What Is Samhain?

Samhain is a sabbat that is the third and last harvest festival on the Wheel of the Year and is often the biggest celebration for Wiccans as it is the Witches New Year. During this time of the year, the border between our world and the spirit world is porous and thin. Spirits can easily cross over so we can reach out to them for communication, guidance, and closure

Samhain, (pronounced SOW-in, SAH-vin, SOW-een, or SAM-hayne) means literally “the end of summer” and is the third and final Harvest. Other names for Samhain are Samana, Day of the Dead, Old Hallowmas (Scottish/Celtic), Vigil of Saman, Shadowfest (Strega), and Samhuinn. Also known as All Hallow’s Eve, (that day actually falls on November 7th), and Martinmas (that is celebrated November 11th.  Samhain is the Witches New Year, a time for revelry and introspection. It is a night for divination and honouring our ancestors. 

On Samhain night the Faerie folk are believed to be very active and delight in playing tricks on humans.  If you’re near a faerie mound, be very careful not to be drawn inside, else you may disappear for a few hundred years.  The Fey enjoy gifts of food and drink and pretty baubles, so be sure to leave treats for the Faeries so you won’t be tricked!  In order to fool the Nature Spirits, our pagan ancestors would dress up in costumes if they had to travel about on Samhain night.  They would dress all in white, like ghosts,  make disguises of straw, or dress as the opposite gender. 

There are in fact plenty of ancient Samhain monsters attached to the holiday. Some of Halloween’s most iconic activities have Samhain origins. Activities such as carving Jack-o’-lanterns and dressing up in costumes. 

Ancient Celts would carve grotesque faces into turnips to scare off wandering spirits from entering their homes. Pumpkins became more prevalent when the Irish immigrated to America. They found that pumpkins were easier to carve than the more acquirable turnip in Ireland. 

Ancient Celts would also carve masks of these horrible faces. Once the sun goes down on October 31st, they would put them on. This is to prevent any restless wraith from stealing their souls. Or worse, possessing their bodies. If an ancestor passes away, it’s common for them to dress in animal skins. Sometimes they would don a headdress made of skulls or bones. This is to frighten off not only spirits, but also fairies that have a penchant for souls. 

Who Are The Fae?

Faeries are probably the most frightening creatures anyone will ever encounter in legends and folklore. They are not cute blue eyed blonde hair creatures.

The fae folk or faeries or simply Fey, are creatures with magical ability. Now they don’t all just spontaneously combust into magic, mind. Some have blatant supernatural powers (changelings, sirens, domovoy). Others are magical solely by their very existence (giants, trolls, ogres). But there is no denying the fact that most faeries are closely linked to the magical powers imbued by nature. That is perhaps why the elemental classifiers exist.

Faeries are referred differently across the world. In Western Europe, they are “faeries,” “the good folk,” “the hidden people,” or “the little people.” Scandinavia and Germany mostly know them as “elves” or “nixies” or “kobolds.” Persian mythology sometimes attributes the term “peris” to faeries; the peris took the form of beautiful female spirits, evil for the natural troubles they caused (drought, famine, and other natural disasters) and kind for their guidance of souls toward paradise. The “jinn” are the Arabic equivalents to faeries, though they are often just invisible spirits that grant wishes in faery tales. In India, the “bongas” are considered the evil faeries.

When I Was A Child, I Used To See The “Little People. ”

The Fae, Also known as, The Aziza (African) who are a type of beneficent supernatural race in West African (specifically, Dahomey) mythology. Living in the forest, they provide good magic for hunters. They are also known to have given practical and spiritual knowledge to people (including knowledge of the use of fire). The Aziza are described as little hairy people and are said to live in anthills and silk-cotton trees and/or the Yumboes who are supernatural beings in the mythology of the Wolof people (most likely Lebou of Senegal, West Africa. They closely resemble European fairies. Their alternatively used name Bakhna Rakhna literally means good people, an interesting parallel to the Scottish fairies called Good Neighbours.

Yumboes are the spirits of the dead and, like many supernatural beings in African beliefs, they are completely of a pearly-white colour. They are sometimes said to have silver hair.[3] They stand about two feet tall. They’re depicted in the movie HARRY POTTER as the house elf or the elves on the camels.

The Yumboes live beneath the Paps hills and come out to dance in the moonlight. They feast on large tables, waited on by servants who are invisible except for their hands and feet. Yumboes eat corn (which they steal from the humans) and fish (which they catch on their own). They invite both natives and foreigners to their feasts.

In the 3rd and 4th century, the Celts fought and married within Egypt. According to the ancient lore, Africans came to Ireland, they were a cushitic people from the African continent. Often depicted as demons, they defeated the first few incoming waves of invaders, but could not defeat the Firbolgs, who settled the land and lived side-by-side with the native Fomors.

Ireland was part of the Moorish Empire or what is known as the Moors and this is when the Fae came to the Celts history & tradition.

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