The ORIGIN of Halloween? What it really was about...
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- Halloween or Samhain? Why witches, pumpkins and spooky things? Are we really celebrating what our ancestors did, or has it all become a lot of commercial nonsense. Here I look at what Samhain was, and what Halloween is, and the differences are, well... just watch the video.
We touch on All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and All Hallows Eve, to find out the actual day we shoud be celebrating something.
If you want to support my research and see behind the scenes work, watch my videos early, and other insights then please become a Patreon:* / crecganford
Thumbnail Artist is Shelly Wan
References
“The Boyhood Deeds of Fion”
www.ancienttexts.org/library/...
Matryology of Oengus the Culdee, archive.org/details/martyrolo...
Cunliffe, Barry. the Ancient Celts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 208 ff;
Dorson, Richard M., ed. Peasant Customs and Savage Myths: Selections from the British Folklorists. Vol. II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968, p. 29;
Evans-Wentz, W. Y. The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe, Humanities Press, 1911, pp. 99 ff;
Julius Caesar. Conquest of Gaul, VI.18. Translator. W. A. McDevitte. Translator. W. S. Bohn. 1st Edition. New York. Harper & Brothers. 1869. Harper's New Classical Library
MacCulloch, J. A. The Religion of the Ancient Celts. London: Constable, 1911, p. 66, 166;
Ross, Anne. Folklore of the Scottish Highlands. London: B. T. Batsford, Ltd., 1976, p. 40.
Chapters
======================
0:00 Introduction
1:26 The Role of the Catholic Church
3:19 What was Samhain
4:34 All Saints Day
5:15 A Church conspiracy theory?
7:07 Days and Nights
10:46 What does history say?
14:10 Old rituals
15:30 Portals to the Otherworld
16:22 Other beliefs
17:19 Halloween has changed
18:31 What have we lost?
19:15 When was Samhain?
20:25 More rituals lost forever
As a child in the 1970s my parents would use turnip lanterns. They regarded pumpkins as American imports
Well, they are. Literally; squashes are from the New World and did not exist in Europe prior to the Columbian Exchange.
My brother and I both had turnip lamps as well. We had to hollow them out and carve the faces ourselves. We had candles in them which kept on getting blown out.
@@demonia2848 I hear! It’s hard to carve turnips
Samhain season 🔥🍁🍄🖤🎃
Hi I'm a recognised expert on the Irish Pagan Tradition, I'm a speaker and teacher here in Ireland, do a bit of TV and consulting as well as being a practitioner for many years. A lot of what you've presented here is great, and you've a lovely manner.
The festival of the dead was not the solstice in Celtic Ireland but was in fact Samhain which means literally summer's end. This lies historically in the Agricultural practises of the early bronze age, i.e. the mass slaughter of livestock at Samhain due to dwindling pasture, the tribes were reunited after the summer division (at Bealtaine) for this slaughter. The Cailleach (Kyle - yock) is the hag of winter in our tradition. but its the story of Tlachta that gives many of our Samhain and Halloween traditions. Our Neolithic tombs are aligned with multiple astrological and solar events, for example the tomb at Loughcrew is aligned with the equinoxes. Newgrange is aligned with the winter solstice and is the the largest and best preserved, however these passage tombs were built in the Neolithic period by the tribes inhabiting Ireland before the Celts and the onset of Agriculture.
Feel free to let me know if you ever need info on Irish topics or help with pronunciation.
Slan
Thank you for the feedback, it is much appreciated and very useful.
Hi Anne, excellent comments, two questions:
1) do you know any experts such as yourself who might speak briefly to a civic organization located in the American Midwest?
2) what is meant by fairy mounds?
@@mbww8572 I can organise something online or see if any of my contacts know someone in the area.
Fairy mounds or what we refer to them tend to be 1 of 2 things either buried passage tombs, dolmen, stone cairns or other grave sites or the larger ones can be cashels (sometimes called ring forts) which are small villages from the Iron Age surrounded by a circular stone wall which can over time take the shape of a mound. Not all of these sites fill in over time and some have been excavated. Both types have passages or souterrain inside and meet the ‘hollow hill’ requirement for a faerie place. We call them sidhe (shee).
@@Mongruadh93 wow, thank you Anne. I’ll try and figure out how to get my contact info to you. This may take some time, that’s A-OK. Such a helpful response have a good day.
The Celts, if indeed such a people did ever exist, were not responsable for bringing agriculture to Ireland. Agriculture began in Ireland approximately four thousand years ago in the Neolithic.
Native Irish speaker here, and I'm only now realising why we grew up referring to the entire day as Oíche Shamhna. Until this video I never knew the ancestors counted the nights, not the days.
Halloween has changed even in my lifetime. I'm from MA, bd 1956. as a little girl I have many clear memories of the streets being chock full of children with a smattering of parents or older siblings. yes, even then were stories of razor blades in apples (which makes no sense as unless the razor was put on the budding apple trees how would an inserted razor blade not be obvious?) we used pillowcases for our haul and we had to return home to empty the weight of it several x's a night. my mom would steal our (+ my 3 bros) loot to hand out when she ran out of what she bought. (we're still sore about that!) but we all did our treat-seeking on "beggar's night", on the 30th. everyone I knew and was aware of, stores, etc. operated on this schedule yet I never hear about the practice any longer. I haven't had kids come to my door in years to ask. I loved Halloween even tho I got married on it (heehee). it's a pale imitation now altho there are some top-notch haunted houses to visit that my childhood never had the likes of.
Really? I thought Halloween is actually more popular now
I think Halloween parties are the thing now.
I grew up in Norway, where Halloween was not even known for decades, till a few movies & TV shows brought a glimpse onto our TVs.
Mom was French, and Halloween in the US form was not celebrated there either, and not known of any more than it was in Norway. She did, however, have a knowledge of the evening before the Day of the Dead, which differs 100% from the US street carnival.
Rather than going out after dark, the people would lock windows & doors, place protective talismans in the windows, close the curtains and shutters, and light as many lights as possible in the home. This was to keep the bad spirits & witches out! No one in their right mind was out after dark that night!
I was born in Philadelphia, 1957 & I remember it like this as well. We always used a pillowcase for our haul & came home several times to empty it out & go seek more candy.
The only reason it turned into an adult holiday was because of Hollywood movies. Madison Avenue turned it into a money making holiday for adults.
Stores still have candy on the 30th. Most people just don't go out the night before.
The way you say “grab yourself a cup of tea and welcome to Crecganford” you really make it sound like “welcome to great comfort”. And I’m pretty sure it’s deliberate. 😃👍🏻
Tea is wonderful, well made tea doubly so!
When you said about the ghosts coming in and sitting by the fireplace and smoking a pipe I thought for sure the next phrase was going to be "and grabbed themselves a cup of tea and listened to Crecganford"
Now they would be cool ghosts!
What I've heard is that Samhain was the time when you butchered all the animals who wouldn't make it through winter. So the air was full of the screams of confused animals and the smell of blood, which made it natural to believe that this was a time when the gates to the Underworld were open.
Certainly the end of harvest and Winter Solstice both had these things in common then. When you knew you were through the winter you could make assumptions of when Spring should come.
Slaughter of excess animals was usually closer to Winter Solstice - Yule - that Christians turned to Christmas (which if you check history, this is NOT the time of year Jesus would have been born - shepherds don't have flocks out to pasture by night in that region in December). All but a breed pair of animals would be slaughtered to be sure the family would have food for winter and the animals left would be well fed till spring. The Winter Solstice was the rebirth of the sun as days became longer on the wheel of the year.
See how easy it is to add and subtract to Christianize things? ~ Pastor and High Priestess Nicole
Soundz like christian propaganda during their perversion of Pagan holy days into crispy Ian holidays.
@@nicolecampbell208 that coz they made Jesus into a Solar deity. The SunKing 'dies' for three days from December 21st the on December 25th the Bright star Sirius followed in line by the 3 belt stars of Orion pointing where the new born or resurrected SunKing begins his journey on December 25th.
It happens every year.
@@3rdeye671 I suggest everyone should watch religion for breakfast's videos on Christmas. While many of the arguments that Christians stole the holiday or repurposed sound plausible the evidence points far more to the simple fact that solstice was a big deal so every group had a "solstice" holiday around the same time in winter and spring (thus the timing of Easter).
As always, a fascinating dive into our beliefs' histories. Thanks for what you do!
And thank you for watching and taking the time to comment.
Here in Mindanao Philippines the kids usually go trick or treating on Halloween, but during the pandemic this didn't happen. Maybe this year I need to have treats ready. Visiting the graves of family members is traditional here on November 2.
People do not protect own customs properly anymore. Democracy creates a really bad Stockholm syndrome in people.
Halloween celebrations world wide are believed to go back 12,900 years to the end of the ice age. It is believed the end of the world was precipitated by the fall of a meteor out of the Taurid meteor stream onto the North American ice sheets, starting the great flood and killing off the worlds population of animals and humans. The Earth passes through the Taurid meteor stream for 3 days every October 30- November 2.
Very interesting topic. Thank you for posting. The Celtic belief that the night was the start of the day makes sense if one looks at human biorhythms and the sleep cycle. The last rem cycle( deep sleep) is around 2-3 am, referred to as the "witching hour". Coming out of deep sleep into waking consciousness would fit into this Celtic belief.
I don't think you can fully understand Samhain without reference to the other three festivals and the relationship to the interplay between the lunar and solar cycles and how the Celts viewed time. What I find interesting is that Samhain is half way between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. If the later was viewed as the start of the Celtic year, and the former as harvest time, then Samhain could be viewed as a time between the worlds of the living and the dead, that is, the time of conception.
That is an interesting view, I can understand how that would work with regards the lunar cycle. Thank you.
Oh! As a note from some folk practitioners I know up in Scotland. They celebrate Samhain as the night that marks the end of the harvest season on the eve of the second new moon after the Autumn Equinox.
Hey Crecganford, if you're looking for fun ideas, I would really love it if you deep dive research into the "Green Man", as its sometimes interwoven with names like Wildman/Woodwuse/Wodewuse, the Arthurian Green Knight, the Yule King, and even a nod to Odin and Santa Claus in some places. Its a popular architecture and artistic feature seen on everything from Gothic cathedrals to 18th century bronze cannons. It would be super cool to see if you can discover anything new to unravel its mysteries further.
Read 'Explore Green Man' by Mercia Macdermott.
Everything that is known about the 'Green Man' including the reality behind the ludicrous connections to other 'green' characters such as the Green Knight, Robin Hood etc.
Historical evidence not fanciful nonsense.
What a good start to the month
"Demons use diaries to decide when they are going to visit the mortal realm" is one of my favorite hot takes of all time!
Agree!
Was that before the Easter Bunny visited the Crucifixion and cheered everyone up with bunny eggs?
Maybe humans use diaries to summon demons ...
@@charlesclarke3242 No... Ostara is Easter as in the Spring Equinox rabbits and eggs are represented here because it is the beginning of the growing and breeding seasons... reproduction. Y'all need to read more OLD world history/religion/stories. You'd learn a whole lot more than the man written/edited/rewritten/edited again bible. ~ High Priestess and Pastor Nicole
Christian monks are known to have diaries and basically everyone that have existed in the past. Since entertainment was scarce and your family being murdered and children sold off as slaves was a a crushing reailty thry lived in, diaries were far more common and often times shared what they wrote down with those around them as entertainment. Some of these individuals went to find sucessful careers as storytellers, authors, bards, playwriters, and actors.
I am Irish. The Celtic day is from sunset to sunset. All Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en was appropriated by the Christians because of the tradition of replacing older religious traditions with Christian veneer. Crom Cruach was the High Dark God of the Dark Half of the year and Lugh was the Sun God. Irish people split the year into two parts. Time was not measured as we do. The belief was that the walls between the living and the dead was thin. It evolved into an ancestor worship. Bonfires were lit to comfort the dead, the rite of hospitality demanded that you offered food and drink and mask wearing meant that your ancestor would not recognise you and harm you because they were jealous of the living. Imbolc became St. Brigid's Day, Bealtaine became May Day, Lughnasadh went by the wayside and the winter solstice Nollaig moved to become Christmas. Finn is the Anglicised version of Fionn who was a son of Lugh the Sun God.
Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment so much interesting information. It is appreciated.
Nice video 👍🏻 my gran brought me up carving a turnip instead of a pumpkin and it was more common in northern England. I grow my own turnips for sahmain to carve with my own family.
That's really interesting! It must be a different variety of turnip than the ones we grow here to eat, as they don't get large enough to carve. 🤷♀️
I carved a turnip for the first time last year - it was awesome! Began as slightly creepy and got more withered and scary as it aged! Much better than pumpkins, I think!
@@MaryAnnNytowl Try a rutabaga - they’re really just a big turnip.
Wow, that's very interesting. In what county do you live? Cumbria or Northumbria?
@@Crecganford I was brought up in Yorkshire and a plenty of other people I know of an older generation are familiar with this custom. I remember reading up on it a few years ago, I'm sure it was still fairly common in Northern England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales a few generations ago. The theory of pumpkin carving was that British settlers brought the custom to North America and swapped the vegetable to the pumpkin when they began to cultivate it. The carving of a scary face in a turnip/pumpkin was thought to ward off evil spirits at Sahmain.
Samhain sounds alot like Dia de los Muertos. It is celebrated in Mexico and most recently in America. It takes place Nov. 1 to Nov. 2. You visit the graves of loved ones and bring them food and drinks. As so that they are not forgotten
Yes, there does seem to be a degree of connection. Although if I had to guess, I would say that celebration may have developed in the last few hundred years.
“Before the arrival of the first Spaniards in Mexico, over 400 years ago, and probably much earlier, the Mexicans told of certain stars called Tzontemocque or Falling Hairs, which fell from heaven to earth with the Lord of the Dead. Their fall was commemorated annually in the Quecholli festival, said to have been held towards the end of October.
This festival, and the falling of the stars, was associated with the end of the world.”
"The November Meteors in Maya and Mexican Tradition" by Stansbury Hagar
Yes in France nov 1 us when we all go put out flowers on graves and clean the cemetery
@@Crecganford It was developed earlier than that, Dia de los Muertos or "Day of the dead" is actually a prehispanic tradition, when the Spanish Catholic conquistadores established themselves in Mexico to exterminate, I mean, to "convert" the indigenous people to Catholicism, they took this "pagan" celebration and named it "Dia de los santos inocentes" or Day of the innocent saints, and turned into a holy day promoted by the church. So it's very similar to what the popes you mentioned did on the earlier days of Catholicism.
In fact I think you would be marveled by the influence of prehispanic religions in modern Mexico (and other latinamerican countries), whose holidays and celebrations were basically changed or absorbed and then converted into holidays celebrated by the Catholic church.
As of today the Catholic church in Mexico condemns the celebration of Halloween for being "a pagan non christian belief" but incentivices the celebration of the Day of the innocent saints, and some people even get a day off work the 1st of November.
Dia de los Muertos shares a general date and similar "feeling" to Halloween and Samhain, but it is completely independently developed from the two.
The addition of carved pumpkins was evolved because there was not an abundance of turnips to carve for lanters in the colonies of New World but the pumpkin gords were plantiful since they were a native species to North America
Wrong and right. Halloween was not widely practiced in Colonial America, due to the majority English Protestant settlers. It was only when the Irish and the Scott’s began massive immigration in the nineteenth century that these types of practices were begun. I figure the switch to pumpkins was due to the fact that pumpkins were superior in size and utility.
@@justaminute3111 Scots came as both part of the part of the British system and as people seeking relief from it. They were definitely here prior to to the 19th Century, and in large numbers. Some Irish also came earlier than the Famine for the same reasons.
@@justaminute3111
Exactly! Not to mention, they are considerably easier to carve than turnips/moots. The custom was not specific to Halloween - pumpkin carving was a general fall activity and took place as late as Thanksgiving.
@@kyleellsworth6440 Exactly 💯! I don't know why people in the British isles seem to think there was no large presence of Celtic people's in America prior to the 19th century. They were here since the beginning and not just in the colonies but for some reason those immigrants have been completely forgotten.
Crecgford this perspective on history & evolution of holidays we celebrate is educational as ever.
Surprising for me how throughout life, I have celebrated holidays without a sense of understanding beyond eating certain foods, buying accoutrements & generally being happy.
This presentation does as others here do enrich my enjoyment.
Thank you for watching and your kind words.
I'd you want to have closer to Samhain food (updated with preference to what most people eat now, traditional in ()) potato carrot leak and beef (lamb) stew that's cooked and nibbled on all day served with a flatbread or biscuits or sopping up the soupy bits and for the family sweets to nibble and share with their ancestors are Samhain cakes - an almost bittersweet chocolate cakeish-cookie lightly dusted with confectioners sugar.... Through the ages, Yule cake(fruit cake) remains the same, but it was much more... boozey way back. Happy Feasting!! (And please don't forget to pick up/cover anything outside your doors that says *welcome* without a spoken word, you invite everything inside.)
@@nicolecampbell208 appreciate you sharing this description of feast and especially advice to remove welcome mat!
These deep dives really weave things together, bust the common narratives, bring all of these traditions into the reality of time and space. I so appreciate you! Wow
Thank you so much for watching and your kind words.
I was taught that "Samhain" or "Hallowmas" was celebrated on the nearest full moon to the 31st. If anything was celebrated during these times in ages past it would be celebrated on the New Moon as you said. I find that to make more sense in the keeping of related traditions and the beginning of a new year. Thank you for that!
Thanks Crecganford ,your explanation of the Lunar calendar of the Celts will help me to know exactly when it is really Halloween. This won't stop me celebrating on the Solar Halloween as well !
Thank you for actually saying Samhain correctly. Drives me nuts otherwise. You earned your sub.
Thank you.
I so appreciate dedication to seeking out as many sources as possible, credible sources if at all possible. My curiosity relates to the Irish pre-Christian mythos surrounding both An Cailleach and The Morrigan. For those who work to recreate as closely as possible Irish and pan-Celtic pre-Christian practices for their personal faith, digging into these sources and detangling as much as possible what is most likely and what is colored by the recorders of these practices, usually Christian monks. I'm not a Celtic Reconstructionist in my practice, but acknowledging the dead on Samhain night is a central practice for me. The difficulty in finding written texts documenting what happened on Samhain by those not of the Roman Catholic Church is that Celtic religion(s) (I don't believe the Celts in Gaul believed the same as the Celts in the British Isles, nor did the Welsh, Brits, Scots, or Irish share the same belief system before Christianity arrived) were largely, as I understand from the sources I've looked at, oral traditions. My apologies for that last, poorly written, sentence. I look forward to watching many more of your videos.
Your issues with finding accurate past resources are shared by everyone who lives in a Christianized culture today. I totally get it.
The Irish, the Scots and the Manx are Gaelic celts. The Welsh (Wales), the Cornish (Cornwall, England) and the Bretons (Brittany, France) are Brythonic celts.
They are two different groups of celts and they’re not that close. The Gaels are called ‘Q’ celts and the Brythonic celts are called ‘P’ celts. This has to do with the differences in the two groups of languages. If you are fluent in Irish you may have some chance of understanding bits of Scots Gaelic but you have no chance at all of understanding Welsh or Breton. I have heard that some scholars believe there was a considerable time difference between the arrival of the Gaelic celts and the Brythonic celts.
I'll be 40 years sober on Halloween. Just an Irish boy growing in grace.
People ask when the great flood was? Many say 12,500 years ago.
I say the great flood was on Halloween. As it swept North from the Antarctic icecap crumpling the devastation
continued on All Saints Day, All Souls Day & in Spanish Día De Muedra.
Halloween is the remembrance of the greatest death event in history.
We know that day the veil twixt life & death was thin.
Look up Antonio Zamora and look into his works on the Carolina bays. Also Randall Carlson has done extensive research into Halloween and believes that the object that caused the end of the ice age fell out of the Taurid meteor stream. The Earth passes through the Taurid meteor stream every year from October 30th to November 2nd..
The basis of so many of these historical pagan holidays are so contingent on which side of the equator upon which one lives. I remember having found ideas to do with Halloween a lot of fun when I was a child, but back then, nobody here in South Africa really gave a damn about it. But American films would of course exert an influence over kids in this country and since then, we've developed a bit of a Halloween festival here, too. But its connection to Samhein is entirely lost on us purely due to the fact that upon that date, atmospheric conditions are more or less the opposite of what they are in the Northern Hemisphere where these traditions were born. So few seem to think about such things here. Perhaps most of our population is just far too removed from those old festivals and traditions. The same, of course, applies to Yule and all the rest of them. We celebrate Christmas on sweltering summer days around barbecues and buy plastic Christmas trees or decorate indigenous trees. It makes it harder to buy into most of the romantic elements of such holidays.
In a way, it might be kind of cool to switch it all around and reclaim the holidays on the various solstices and equinoxes they're old celebrations of.
I s'pose it only amuses me a little.
Still love this channel. Thank you.
The connection to Samhein is 100% lost here in America! I just learned about today, lol! In the U.S. Halloween is costumes and trick-or-treating for candy, and all the religious nuts warning people not to celebrate Halloween bcuz its the devil's holiday.
I found your channel this afternoon while working in my studio because the great algorithm of RUclips popped you up. YAY! I am now going down your rabbit hole of videos and enjoying myself hugely...Thank you!
Thank you for finding me, and watching, and taking the time to comment. It is appreciated.
That was fascinating Jon! Thank you.
Thank you
Thank you for the entertaining history about Halloween & Samhain. I live in Los Angeles and Dia De Los Muertos is quickly becoming something we all celebrate regardless of our background. Disney made a film about it a few years back so may be somewhat responsible for it's rise. There's a huge celebration every year at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery with 100's of altars, food and live music. It's really a lovely Mexican/Aztec tradition dating back 3000 years where elaborate altars are set-up with photographs, marigolds, candles, copal incense, favorite foods and hobbies of relatives & friends who have passed. The veils between worlds is believed to be thin and your loved ones can visit during this time. There are sugar skulls, a special bread that looks like bones and brightly painted skeletons available for purchase. People also dress up and paint their face as a skull with beautiful colors and flowers. It's not a scary holiday, but loving and celebratory. From what I understand it was moved from the summer months to Nov 1st after the Spanish conquest which is similar to what happened with Samhain. Anyways, it seems like ancient cultures do have similar holidays and if the country has large Catholic influences -- it's gets co-opted into one of their holidays and gradually exported.
Thank you for watching, and for your comment. I do love reading about other's experiences and views.
If you saw his video on immortality, Dia de los Muertos conforms perfectly to his conclusion. You only truly die when the last person utters your name.
How enjoyable. Halloween has change so much over the last 150 years it doesn’t surprise me that it’s mostly misunderstood. And it makes my affinity for the winter solstice (the week of my birthday) a little less selfish too lol.
Thank you for another wonderful presentation.
And thank you for continuing to watch my videos and support my channel :)
This is why Halloween should be a week long celebration :D
Halloween never existed, it was not part of the Celtic cycle of festivals.
Starts Sept 1st for me. Haha!
cheers mate
365 days of the year for me.
*cues Ministry-Every Day Is Halloween*
@17:58 the turnip / pumpkin switch came when the Irish emigrated to North America. America did not have turnips, so native pumpkins were used to continue the jack-o-lantern tradition instead.
I was wondering if the reference to ' sweetroot' in the Finn story links it with the hollowed out turnip/ sugar beet
That is an interesting thought, and it does seem like it on first consideration, but I will ponder this more. Thank you.
Thank You for asking ... I was wondering exactly when the carving of Pumpkins had first occurred ? Supposedly first in France cookbooks in 1500s , brought in from Mexico ??
I dont carve Pumpkins for Hallowamus anymore ! I put Happy Face stickers on the Pumpkin last Year . Around the 1200s Turnips , the Sweetroots " ?? and then to modern Day Pumpkins ?
I Love Pumpkins 🧡🎃⚪️⬜️🤍
Now coming to mind , that song Peter Pumpkinhead by xtc.
I can hear the distant moans of some hardcore neo-pagans…I’m one myself yet I welcome this sort of analysis. However we are all free to do what we want with Samhain. Personally I’m still figuring all this out. I’d like to hear more about this 🖤
Yes, I am aware that what I may say may not fit with some views, but I'm not trying to be bias just tell the truth based on probability of outcomes considering our sources of academia. Thank you for watching and taking the time to comment.
@@Crecganford and that's why we love you!
Got my lunch, my coffee, paused my editing and ready to begin! Looking forward to this video!
I hope you liked it!
@@Crecganford It was great! Really enjoyed it, thank you
I'm a polytheist, so this is great food for thought for me. Love your channel and content! keep it coming!
Thank you for your kind words, and for watching the video.
Thank you Crecganford for another great video!
I really think Christmas and Halloween are descended from a similar, or same source. Some of the folkloric accounts of a Frau-Holle-like figure going door to door sometimes with a procession of spirits on Christmas, seem to indicate a common ancestor in my opinion at least! Wild hunt stories like these seem to connect a lot of the points. I wonder if anyone else is of the same opinion as me.
Christmas takes many rituals from the Winter Solstice and this links, with regard to the end of the year, with Samhain. And so there is some connection.
Proto indo Europeans.
I believe also from a Macro pov ~ Evergreene ~ Christmas , is Natures. Harvest Celebration And conjuring Remembrance - of Our Loved ones Away too . We Miss very much And are HopenWishing , Them And The ALLLL
~ Happy And Well wherever they Be : )))))))) Natures Creation Reality , Story is ALways Gods Dominion , Sovereignty Of Natures Procreation . Gods Kingdom as The RuLe . OnLy Good , Love , Respect RuLe of Law《 Natures Law 》🤍
I thought changing Halloween for MySeĺf ( starting in the 90s LA ) - that Halloween was for dressing Up to what ' You would like to induce and inspire to be more for the Year to come . Since...
My Daughter Borne on ALLLL SouLs Day , November 2 . I call Hallowamus Now since I researched a little a bit ago about , And became a more conscience Adult of course : ) Ironically My Sons Borne ThanksGivings , And Our Other Daughter Borne on 2000 Year of The Dragon , I have to mention too .
... And nows a Very Serious , Solemn 3 ~ 4 * Days [ Extra , due to dhp ehp sra mfh 666 H , Rude Everywhere. ] ...
Observance , Reflection , Remembrance , Prayer , ThankYousGivings , Appreciation And Gratitude 🎀🤍....
Thanksgivings { Also referred to as little Christmas } Is The Beginning of Christmas ~ Appreciation And Gratitude goes Hand in Hand' withe FamiLy and Village in Harvest Celebration And conjuring Gratitude , Remembrance , Hope | Faith assurance and security that Nature , Evergreene is The ALLLLL , Gods Cosmos , Cosmo , Creation , Reverence , Accord , Harmony , Balance , PrincipLe IS . Everything makes and made sense , The Seasons of Change , meta , dont worry type of thing , even in extremities of Winter , Hinterland . Under Nature , God { The First Cognitive Being of Nuclei , Beginning of ALLLLL Beginnings } Evergreene even in the Winter chill , the warmth of Gluwein ..... 💖🙂🌌 : )))))))) Gratitude 🤍
Father Christmas riding in a sleigh with his reindeer may be an allegory describing a string of pearls comet. The names of the reindeer are Blitzen and Comet after all..
That excerpt from the Boyhood Deeds of Finn is really interesting. It sounds to me like the storied remembrance of ancient ritual practices in honour of the dying green god sacrificing himself to the earth goddess (the maiden in the fairy mound). Its significance on Samhain being that this was the major festival to mark the end/beginning of the year, when the world around them was dying. I wonder if this aspect of Celtic religion was what led the Romans to equate the chief god of the Gauls with Dis Pater, himself a chthonic deity?
Well utube thought I may like this channel..and guss what..yes I do ! thank for the channel and awesome content..plus the level of comments here is rather awesome as well..giving lots of different insights :) You wonderful humans
It’s interesting that before the papacy changed a new day begins from midnight to midnight for business reasons, all original cultures including the bible clearly state the new day starts at sunset to sunset. I am a Seventh Day Adventist who is very interested in origins, mythology, all history including the ancient religions of the world. We start our Sabbath from sunset Friday ending at sunset Saturday. I’ve also noted most religions, unless a reformed back to their original conception, have all drifted away from the original teachings. ❤❤❤love your work.
Much love for the thumbnail art of the changeling from magic the gathering
We Hindus don't have a Halloween tradition necessarily, but many things are similar to the ancient rituals of Pitru-Paksha( literally Ancestor time or fortnight) which is followed in the traditional lunisolar Hindu calendar's month of Bhadrapada, corresponding to late September-Early October. This traditions are almost 5000-6000 years old and we prepare special meals and do homas/yagyas to propiate and offer food to our ancestor( sort of ancestor worship). This food is fed to the domestic animals, ideally a crow or cows, animals are believed to be the reincarnated forms of our ancestors. And interestingly, some meals do have gourd or pumpkins, although cooked. It is only, after giving them, can we eat our food. Also, not of much importance here, but Hindus traditionally have to give food to animals everyday, infact Insects are also taken care by the drawings made infront of our houses on the ground, made of rice/starch water or edible ricepowder.
But, pitru paksha has a negative connotation, because of its eerie nature and the fact that it is performed during the waning of the moon phase( Krishnapaksha).
Thank you for sharing this, it was very interesting.
I found your channel today and i'm already on my 42nd cup of tea
Blimey, I love tea, and 42 is a marvelous number, but 42 cups of tea is a lot, even by my standards!
I love the Celtic point of view in history! The church blended and then it was commercialized. Similar to Christmas etc
Got the kettle on!!!!
In the middle ages there were a few celebrations at the end of October. There was Punkie night, All Hollows' Eve, All Hollows' day or All Saints day, All Souls Day. People didn't work on these days. It was kind of like Christmas during autumn.
People had many days off, far more than they do today, such was the importance of festivals and keeping the peasants happy.
In the Catholic Church term ‘Holy Spirit’ has long been replaced the term ‘Holy Ghost’ in order to clarify that the third form of the godhead was not an actual ghost. The church does not actually sanction the belief in ghosts (good point about miracles, though). It takes more of a practical approach to folk beliefs that cannot be extirpated. The later, rationalist Protestant churches are the ones that take a stronger stance on these topics.
Glad you made the comment that the expression of this festival is mostly modern. Looking at how it evolved in New World in both the Anglo and Latin worlds will support this. Virtually everything currently associated with ‘witchcraft’ is modern in creation, building up from the late Renaissance. I enjoyed this.
Thank you for watching, and for taking the time to write such an interesting comment.
So what is a spirit if not a friendly ghost? How was an uneducated illiterate peasant in the year 1000 CE to have the ability to split these hairs? Personally I think our videographer got it right on this one. Speaking just as a person groomed in the Catholic cult from infancy, who could not wait to GTFO the instant she moved out of her parents house very shortly after her 18th birthday, to attend University, a place where thought is allowed to, wait for it, EVOLVE. Not like the RCC where sexually stunted MEN push their insane views on women.
Wow your thumbnail, I have that Magic card somewhere. I always thought that was dope art. Also Randall Carlson has this 4 hour lectur on the origins of halloween, gets really deep into the reason why people have traditions surrounding death all over the world at this time of year, even if the seasons were completely different, he claims multiple global events became the basis of such traditions for early peoples.
i was looking through the comments to see if this was mentioned. it was a very interesting vid
I already had a cup of tea and three cups of coffee. I am ready. 🙂
Woo hoo!! Cannot wait for this one, John!
Halloween, is my favorite Holiday I personally like to put our Decorations out Sept 1 - Nov 2!
Thanks for posting mate. I love anything historical, and this answers many questions I've come across over the holiday of Halloween. stay safe as well and cheers.
And thank you for watching.
I always appreciate your historical insights into mythology, especially as it relates to modern paganism. I find the marketing of paganism to be so deceptive a lot of the time because it claims to be rooted in history. I don't think it's wrong to modernize traditions and include themes and practices that feel compelling, but it is misleading to tell people that they're continuing ancient belief systems when in reality the two systems are totally detached!
Indeed, so many reconstructed pagan rituals are probably far from being accurate.
Good show! Now tell us about walpurgis night. Which is of course 6 months removed . I'm curious of how they are connected,
Me too, and I will when time allows, probably in 6 months :)
Named after a saint called Wealdburg.
Its complicated, the concept of "Halloween's" timing drifts forward siderally so that during the passage of the Pleistocene into the Holocene it would have been April when reversing precession. The Mother Goddess (Earth) has a duality just like "70s Mother Nature *Chiffon* Margarine Commercial" and later alike Ishtar, their End of the World occurred at spring.
On the 30th of October the Earth passes through the Taurid meteor stream as it moves towards the sun. on June 30 the Earth passes through the Taurids again as they have gone around the sun and make their way out into space. In October and November the stream is seen as meteors streaking through the night sky, in June they happen during the day and are not as visible. "Constantine looked at the Sun and saw the sign of the cross", this is likely a reference to an object coming at the Earth from the suns direction.
In Poland we celebrate All Saints Day. It is the 3st most important Holiday. There is an poet Mickiewicz which wrote Dziady in 18th century. It describes celebration of ancestors in paganic way by Lithuanians.
Failte a Charaid! Beannachd oidhche Samhaina leat, agus ceud mile beannachd air do bliadna fhèin....Thank you for sharing another amazing video. You never cease to impress. Keep up the good work. As a practicing Draoithe I would happily corroborate what you've mentioned here... bang on as usuel. You do yourself and the focus of your study great honour. Beannachd leibh
Side note Cronan is the term for an ancient style of low monotone chanting...as in the Piobearachd "Chronan Coireamhereachan" (I may have to look, but i may be able to pull the Ular for you)
Thank you for your kind words and taking the time to write the comments.
Regarding sunset as the beginning of the day was the predominant practice in pre-Roman times, making the night as the start of the day. Judiasm still regards sunset as the demarcation of days. This seems to be a common aspect of lunar centric calendars.
The Jews got that calendar from the Greeks.
19:09 You're no wrong there, lad. Even here in Japan now, the Halloween "season" starts in about mid-August, and the discount stores fill up with plastic pumpkin-shaped tat, and similar rubbish, for ten weeks and more. As a young kid, in early 1970s Manchester, however, it was slightly more low-key, but more real. Halloween often coincided with the rolling blackouts which, along with the three-day week were part of our reality. There were some cracking Manchester area-related stories that suited Hallowe'en, from the boggart of Blackley, to the legends of Alderley Edge, and the Pendle witches, which my parents would expertly retell. Apart from that, Hallowe'en consisted of playing ducking apples, and that was about it. Later in the '70s, Sir Ian and Dame Judi appeared in a low-budget but nevertheless brilliant ITV adaptation of the Scottish play, which suited the season well, I thought. Trick-or-Treat wasn't really a thing until the early '80s, when local kids took their lead from the Hallowe'en scene in ET. I was never really into it. Me and me best mate would go down to the medieval Birch Church, with headstones dating back to the 1600s, and spook ourselves senseless (I think we got the idea from Saint-Saens' "Dance Macabre", which we'd heard in school music class). Birch Church ain't there any more, sadly - bulldozed, to make way for the expansion of Manchester University. Into my teens and I bought a novelization of the Irish legend of Finn ("Challenge of the Clans" by Kenneth C. Flint - highly recommended), which retells the story of how Finn saved the court of the High King of Ireland at the Hill of Tara, by slaying a supernatural, firebreathing humanoid monster called Aillen, on the night of Samhain. Reminds me of Beowulf and Grendel. In my college days I was at the University of Michigan, and I'd love to spend twilight in October evenings walking around Ann Arbor, seeing piles of pumpkins on the porches of so many houses. Real Americana. The evening of Hallowe'en itself was focussed on costume parties, and a right good booze up. Nice memories. Nowhere is more into getting into costume than the Japanese though, so walking around the big cities here can be fun, to see the outfits, although there's no other actual point or focus to it, so the young 'uns who do it just end up making nuisances of themselves, more than anything. Add to this the influence of drunken cosplaying western idiots who, for some reason thought it a good idea to pester homebound train commuters on the evening of the 31st, and I have to say that the integration of Hallowe'en into the Japanese cultural calendar is at best a mixed blessing. I really enjoyed this edition, learned a lot, and had lots of memories jogged. Thank you, and I'd really be interested in hearing more about how the autumn harvest festival and bonfires morphed into Guy Fawkes night at some future point. I attended the Lewes bonfires in Sussex a good few times in the 1990s, and always sensed they were drawing on traditions from long before 1605. Cheers, and all the best.
It is a shame things are so commercial, and so much lost.
@@Crecganford yes! I mean I love dressing up and doing all the fantasy stuff, but for me Halloween is all about the harvest season, sharing the harvest, enjoying nature and the changing season. It's picking apples with your friends and family, making cider to share, pumpkin carving parties and just enjoying the change of season before winter sets in. I miss all those bonding activities that have been replaced by demands for candy and not much more.
Halloween has become a combination of the Tuatha de Dannan Samhain and the Gothic Walpurgis Night. The costumes were from Walpurgis when Witches hid on Mount Brocken from Witchfinders and the Witches wore costumes to conceal their identity
I DO, in fact, have my cup of tea in hand (English Breakfast w/ milk😋), and am looking forward to the video!🎃🍁🖤
Marvelous!
Neolithic Cailleach; my 'learn of the day'. Perhaps she took on an older 'witchier' role when her (EEF) place in myth was rewritten by the replacement (mostly) I-E expansion culture. I'm going to be imagining here in her prime. And thank you for your insightful videos!
I may do more about her one day as she has many folktales written about her. Thanks for watching.
She was the older aspect of the triple goddess
@@Crecganford 🤞
@@mickmacgonigle5021 It’s a modern idea that the triple goddess had a triple age motif. There are triple goddesses yes, but they are almost never different ages.
I remain ever vigilant for your promised videos on the earliest and oldest agricultural peoples female goddesses you mentioned having plans to do so long ago. It was nice to her you mention Cailleach maybe this portends a video exclusively dealing with these goddesses.
The videos will come, but they take time. I do at least a week of research on each one, and am currently working on over 20 different projects.
Yes Ireland was "converted" to Christianity in the 5th c, but this does not mean that the native traditions simply disappeared. Unlike most continental Christians that burned pagan sites or took them over and put to the sword many that would not convert (not sure that's wholly accurate but seems to be the notion, and any correction is welcomed), the Irish native traditions seem not to have been regarded as evil or dangerous. Also there are many clues to actual rituals and beliefs inadvertently included in many Irish Myths written down by the monks (who themselves may have been a few years prior native priests/druids).
40 seconds in and I feel obligated to make tea lol
I like the thumbnail image and enjoy the world of lorwyn in magic the gathering. I recognized the art of mothdust changeling right away
I have fond memories of Magic the Gathering
@@Crecganford I'm glad you do, it's a wonderful thing. ever think of returning?
I was looking for this comment
Thank you for sharing. Interesting to know.
When it comes to things like this, I think of Christmas. The way I celebrated as a kid was different than how my parents celebrated it, which was different from how their parents celebrated. Add in regional differences, and every village being a little world of its own... Nowadays even non-Christian celebrate it with different interpretations.
So, yeah, it's very fluid and we keep making a mistake by trying to find some magical point in time to celebrate as a 'truth'.
Yes, that is very well put. Thank you fro watching, and commenting.
I'm raised Catholic however I'm not religious whatsoever, & things like calling God the holy ghost while claiming that ghosts don't exsist is one of the reasons why. Hypocrisy, lies & experience have shown me that the church has a secret agenda. That being said - I thought marketing had played a major role in what Halloween is now more than anything else, thanks for the education lol. Great vid but who funds you bro? Your B-roll alone is top grade- subscribed
Thank you, and this is all funded through Patreon support and a few ads.
I have lived in spain for 13 years now and have seen xmas creap more into local culture in the form of santa and lights. Although the main xmas meal is still taken on noche buena, 24 December. Gifts are also given but Spanish children get a double bite at the cherry as Jan 6th Epiphany is also celebrated with more gifts.
Halloween has crept in quite recently probably from immigrant populations along the coasts. As Spanish children love fancy dress at the best of times the US version has taken root with its witches hats and broomsticks. Faces are painted and parents slog round the houses, even in the countryside where I live.
I love the lack of inhibition of Spanish society especially the children. I teach english at a school in the evenings and children turn up in all sorts of clothes and odd head gear. Esp the girls. Head bands with animal ears and this year's favourite animal head headwear with pop up ears. A child will ask a straight forward question while absent mindedly squeezing the bulbs to make the ears waggle.
They make me laugh.
Interesting. Vikings celebrated alvablot (Elves blot) in october. It was a family feast hosted by the housewife. men helping were called ölvir. öl is beer in swedish. if somene disturbed oden was getting angry. it is thought to have been about ancestors and fertility.
Yes, Alvablot is very interesting, and quite a formal blot, something I think Samhain may well have been. It has become very much an informal party now, but the dead deserved much more respect than that in the past.
@@Crecganford A party would be respect! Everything Christian is so dour.
To the best of my knowledge in medieval times, the next day started at sundown. It's why catholic mass is at saturday night and sunday morning.
AH, ok, that's interesting about catholic mass.
@@Crecganford It also explains why there are some Christian holidays that start the night before.
Thanks From Irish San Fransciscan into Samhain/Halloween.☘️💕☘️💕
You could be reciting the ABC’s and I would listen - you have a great voice. It’s soothing, relaxing and definitely ASMR!! And, thank you for the information. You nailed it, dear man.
Thank you.
Love that you got the pronunciation of samhain right! lol but bealtaine is bal-thuh-na and lughnasa = loo-nuh-sah :)
Thank you for letting me know.
You will find the best discussion ever of the dead when you read CG Jung‘s autobiography “Memories, Dreams, Reflections.“ I can say with a great deal of confidence that our dead are very much with us. My grandmother visited me twice, and I was able to demonstrate that to my own satisfaction outside of any psychological need to see her again. My favorite observation of Jung’s is that the land of the dead… is just a part of nature. It’s just a part of us that carries on after we die. And it’s just a fact we must accept. Most importantly because, for some reason or another, the dead need our help. There’s something about lacking a body that limits us, and those of us who have bodies need to jump in and lend them a hand.
Just a quick mention that Dutch & Flemish people celebrated Saint Nicolas (Sinterklaas, which became Santa Claus later in the States) on the 5th of December & also in certain areas of Belgium, they celebrated Saint Martin (Sint Maarten) on the 11th of November. Here, local children would hollow out sugar beats, placing a lit candle inside & go out in the evening singing songs praising the Saints name & hoping he would reward them with something, namely food, preferably consisting of something sweet (as they were both seen as protectors of children). Now, when the Dutch first came to the new world in the 17th century & established New Amsterdam/New York, they continued with this old tradition, but didn't have access to sugarbeats, so they used pumpkins instead out of neccesity. So as these old World traditions carried on through the next centuries, it had an influence with the Irish "Samhain" traditions AND for the Christmas period too. As Sinterklaas was adopted as Santa Claus.
I did not find his hesitant type of speech very easy to follow. I really had to concentrate on my cc. I also found history complicated. May have just been a bad day for me, but I became aggravated. Take care!
I'm sorry you didn't like how I talked but I cannot change that, and I get many compliments on how I talk.
Should be interesting - hope this will yield the same, or very similar, conclusions of my study into the whole Samhain/Halloween issue.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of researching these various origins, traditions, and assumed ‘truths’ about Halloween, is sifting through all the data and separating what is historical _fact_ from the myth, legend, and religious paranoia of what is historical _fiction._
What I have found is that after close examination and scrutiny, is that the accepted origin of most Halloween traditions/beliefs comes from the latter (historical fiction), rather than the former (historical fact).
So interesting the druids started a new day by night, after all new seeds emerge from dark soil and babies from the womb. It’s a shame to have had that type of perspective taken from the formation of time. I also recently heard a correlation between the old woman/harvest crone you mentioned with Demeter and the Persephone into the underworld=winter story… thanks for the reading inspiration of fionn too! 😊 also you mentioning drinking celebrations- would that have become Oktoberfest?
Beginning the next day at dusk of the preceding day is not at all uncommon. It's still done in Judaism. Passover, for example, begins at dusk the preceding day.
Oktoberfest comes from a wedding celebration; no connection.
@@jayplay8140 they meant by the setting of the sun, not at midnight.
@@MaryAnnNytowl but that's what always was used, the only reason we have it different now is because system is standartized and sunset doesn't happen at one time each day, so we can't use it anymore.
The Hebrew day starts at sundown because that is why Torah says: "And there was evening and there was morning - one day." (Gen. 1;5b) Sunset is a time easily marked without machinery.
in the Jewish tradition the day always starts at sundown. like Shabbot is from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown (the real 7th day).
our New Year also starts in early Fall with Rosh Hashonah. then 8 days later is Yom Kippur when you fast ask god to forgive all your transgressions. and light a candle for those who have passed. it sure would be intriguing to find out about the night thing cause you told us the Pagans did that. i’m not religious, but it is interesting.
Wonderful! thank you. And also thank you for the list of relevant references you provided.
You're welcome, and thank you for watching.
What's interesting to me is that Oengus mentions Samain, but refers to November as "Nouimbir" whereas in modern Irish November called Mí na Samhain and I assumed that it was always called that in Irish
I'm not sure the printed document retains all the formatting of the original manuscript, and so I would need to double check if this was the case.
@@Crecganford Looking at the full text he doesn't refer to any of the Irish months by their Irish names but rather Gaelicised versions of their Latin names so not significant after all. On a different note, it's worth noting that Cailleach is the name of the goddess but is also an Irish word for a witch, hag etc.
Yeah, I thought that odd as well - unless the month names were referred to in Latin. The entire month of November in all three Gaelic languages (Irish, Scottish & Manx) is the "month of Samhain". What's also kind of cool is that the Welsh name for November (Tachwedd) is an old term meaning ‘slaughter’, a direct historical reference to the slaughtering of weaker animals for food during the Samhain season for the upcoming winter months.
In Irish Gaelic the genitive is "Oíche Shamhna"/Halloween Night. The day begins in the dark.
I was a bit disappointed but I sympathise. There's too much misinformation on Hallowe'en. The horrible translation of the Irish you reference seems to be attempting to say that *Helair* or Hilarius (French Saints->Pope Hilary?), fixed the date of the May festival to November. The reason for this has more to do with extending the part of the year when the liturgy is read from half to mostly all of it, at least in the case of All Souls' Day's move by St. Odilo of Cluny and then the whole Church much later.
I'd read somewhere there are Roman accounts of the Britons celebrating the festival by whatever name much earlier than whatever you're stating (other people even attribute it rather to an old German tradition). That'd put it closer to the Welsh(/Cornish/Britannian) *Nos Galan Gaeaf*, the night before solar winter, starting the halfway point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. It's the dark quarter of the year, which is why November/Samhain is known as the Black (the Irish word for black as in pitch darkness or the devil) Month in Irish. The Roman calendar supposedly drifted, and the solar observance would be closer to Guy Fawkes' Night. I don't know where you're getting the relation to any moon calendar except by mere surmise. It is a seasonal observance, after the harvest. One of the liminal times when the otherworld grows closer, and before winter personified by Cailleach when people used to die.
It's just people trying to push off Catholic observances as pagan, Samhain or Lemuria in this case, encouraged by those newfangled Protestants wanting to discredit the accumulated traditions. Jewish newyear or Michaelmas take that history much further back than any of these pagan observances anyway. It only makes sense for cultures like the Celts and Jews that observed nights as the start of days that the year would also begin in its dark half and end with its light. "Summer's End" indeed.
The "ghost" in Holy Ghost, BTW, preserves the older sense of ghost as in how you give up the ghost when you die. The idea of soul and body separation that we know comes from the pagan Greeks, not from the Abrahamic traditions.
Yeah, as I understand it, the date for this holiday was actually broadly closer to mid-November than to modern October 31st/November 1st. I think a change in the calendar had a part in that?
My own research had also stated that there _are_ monoliths and monuments that were keyed to around that time-although there were a few different sets, suggesting a) the mid-point between the autumnal equinox and arboreal solstice, b) the nearest full/new moon to the mid-point, or c) related to the Pleiades being directly overhead (although the Procession of the Equinoxes would gradually change the date).
I’m not liking your tone, Sean. Go make your own video channel if you’re so much superior. Nothing comes from nothing, and that’s most certainly true of the co-opting appropriating RCC.
I celebrate Samhain. I appreciate your video and pronouncing Samhain correctly. I’m Wiccan and have a long line of Wiccan and Pagan ancestry where I’m from. It’s very important to educate people on this so thank you. Blessed be.
On November first, we in the northern hemisphere, go to the biblical Hell aka winter season.
Halloween marks the end of summer and entry into winter when the year was divided into into winter (Nov - Feb), spring (Mar - Jun), and Summer (July - Oct). These were the three sons of Noah (Earth) and Terah (Earth). Winter = Shem/Nahor, Spring = Japheth/Abram, and Summer = Ham/Haran. Summer (Ham) is followed by Shem and his white blanket of snow. Spring marks the appearance of Japheth and his blanket of green verdure (dead became alive).
Nahor, who introduces us into winter, is the snorting horse in Sagittarius. Abram the elevated Ram is Aries. Ham who introduces us into the hot season is the Lion aka Leo. All three seasons are led by Fire/Jupiter signs. King Jupiter is Melchizedek.
Thanks for an interesting video!
Could it be that the origin of Halloween goes back many millennia to commemorate all the souls that perished in a global cataclysm? Perhaps the event that is the source for all the global flood myths? If the theories of the Younger Dryas/meteor impact being the cause of an ancient flood cataclysm are correct, wouldn't October/November be a likely time for that meteor impact?
An interesting thought, but we are confident that the myths of halloween and samhain don’t overlap with the known dispersal of flood mythology. I’ve covered the later in a video a few months back.
Thank you, I really enjoy your channel. If you entertain requests, I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the Green Man.
I shall put him on my To Do list, maybe in time for the spring celebrations next year.
Another wide ranging look into a piece of our culture
Thank you
Thanks for giving us all this fascinating information. I love this kind of stuff. It's a shame we have limited knowledge about so much of human history. Even with the cultures that had a lot of things written down, we only have a small percentage of it. Forget it for the cultures that were mostly or only aural in tradition. That's just the way human history worked, though. There was so much crossing over with traditions, and blending, and taking over, that it's so hard to determine just what original forms of things looked like. It's cool to speculate with what information we have, though!
This suggest that Halloween being celebrated in Australia kinda silly. To be fair. It is a recent phenomenon and totally pushed by candy companies. I find it annoying.
That is my point, it is a commercial festival now with no links to its past.
I wish you would've mentioned the Fairy Host and the connection it has to Samhain. It would make for an interesting short.
I will talk about the faye and fairies in a future video :)
Amazing documentary about Halloween. A very nice narrator.
great info...thanx for your info-packed vid. Love your voice...subscribed..
Thank you so much.
Before pumpkins they used turnips.
Before turnips it was skulls.
I agree with the first statement, but the second is not proven.
That is awesome but kinda scary and if people did that today it would definitely freak people out and put Christians into a panic frenzy.
@@Crecganford logical, though
I’m personally not a fan of pagans who claim their way of celebrating goes back to pre-history, thank you for taking this deep dive into the lost history of pagan holidays!
I am not as quick to dismiss Frazer, who published a late 19th century survey of folk religious practices, including many instances of Sauen (Welsh spelling) celebrations. He could have also mentioned that we still start our day at midnight.
I thought the day started when the sun went down, as midnight isn't a time that could be ascertained easily. And it is these nuances which make me treat certain academia with caution.
Turned from Cailleach into hare, but maybe because of description, a "hag", or witch. I think it is all quite interesting
In the US after the harvest, the fall and when days become short seemed like a good time to celebrate with your neighbors or community. 😁🎃💀👻🧛🏻♂️🧟🧙🏽🧌🍻🍎
It always makes me laugh when the church claims to have just 1 god .. when at the same time, they talk about their holy trinity..Trinity = 3. Not 1.
And when you add all the catholic saints ... they pray to more entities than any one pagan/heathen!!
There is some marvelous lines in the bible the church doesn't like saying exactly because it points this out... I may make a video on these one day.
I think you need to also look into Indian festivals like Ganesh visarjan, navratri and river goddesses cults
In time I will
@@Crecganford i have a gut feel it's all related to the Halloween, Samhain, Ancestors day complex
It's my understanding the pumpkin took over for the turnip as those Irish (etc) that brought the old customs to America, found them to be by far more plentiful than turnips and, obviously, larger, easier to carve. As well as being much more wet therefore safer...
yes and no the spanish took Potatoes, Pumpkin, tomatoes, chocolate, Vanilla, turkeys and hundreds of food to Europe in the 1400 hundreds Columbus spice trade and cortez as well.