Halloween- page 2
The American Book of Days by Douglas
Halloween- The mystic rites and ceremonies with which Halloween was originally observed had their origin among the Druids. Centuries before the dawn of the Christian era in their celebration on the eve of the festival of Samhain. In the course of time there was added to them some of the rites peculiar to the Roman festival of Pomona who presided over the harvests.
November ist among the Druids was the beginning of the year and a festival of the sun god. They lighted fires in his honor. They believed on October 31st, the end of the old year the lord of death gathered all the souls of the dead who had been condemned to enter the body of animals and decided what form they should take for the next year. They believed that the souls of the good entered the body of another human being at death, and they also believed that the punishment of the wicked could be lightened by the gifts and prayers to the god. The cat was sacred and it was long believed that cats had once been human beings and had been changed into that form as punishment for evil deeds. November 1st was Samhain, or summer's end. On its eve the spirits came out of the cave of Auahan in Connaught, called the gate of hell. ...
The fairies too were powerful during the vigil of Samhain than at other times. One of the traditions about St.Patrick is that he was put to sleep by fairy music on the day before Samhain. Another tradition is that the fairies, angered because they were not receiving the ancient honor, sent a minstrel to Tara, who put it under a charm and burned it with his breath. Ireland, too, has a story about the origins of Jack-o-Lanterns carried on Halloween. It seems a stingy man named Jack was barred from heaven because of his penuriosness, and forbidden to enter hell because of his pratical jokes on the devil so he was condemned to walk the earth with his lantern until judgement day.
Halloween is a time when it was once supposed that witches and ghosts were most likely to wander abroad...
|
