An Chraobh Airgid
At misty dusk tall shining sídhe step out of the lintelled mouth of Oweynagat, black cats in the grass, while a lit hall stands on the mound behind.

Fire festival · 1 November

Samhain

The start of winter

Say it: SOW-in Connacht /sˠaunʲ/

The night the mounds stand open.

Open it on the full site There the Wheel of the Year starts from today, and counts the nights to the next festival.

In the old tales it is the hinge of the year, when the sídhe stand open. On Samhain eve Nera follows the host of the sídhe into the cave at Cruachan. The Dagda meets the Morrígan at the river Unshin. For twenty-three years Aillén burns Tara every Samhain, until Fionn stops him. And Aengus claims the Brú at Samhain. Geoffrey Keating says every fire in Ireland was put out on Samhain eve and relit from the fire of Tlachtga.

The word

Modern Irish Samhain simply means November. The old reading “summer’s end” is a medieval guess. The origin of the word is not settled; one proposal links it to a word for an assembly. The idea of a “Celtic New Year” comes from nineteenth-century scholars, not the medieval texts.

Customs

Oíche Shamhna, Halloween: guising from house to house, lanterns carved from turnips, and a barmbrack with a ring baked into it for whoever will marry next.

In the tales

  • The Dream of Aengus For a year a girl plays to Aengus in his sleep. When he finds her, she is one of thrice fifty girls on silver chains, and every other year she is a swan.
  • The Second Battle of Mag Tuired A beautiful king who gives nothing, a stranger with every art, an eye no army can face, and a harp that plays sorrow, laughter and sleep.
  • The Wooing of Étaín A fly on the wind drops into a golden cup and is born again, remembering nothing. A thousand years on, her first husband comes to Tara to play for a kiss.
  • The Cattle Raid of Cooley An argument in bed over who is richer ends in a war for a brown bull, and one young man holding a ford against all Ireland.
  • Fionn and the Burning of Tara For twenty-three years a man of the sídhe has played Tara to sleep at Samhain and burned it. Then a boy of ten, an outlaw, offers to keep it till morning.
  • The Adventure of Nera On Samhain night a man goes out in the dark to tie a withe round a hanged man’s foot, and follows the host of the sídhe into the cave of Cruachan.
  • The Púca Every night, while the servants slept, something came into the kitchen and did all their work for them. Then somebody thanked it.

See also

  • Aengus Óg The young god of the Brú: lover and trickster.
  • Ailill Ánguba Eochaid Airem’s brother, sick with love for Étaín.
  • Aillén mac Midgna The musician of the sídhe who burned Tara every Samhain, until the boy Fionn stayed awake.
  • Caer Ibormeith The girl Aengus saw in his sleep: a swan one year, a woman the next.
  • The Dagda “The good god”: father, druid and king of the Tuatha Dé Danann.
  • The Morrígan Goddess of battle and prophecy.
  • Nera The man who followed the sídhe into the cave of Cruachan.
  • The Púca A shape-shifter of Irish folklore: now a horse, now an ass, now a goat.
  • Ráth Cruachan Rathcroghan and Oweynagat. Queen Medb’s royal seat, and a cave called the gate of hell.
  • Teamhair The Hill of Tara. Seat of the high kings, and of the stone that cried out.
  • Tlachtga The Hill of Ward. Where the Samhain fire was lit.
  • The Woman of Síd Cruachan Nera’s wife in the síd of Cruachan, who showed him how to save his people.

Sources

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.