Changes

===Scottish origins===

===Scottish origins===

====The Celtic calendar====

====The Celtic calendar====

In Scot's Gaelic, All Saints' Day is ''samhuinn'', equivalent to Irish Samhain. Both words are thought to be variants of ''sam-fuin'', which means summer's end.<ref>MacBain, Alexander, ''An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language'', Gairm Publications, Glasgow, 1982. "'''samhuinn''', Hallow-tide, Ir. [samhain], E.Ir. [samuin], [samain], [samfhuin]: usually regarded as for [*sam-fuin], "summer-end", from [sam], summer, and [fuin], end, sunset."</ref> The name suggests that November 1 was once a harvest festival. It was the most widely celebrated of the Celtic holidays. It is paired with Beltaine on May 1 so that the Celtic year is split into two halves.<ref>MacLeod, Sharon Praice, ''Celtic Myth and Religion'' (2012), p. 14.</ref>

In Scot's Gaelic, All Saints' Day is ''samhuinn'', equivalent to Irish Samhain.<ref>MacBain, Alexander, ''An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language'', Gairm Publications, Glasgow, 1982. "'''samhuinn''', Hallow-tide, Ir. [samhain], E.Ir. [samuin], [samain], [samfhuin]: usually regarded as for [*sam-fuin], "summer-end", from [sam], summer, and [fuin], end, sunset."</ref> Samhain is paired with Beltaine on May 1 so that the Celtic year was split into halves.<ref>MacLeod, Sharon Praice, ''Celtic Myth and Religion'' (2012), p. 14.</ref>

[[File:Halloween skull.jpg|thumb|left]]These dates may have transferred from an earlier lunisolar calendar. A pre-Christian Celtic calendar has been reconstructed from second century BC calendars found in the French towns of Coligny and Villards d'Heria. The first month on this calendar is called ''Samonios'' and contains the summer solstice. The calendar drifts by nearly a day every year, so the link to the solstices, equinoxes, and other solar dates was never precise.<ref>Olmsted, Garrett (1992). ''The Gaulish calendar: a reconstruction from the bronze fragments from Coligny, with an analysis of its function as a highly accurate lunar-solar predictor, as well as an explanation of its terminology and development,'' p. 193.<br/>The calendar has a five year cycle of 1831 days. This is off by 4.79 days, or nearly a day a year.</ref>

[[File:Halloween skull.jpg|thumb|left]]The Irish adopted the Julian Calendar around AD 450. Significant dates may have transferred from the Celtic calendar. A Celtic lunisolar calendar has been reconstructed from fragments of two second century calendars, one found in the French town of Coligny and the other in Villards d'Heria. The first month on this calendar is called ''Samonios''. This month is cognate with Samhain and contained the winter solstice.<ref name="Olmsted">Olmsted, Garrett (1992). ''The Gaulish calendar: a reconstruction from the bronze fragments from Coligny, with an analysis of its function as a highly accurate lunar-solar predictor, as well as an explanation of its terminology and development,'' p. 193.</ref>

 

The Coligny calendar gives the length of an average solar year as 365.24 day, the same length that the Julian calendar gives. If uncorrected, it would drift by three days every four hundred years. If Samhain was once a month that contained the solstice, it had drifted so that by AD 450 it corresponded roughly to November. This suggests that the Celtic calendar had been in use for about 1,300 years at that point.<ref name="Olmsted"/>

====Bonfires====

====Bonfires====