The Book of Halloween | Page 4

sun's heat. A blazing wheel to represent the sun was rolled down hill.
"A happy thought. Give me this cart-wheel. I'll have it tied with ropes and smeared with pitch, And when it's lighted, I will roll it down The steepest hillside."
HAUPTMANN: Sunken Bell. (Lewisohn trans.)
Spirits were believed to be abroad, and torches were carried about the fields to protect them from invasion. Charms were tried on that night with seeds of fern and hemp, and dreams were believed to be prophetic.
Lugh, in old Highland speech "the summer sun"
"The hour may hither drift When at the last, amid the o'erwearied Shee-- Weary of long delight and deathless joys-- One you shall love may fade before your eyes, Before your eyes may fade, and be as mist Caught in the sunny hollow of Lu's hand, Lord of the Day."
SHARP: Immortal Hour.
had for father one of the gods and for mother the daughter of a chief of the enemy. Hence he possessed some good and some evil tendencies. He may be the Celtic Mercury, for they were alike skilled in magic and alchemy, in deception, successful in combats with demons, the bringers of new strength and cleansing to the nation. He said farewell to power on the first of August, and his foster-mother had died on that day, so then it was he set his feast-day. The occasion was called "Lugnasad," "the bridal of Lugh" and the earth, whence the harvest should spring. It was celebrated by the offering of the first fruits of harvest, and by races and athletic sports. In Meath, Ireland, this continued down into the nineteenth century, with dancing and horse-racing the first week of August.
CHAPTER III
SAMHAIN
On November first was Samhain ("summer's end").
"Take my tidings: Stags contend; Snows descend-- Summer's end!
"A chill wind raging, The sun low keeping, Swift to set O'er seas high sweeping.
"Dull red the fern; Shapes are shadows; Wild geese mourn O'er misty meadows.
"Keen cold limes each weaker wing, Icy times-- Such I sing! Take my tidings."
GRAVES: First Winter Song.
Then the flocks were driven in, and men first had leisure after harvest toil. Fires were built as a thanksgiving to Baal for harvest. The old fire on the altar was quenched before the night of October 31st, and the new one made, as were all sacred fires, by friction. It was called "forced-fire." A wheel and a spindle were used: the wheel, the sun symbol, was turned from east to west, sunwise. The sparks were caught in tow, blazed upon the altar, and were passed on to light the hilltop fires. The new fire was given next morning, New Year's Day, by the priests to the people to light their hearths, where all fires had been extinguished. The blessed fire was thought to protect the year through the home it warmed. In Ireland the altar was Tlactga, on the hill of Ward in Meath, where sacrifices, especially black sheep, were burnt in the new fire. From the death struggles and look of the creatures omens for the future year were taken.
The year was over, and the sun's life of a year was done. The Celts thought that at this time the sun fell a victim for six months to the powers of winter darkness. In Egyptian mythology one of the sun-gods, Osiris, was slain at a banquet by his brother S?tou, the god of darkness. On the anniversary of the murder, the first day of winter, no Egyptian would begin any new business for fear of bad luck, since the spirit of evil was then in power.
From the idea that the sun suffered from his enemies on this day grew the association of Samhain with death.
"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day.
"The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the wild rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow: But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the cold clear heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen."
BRYANT: Death of the Flowers.
In the same state as those who are dead, are those who have never lived, dwelling right in the world, but invisible to most mortals at most times. Seers could see them at any time, and if very many were abroad at once others might get a chance