-Samhain (Sel-win)
-Harvest Festival
-Permeable
-Life or Death
-Prayers - Soul Cake
The year 7&8 extension class has researched more about the true meaning of Halloween. Here is one version of what Halloween is all about.
The Celtic Calendar has a light half and a dark half. The Celtic tribe would celebrate a harvest festival called Samhain (sel-win) near the beginning of the dark half. This was also near Halloween for us. People feared this festival because it was a matter of life or death. If the food they were harvesting wasn’t ready they would starve and die. When it was the harvest time, days would get shorter while nights were getting longer.
When it was time to change from light to dark, a veil that was in between life and death was thin. This made it easy for people from both worlds to permeable (easy to pass through).
On May 13th pagans would celebrate a celebration called Lemuria. This was a time where Christians would convert pagans. Romans would go to graveyards and pour milk and offer soul cakes to the Christian souls. Now a days we get given or give out lollies as an offering.
They then changed the name of the day to All Saints Day or All Hallows Day. Not only did they change the name but they also changed the date to November 1st to drain the pagan Samhain. Because Samhain festival was before All Hallows Day people started calling Samhain, All Hallows Evening. This was shortened to All Hallows Eve, then Hallowe’en then finally to Halloween. On November 2nd they celebrated All Souls Day.
Hello Vivienne, I am a student in EDM310 at the University of South Alabama. Your post on the background meaning of Halloween was very interesting. I am glad that you learned something about the holiday. It is fun going trick or treating and getting dressed up, but it is also fun to learn about what lead to the holiday. Thank you for sharing this information in your blog post, it was great!
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