About Halloween, Samaín and its connection to Galicia
Few people imagine that, in our land of Galicia, there existed a celebration that was much older than the famous American Halloween. This festival had Celtic roots and was also known as the day of the faithful dead or Samaín, which means the “end of the summer”. It was celebrated thousands of years ago across the whole of the Celtic territory, on the night of 31 October to 1 November.
The Druids considered this date to be the ideal moment for honouring the ancestors that visited their old villages, and for this purpose, they sanctified them through rituals to seek their intercession.
It wasn’t until the 19th century that this tradition, coming from countries like Scotland and Ireland, crossed the pond to the United States with the actual inhabitants of these lands during the famines that were devastating Europe in the middle of that century. And so Halloween came about, and returned to Europe as an American tradition which, in reality, had originated from Celtic customs.
The legend tells that during the night of the dead the fairies and trolls walked freely along the paths and around the village. Some braver people would open the doors of their homes and if there was a fairy on the other side of the door they would have good luck the following year. If, in contrast, a troll was on the other side of the door, curses would rain down on their family, filled with calamities and disasters, during the whole year. When night fell, the Druids would light fires with holy branches collected from inside the forests to banish bad spirits and to guide the dead back into the darkness again. At the same time, neighbours would dress up with skins and animal heads to frighten the ghosts.
Today, Halloween is much more popular the way it is celebrated in the United States, with costumes and pumpkins, but we should not forget the origins of this, and our traditional Samaín.
Night will fall, the moon will rise and we will dine bewitched and dance away the night of the 31 of October at the Naviera Mar de Ons Halloween Special.
