wider, cross-cultural sources and on the more recent folk traditions and beliefs that were woven together into the holiday that we recognise today. This cross-cultural view has its place and value but sadly overlooks or minimises the most significant history of Samhain, which is found in Ireland. Samhain is, as the language of its name should imply, at heart a holiday that comes from Ireland and is embedded intrinsically in its mythology. While most books may offer a bare few sentences about Tlachtga, if that much, the Hill of Ward is undeniably at the centre of Samhain’s history and story. It is essential to acknowledge and discuss this place and its mythology if one wants to really understand what Samhain is. The figures of Tlachtga and her father Mug Roith loom large over both the hill and the history of the holiday, yet too often go unacknowledged in the wider Halloween narrative. We lose so many layers of richness when we forget these names and this place. There are not, to be sure, any clear answers to be found but the layers of story that we can uncover, and which Luke Eastwood has laid out so eloquently here, help us to see and understand the shape of the oldest iterations of the holiday and the main figures behind those stories.

As modern paganism has gained ground and strength, it has created its own understanding of what Samhain is and was, with an edited version of the history and little to no acknowledgement of the mythology that stretches back over millennia. This newer view takes a wider approach but in doing so misses much of the beauty and nuance found by studying the distinctly Irish roots of the holy day. To truly understand what Samhain is we must look beyond the surface of the meaning of the word and the simple division of the year into summer and winter and dig into the stories, archaeology and oldest practices, as well as the way those evolved over the centuries into the folk beliefs and practices found throughout the years. When we do, we find Neolithic monuments aligned to Samhain, a complex discussion of timing based on shifting calendar dates, and a wide range of folk practices that include both protection and divination. And behind it all, inextricably linked to each aspect, is the belief that the Otherworld is opened into the human world at this time. This too is an aspect of the holiday that is poorly understood these days but which is vital to understanding the deeper nature of Samhain; ultimately, it is impossible to separate the interaction with the Otherworld that occurs at this time with the celebration of the time itself. By taking this more holistic view that includes all of these diverse aspects, a deeper, fuller understanding of this significant holy day can be gained and incorporated into modern celebrations. It is honestly surprising that no one has previously made an attempt to lay out the Irish history of Samhain in a full book for a pagan audience, as it is so much needed, making this text essential.

This holiday, this shift from summer to winter, has been acknowledged across time and was noted as one of ancient Ireland’s most significant yearly events. It has regained some of this prestige today, having seen an amazing revival in the twenty-first century. It began with pagan celebrations on Tlachtga, which in recent memory became the Samhain Festival of Fire and now the Púca Festival, all of which shared a common goal in different ways, seeking to honour this pivotal point and gather people together in celebration. Samhain isn’t frozen in time, isn’t just what it was millennia ago, nor just what it is today; rather it is the culmination of all the history, each story, and every celebration that has come before and happens now. It is a living belief and practice, born in Ireland, and spreading outwards like the branches of a tree.

Morgan Daimler, author of A New Dictionary of Fairies and Pagan Portals: Gods and Goddesses of Ireland

Introduction

I first visited Tlachtga, the ancient Druidic site now known as the Hill of Ward, in 2004 on Halloween (Hallowe’en) on my own and shortly after that with a small band of Druids. We visited the little-known and abandoned ancient well to the south, still called An Tobar Druí (the Druid’s Well), during the sunset, before climbing the hill to the sacred site itself. I distinctly remember the difficulty of lighting a fire, in the dark, in a small skillet, due to the intense wind. From there we journeyed to Tara and finally to Slíeve Na Cailleach (Loughcrew) with the sacred flame, ignited at Tlachtga, not by river or horse (of former times) but by car, nonetheless re-enacting an ancient ritual of fire, reaching back into pre-recorded history.

Celebrations at Tlachtga (Hill of Ward) recommenced at Halloween/Samhain 1999, led by locals from the small town of Athboy, Co. Meath. Pagan ceremonies at Tlachtga returned not long after, in 2000, after an absence of hundreds of years, not led by Druids of old but by two Wiccans, Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, in a kind of theatrical performance, rather than a religious ritual. This was continued in an evolving form from 2008 onwards by Gemma McGowan, in conjunction with esoteric practitioners of various paths – with her hard work overcoming political fights, opposition and many other difficulties along the way.

In late October 2019 my partner and I drove for more than two hours to St Brendan’s Well on the central north side of Valentia Island to collect the holy water from a site that pre-dates Christianity by centuries, if not millennia. We also found what appeared to be the only accessible rowan tree, on the north-east corner of the island, from which I took a small branch with nine bright red rowan berries on it. On the afternoon of Halloween, a few days later, we brought the water and berried branch to Athboy. In the stand of trees (Fairgreen Ringfort) in the town park, alone except for one enthusiastic but uninvited photographer, we used both the holy water, branch and smoke to bless the sacred fire that would be lit after sunset, in preparation for the ceremony on Tlachtga hill itself.

Why did we go to such trouble you may ask? A simple explanation is that Mogh Ruith, supposed father of Tlachtga (after whom the place is named), lived on Valentia Island and, according to mythology, used rowan to great magical effect. His name and that of his daughter, Tlachtga, are once again associated with the festival of Samhain – a long-forgotten Irish religious festival of great importance that is the direct ancestor of modern Halloween. What we did was a small part of a much larger celebration – a bit of craic to some and a deadly serious and solemn spiritual event to others. Either way, Samhain and Tlachtga have once more begun to emerge into the public consciousness in Ireland and far beyond.

The roots of the hugely popular Halloween and its cultural activities have been mostly forgotten and are completely unknown by most non-pagan people who participate in them. However, the story of Tlachtga is not lost – the pathway back into the past is long overgrown but still there, lying in the pages of dusty old books, the folk practices of the Irish (and their diaspora) and indeed, buried in the land itself. The purpose of this book is to bring to light that which has been hidden from all but perhaps currently a few thousand people, for many hundreds of years. This place (Tlachtga) and this festival (Samhain) is a vital part of Irish pre-Christian religious and social culture, one that has somehow survived the passing of time and religious intolerance. It has survived, albeit in a mutated form, to become Halloween, an annual celebration across the world – this is its story.

The author blessing the ceremonial fire at Fair Green Ringfort, at Athboy, Co. Meath, Ireland.

CHAPTER 1

Irish Cosmologyand the Other world

This may seem a strange place to start, considering this is a book primarily about Samhain (Samhuinn in Scotland and Nos Galan Gaeaf in Wales), the ancient form of today’s Halloween. In truth, this is the only logical place to start, as the festival of Samhain can only be fully understood within the context of the pre-Christian cosmology and practices of the ancient Irish – what is referred to as Druidism or Druidry.

Druidry has been revived in recent centuries, from the early 1700s onwards, but this is a new form of Druidism, more correctly called Neo-Druidry, as it has no continuous link with the religion/spirituality of the original Druids. The arrival of Rome in Western Europe drove Druidism into the ground except in Ireland and Scotland, but even there it did not long survive the arrival of Christianity in the fifth century CE. By all estimates it had more or less died out by the eighth century and persisted only in social practices, folklore, stories and customs but not as a viable religion that anyone could practise openly.

Despite the erosion of Druidism, first by the Roman Empire and secondly by the Christian Church, much of the pre-Christian structure and practices of Western Europe (and Ireland particularly) survived in a thinly disguised or mutated form. The pre-Christian view of the world and universe (or cosmology, if we choose to use a fancy term) survived both in the written word and the folk practices of the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Breton and (to some extent) English peoples. It is to Ireland that we must look for the most complete model of how the Druids understood the world around them and what ways they celebrated the important moments of their year.

The Irish year was divided into two halves – winter (geimhreadh) and summer (samhradh), with winter preceding summer. We see the same thing in Gaul, as demonstrated by the Coligny calendar, with three days to celebrate Samionos (Samhain) – TRINVX SAMO SINIV or ‘the three nights of Samonios’. In the same way as the year, the day was divided into two halves, with the night (from sunset) preceding the daylight. The year itself was subdivided into eight parts of approximately six weeks, each marked by a festival. These eight festivals began at the Celtic New Year, which was Samhain, summer’s end, which is considered the entry point into the dark part of the year. The eight points of note are (in order) Samhain, winter solstice, Imbolc, spring equinox, Bealtaine, summer solstice, Lughnasadh and autumn equinox.

The equinoxes and solstices are universal, they have been celebrated by humanity across the world for millennia but the four ‘Celtic’ festivals are unique to Western Europe, although there are somewhat similar traditions in many countries around the world. All eight of these pagan festivals have managed to survive in Europe in a mutated Christianised form, which has already been covered amply in many books, so I will not discuss them here – it is sufficient to say that the placing of Christmas, Easter, the beginning of spring, the beginning of summer, harvest festival and All Hallows’ Day is no accident.

In Ireland and other countries around the world, there are ancient sites of the Neolithic period (late Stone Age) that are very obviously aligned to the equinoxes and solstices. In Ireland in particular there are some ancient examples that stretch back to 4,000–3,000 BCE, with some, such as Slíeve na Cailleach showing evidence of much earlier constructions, that are now completely buried and invisible to the naked eye. Ancient sites in Ireland are also associated with the other festivals such as Uisneach (Bealtaine), Loughcrew/Slíeve na Cailleach (equinoxes), Tara (mid-summer), Listoghil (Samhain sunrise), Mound of the Hostages at Tara (Samhain sunrise), Tara (Lughnasadh sunset), Dowth (Samhain/Imbolc sunset), Newgrange/Brú Na Boínne (winter solstice sunrise), Dowth (winter solstice sunset) plus many more besides. The sunrise and moon rise at Samhain forms an alignment from Tlachtga to the quartz standing stone in Cairn L of Loughcrew (Slíeve na Cailleach/Slíeve Bearra) and Lambay Island (off the coast of Dublin). Interestingly, with the Mound of the Hostages (at Tara) also illuminated by the sunrise at Samhain, this alignment continues west across the country, also intersecting ‘Lugh’s Seat’ at the end of the volcanic ‘Pillars of Samhain’ and the cairn of (goddess) Mór-Ríoghan above the Keash caves.

So it is clear that in pre-Druidic or proto-Druidic times the people of Ireland constructed sacred sites in stone to mark the astronomically important times of the year, including Samhain, the start of the Irish year, during the pagan era. As well as solar festivals the Irish celebrated the lunar events, with Knowth being clearly linked with lunar festivities for the thirteen moons of the year.

Pagan festivities in Ireland were explicitly linked with the agricultural cycle of the year and also with veneration of the gods, the ancestors, the land itself and with the cycle of life and death. These festivals were not just religious events and celebrations, they were social and governmental events – often referred to as an óenach (modern Irish aonach), or assembly – and still took place still a thousand years after Christianity was introduced to Ireland.

In Ireland the world view was threefold but somewhat different from the modern religious view of Heaven–Earth–Hell. The Irish (and Welsh) pagans believed in three realms – the upperworld (Sky), middleworld (Earth) and otherworld (Sea). The upperworld was the realm of the gods and also spirits that we might liken to angels and demons. The middleworld was the realm of physical existence where we live out our everyday lives. The otherworld was the realm of the dead and also the sidhe/aos sí (fairies and Tuatha Dé Danann). Strictly speaking, the realm of the dead was not under the sea but beyond the horizon in the west, where the sun sets.

These three realms comprised the known universe and each realm was subdivided again into four or more sections, which are as follows (with thanks to Searles O’Dubhain):

UPPERWORLD – MAGH MÓR

Magh Findargat (Plain of White Silver)

Magh Imchiunn (Plain of Gentleness)

Magh Argetnel (Plain of Silver Clouds)

Magh Mel (Plain of Delight)

Magh Airthech (Plain of Bounty)

Magh Ildathach (Plain of Many Colours)

Magh Iongaanaiddh (Plain of Wonders)

Sen Magh (Ancient Plain)

MIDDLEWORLD – BITH/MIDE

Aithear – East: associated with the sword of Nuada, air, prosperity and change.

Desa – South: associated with the spear of Lugh, fire, music and poetry.

Siar – West: associated with the cauldron of Dagda, water, knowledge and wisdom.

Thuaidh – North: associated with the stone of destiny (Lia Fail), earth, battle and fortitude.

These four objects mentioned are the four treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which are also associated with four magical cities – Findis, Gorias, Murias and Falias (thought not to be in Ireland) – and also with four leaders/Druids – Uiscias, Eras, Semias and Morfesa.

OTHERWORLD – TIR ANDOMAIN

Tir na mBeo (Land of Eternal Life)

Tir na mBan (Land of Women)

Tir fo Thuin (Land Under the Waves)

Tir na n’Og (Land of the Young)

Teach Duinn (House of Donn)

There are various other names, thought to be synonymous with Tir na n’Og, such as Isles of the Blessed, Land of Apples, Avalon, etc.

These three realms can be visualised as connected by the Bile Buadha