Samhain

Samhain (pronounced Sow-en) is the third Celtic harvest festival that marks summer’s end and celebrates the gathering in of fruits of the earth such as pumpkins, gourds, turnips, parsnips and swedes, the storing of nuts and dried herbs and, in past times, the slaughter of those animals that could not survive through the long, cruel winter. Situated between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice, it incorporates All Hallows Eve (October 31st), All Saints’ Day (November 1st) and All Souls’ Day (November 2nd). Before it became commercialised, Hallowe’en used to be thought of as a time when the veil separating the living and the dead became thin, so that the ancestors drew closer and the dead were remembered. Bonfires were lit to counter the waning power of the sun, as the days became shorter and colder. Many local customs involved playing tricks or making mischief whilst processing door-to-door and also divination or scrying, to see into the future. These have now been reimagined in the children’s pastime of ‘trick or treat’. All Saints’ Day, commemorating the Christian martyrs, dates from the fourth century and was fixed on November 1st by about AD 800. All Souls’ Day, which falls on November 2nd and is an occasion on which to remember our dead loved ones, is more recent, dating from AD 998 when Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, held a mass for all dead souls. It used to be believed that both the saints and the living could intercede for the dead, who were thought to be in Purgatory atoning for the sins they had committed during their lives on earth. Intercession would speed their progress towards Heaven.These beliefs lost ground after the Reformation, but were revived in the nineteenth century and are now standard feasts in the more sacramental churches. All Souls is a sombre festival at which the names of the departed are recited; All Saints is more spectacular and colourful ceremony at which the lives and example provided by saints and martyrs are recalled and celebrated. My Samhain weaving takes its colour palette from the fruits of the earth and its textures from the bark of trees.