Samhain

The festival at the end of October when the dead are remembered and the veil between worlds is thin.

Samhain is the Old Irish name for the month of November and for the festival at its beginning. In modern Irish November is still called Samhain, and in Scottish Gaelic Samhainn. The name is often explained as summer's end. The word is pronounced roughly as sow-in, not as it is written.

For the ancient Irish the year was divided into two halves, a light and a dark one, and Samhain was the hinge between them. It was one of the four great seasonal festivals, alongside Imbolc, Beltane and Lughnasadh. According to the sagas kings held great assemblies then, such as on the hill of Tara, and many decisive events in Irish mythology take place on this night.

When Ireland was Christianised, much of the festival survived. The church celebrated All Saints on 1 November and All Souls on 2 November, and the evening before, All Hallows' Eve, grew into Halloween. Hollowed-out turnips with a light, dressing up and going from door to door come from that time.

In the twentieth century modern witchcraft, wicca, adopted Samhain as one of the eight sabbats of the Wheel of the Year. There it is the third and last harvest, after Lughnasadh and Mabon, and the moment the dead are remembered. For many practitioners the new year begins here.

In dream readings within wicca the period around Samhain counts as a time when dreams about the dead, ancestors and transitions carry extra weight. How you can keep track of and read those dreams is described in the Dreamkin guide to Samhain and dreams. Wicca has no central doctrine, and the practice differs by tradition and person.