Origins of October

Hello everybody! Today, I’m going to be telling you about the origins of Halloween. I want to share my passion of History with you all so you can something learn new, I hope you enjoy it!

First of all, the name October comes from the Roman Calendar (which was the 8th month) and “octo” is Latin for eight. October has an extensive history but I’m only going to skim through it. The Saxons too had associations with October. To them October was "Wintirfillith" due to October being the first full moon of the winter season. The Eve of Halloween is a combination of the Christian festival - All Saints. And, pagan autumn festivals.

Halloween first began over 2,000 years ago with the pagan Celts from the UK, Ireland and Europe. Back in those days Halloween was, "Samhain". Interestingly enough, In Scottish Gaelic "An t-Samhain" means November. (Gaelic was a form of the Celt's language.)

Celts were Europeans with a reputation for being particularly savage, frightening and pagan. When the Romans came to Scotland the Celts remained undefeated and that led to the Romans building walls to keep them out and avoid attack. In Greece, Celts were "keltoi" meaning barbarians.

SHOOK? Yes, Halloween is on the 31st of October! But, the Celts celebrated their new year on the 1st of November and Samhain was from the night of the 31st of October to the 1st of November.

The Celts believed the realms between the dead and living were weak on Samhain. And, since the realms were at it’s weakest old spirits/ghosts would return for the night. Even today, festivals like this are lightly mentioned/ associated in episodes. (BBC Merlin S4 episodes 1-2, I’d definitely check Merlin out it’s a great series!)

Halloween costumes also started up with Samhain and wore animal heads or skins. Other activities included:

·        Celts and Priests would tell each other their fortunes as the spirits would help them see the future.

·        Druids created bonfires and other Celts would sacrifice animals and crops to their idols for their religion.

·        Celts then extinguished their fires to embrace the spirits and the festival.

·        Celts then relit their fires in the belief everyone would be protected during the winter. This was very important because winter often lead to death because the winter was harsh, cold and a great struggle.

Statue of Boudicca (Well known Celt)

Thank you for reading today's post and I hope you enjoyed it and perhaps learnt something new, let me know what you think in the comments below or at @ElectricallyE on twitter! This post was for the 12th day of #blogtober. ANYWAY, hope you have a good day!