Samhain

The Coligny calendar is a Celtic calendar found in the French town of Coligny in 1897

Samhain, Old Irish Samain, was a Celtic holiday prominent in Irish mythology. It was observed on November 1. This is also the date of All Saints' Day, a closely associated holiday. Popular history associates Samhain with Halloween, although Halloween is observed on October 31 and arose separately in 18th century Scotland. In modern Gaelic, Samhain refers to the month of November.

The Celtic year was divided into halves by the holidays Samhain and Beltaine (May 1). These dates were once part of a Celtic lunisolar calendar. Even in the earliest surviving accounts, both dates have already transferred to the Julian calendar.

Medieval legends explain that Samhain is the end of summer. This interprets the word as a variation of sam-fuin (summer's end), a possible but disputed etymology.

Origins

Garrett Olmsted of Cornell University argues that Samhain was originally observed on the winter solstice (December 21) and gradually shifted to November 1 after centuries of calendar drift. It is sometimes suggested, especially by neo-pagans, that the Celts intended to select a date halfway between the equinox and the solstice. By this logic, November 7 is the "real" date of Samhain.

Samhain may have existed for a some time as a marker for the first day of winter before there was a festival. Regula Coenobialis of St Columban, written in AD 540‐615, is the oldest source to describe November 1 as the first day of winter. The earliest mention of Samhain is found in the ninth century text Felire Oengusso. It spells the word as "Samain." November 1 was Christianized as All Saints Day in the eighth century.

The Welsh observe Calan Gaeaf on November 1. This name is influenced by Latin Kalends and refers to the first day of winter. The Britons, ancestors of the Welsh, converted to the Julian calendar several centuries before the Irish did, which was around AD 450. So the dates for Celtic winter and summer may reflect British practice.

Early Welsh literature ascribes no importance to November 1, at least not compared to Calan Haf (May 1). This suggest that Samhain gained prominence in Ireland sometime after Irish culture and language split off from that of the Britons in the sixth century.

Ulster Cycle

The earliest surviving discussion of Samhain is in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. These tales are set in the days when Connor ruled Ulster as king in the first century BC. They were composed in the tenth or eleventh centuries.

"The Sick-Bed of Cuchulain" portrays Samhain as a harvest festival:

“

EVERY year the men of Ulster were accustomed to hold festival together; and the time when they held it was for three days before Samhain, the Summer-End, and for three days after that day, and upon Samhain itself. And the time that is spoken of is that when the men of Ulster were in the Plain of Murthemne, and there they used to keep that festival every year; nor was there an thing in the world that they would do at that time except sports, and marketings, and splendours, and pomps, and feasting and eating; and it is from that custom of theirs that the Festival of the Samhain has descended, that is now held throughout the whole of Ireland.

”

That Ulstermen are portrayed as establishing Samhain supports the view that Samhain existed as a date on the calendar before a festival was established, as has already been argued. In Gaelic, the holiday is given as samfuin rather than as Samain. In the passage above, this word is translated as "Samhain, the Summer-End."

While others partied, Ulster hero Cuchulain was delirious and received an extended vision of Mag Mell, the Plain of Delight, a Celtic version the Elysian fields.

The holiday is also discussed in the "Wooing of Emer," another tale in the Ulster Cycle. As Emer tells Cuchulain: "two divisions were formerly on the year,...summer from Beltaine (the first of May), and winter from Samuin to Beltaine." So Cuchulain lives in a Julian calendar world in which the Celtic calendar "formerly on the year" needs to be explained.

The Celtic calendar

Cormac's Glossary gives Imbol (February 1) as the first day of spring, Beltaine (May 1) the first day of summer, Lugnasad (August 1) the first day of fall, and Samhain (November 1) the first day of winter. This glossary was started by the king-bishop of Munster around AD 900. Some entries were added centuries later.

A Celtic lunisolar calendar has been reconstructed from fragments of two first century BC calendars found in the French towns of Coligny and Villards d'Heria. The first month on this calendar is called Samonios. The name is cognate to Samhain. The Celts celebrated a three-day festival that began on the 17th of Samonios, according to the calendar.

With a leap day every five years, the Coligny calendar gives the length of a solar year as 365.20 days. Since the true length is 365.2422 days, the calendar drifted by one day every 23.7 years.

The amount of drift can be used to estimate the age of a calendar. According to Pliny, Celtic months started on the sixth day of the lunar cycle in the period 120-100 BC. As the lunar cycle drifted by one day every 199 years, this suggests that the calendar had been operating without correction for 975 years.

If Samhain was once on the winter solstice, it could have gradually moved to its current location due to calendar drift. Assuming Samhain and Beltaine transferred to the Julian calendar around AD 200, that gives us 1,300 years of solar calendar drift (1100 BC to AD 200), or 50.6 (1300/23.7) days worth of drift. November 1 is 51 days before the solstice on December 21. That this rough calculation yields the desired date exactly is surely an artifact. But placing the start of a season on the first of the month has obvious advantages in terms of convenience.