Halloween grew from two roots: the Gaelic festival of Samhain on 1 November, and the Christian feast of All Saints (All Hallows) on the same date, whose eve gave Halloween its name. Samhain is real and old — medieval Irish sagas set supernatural adventures on it — but the popular claims that it was the "Celtic New Year" or a pagan "festival of the dead" rest mostly on 19th-century scholarship, not ancient evidence. Most familiar customs, from jack-o'-lanterns to trick-or-treating, are documented only in the last few centuries.
Is Halloween really from Samhain?
Partly. The date and some of the atmosphere are Gaelic; the name is Christian; most customs are early modern or modern.
Samhain (Old Irish samain) marked the beginning of winter on 1 November. In the Irish tale Tochmarc Emire ("The Wooing of Emer"), it is listed as the first of the year's four great festivals, alongside Imbolc, Beltaine and Lughnasa. It was a time of royal assemblies and feasting — and, in the stories, a night when the boundary with the Otherworld thinned.
What it was not, as far as the evidence goes, is a known festival of ghosts: the earliest sources show no rite honoring dead ancestors.
What do the Irish sagas say about Samhain?
The sagas are our best evidence, with one caveat: Christian monks wrote them down centuries after Ireland converted. They give a literary picture of Samhain, not a record of pre-Christian ritual.
- Echtra Nerai ("The Adventure of Nera"). On Samhain night at Cruachan, King Ailill and Queen Medb offer a prize to anyone who will tie a withe around the foot of a man hanged the day before. Nera goes out, the corpse speaks to him, and Nera follows a host into a fairy mound (síd), where he lives in the Otherworld. It is the most "Halloween" of the old tales.
- Serglige Con Culainn ("The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulainn"). The Ulstermen gather for their Samhain assembly, which the tale says ran for three days before and three days after the day itself. Otherworldly birds appear on a lake, and Cú Chulainn's encounter with two women of the síd leaves him bedridden for a year.
- Aillén and Tara. In the Fenian tradition, a fire-breathing being named Aillén comes out of the Otherworld every Samhain, lulls the defenders of Tara to sleep with music and burns the royal hall, until the young Fionn mac Cumhaill kills him.
The pattern: Samhain is when Otherworld beings cross over. Eerie — but these are síd folk, not the family dead.
Was Samhain the Celtic New Year?
This is the most repeated claim about Halloween, and the weakest.
The idea that Samhain began the Celtic year, and that it was a festival of the dead, was popularized in the late 19th century by the Welsh scholar John Rhys, who drew on Welsh and Manx folk customs of his own day, and by James Frazer in The Golden Bough. Frazer went further, arguing that the Church put All Saints and All Souls in early November to absorb a pagan cult of the dead.
The historian Ronald Hutton (The Stations of the Sun, 1996) has argued the evidence for all of this is thin:
- Early Irish texts treat Samhain as the start of winter, but none calls it the start of the year.
- The earliest sources connect it with assemblies and the Otherworld, not with rites for the dead.
- The 1 November date for All Saints was, in Hutton's view, a Germanic church idea — England and Germany kept it by about 800 — rather than a response to Samhain.
The ancient Gaulish Coligny calendar (2nd century AD) complicates things a little. It has a month named SAMON- and marks "three nights of Samon" (trinox Samoni), which many scholars link to Samhain. But where that month sat in the Gaulish year is itself debated, so it cannot settle the new-year question.
How did All Saints and All Souls shape Halloween?
- 609 or 610. Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to the Virgin Mary and all the martyrs — on 13 May.
- 8th century. Pope Gregory III dedicated an oratory in St Peter's to all the saints; later tradition connects him with 1 November, though the details are disputed.
- By about 800. Churches in Northumbria, and in Hutton's reading the English and German churches more widely, were keeping All Saints on 1 November. Hutton notes that early Irish church calendars placed their feast of all saints in April — awkward for the idea that the date was chosen to replace Samhain.
- 835. The Frankish Empire made 1 November the official feast, at the request of Pope Gregory IV.
- Around 1000. Odilo, abbot of Cluny, set 2 November aside for all the faithful dead in his monasteries. All Souls' Day spread through Western Europe over the following centuries.
The eve of All Hallows plus the day for the dead produced the season we recognize. Much of Halloween's "spooky" character comes from this medieval Christian focus on souls, not from Samhain alone.
Where did jack-o'-lanterns come from?
The name came first: "jack-o'-lantern" was an English term for a man with a lantern and for the will-o'-the-wisp, the eerie light over marshes.
The folktale came next. In the Irish story of Stingy Jack, a drunkard tricks the Devil. When Jack dies, Heaven will not take him and the Devil, keeping his word, will not either — but throws him a burning coal, which Jack carries in a hollowed turnip as he wanders forever. This is modern folklore, not ancient myth.
The vegetable came last. In Ireland and Scotland, hollowed turnips or mangelwurzels, sometimes carved with faces, lit the way for people out on Halloween night. Irish and Scottish emigrants to North America switched to the native pumpkin, which was larger and easier to carve, and the carved pumpkin became the symbol of the holiday.
Is trick-or-treating from Samhain?
Not directly. Its ancestors are several customs that come from different places:
- Souling. In England, at least from the 15th century, people went door to door around All Souls asking for "soul cakes" in return for praying for the dead of the household.
- Guising. In Scotland and Ireland, young people in disguise visited houses at Halloween, performing a song or verse in exchange for food or coins. Most detailed descriptions of Halloween guising come from the 19th century onward.
- "Trick or treat." The phrase itself is North American; its earliest known uses in print come from Canada in the late 1910s and 1920s, and the custom spread across the US in the mid-20th century.
Robert Burns's poem "Halloween" (1785) is a good window on the 18th-century Scottish holiday. It is full of love-divination games — pulling kale stalks, burning nuts — with barely a ghost in sight.
Halloween customs: claimed origin vs evidence
| Halloween custom | Claimed origin | What the evidence says |
|---|---|---|
| The date, 31 October | A pagan Celtic festival | Samhain did fall on 1 November, but the Christian All Saints date has its own, partly independent history |
| "Festival of the dead" | Celtic ancestor worship at Samhain | No early Irish source describes rites for the dead; the idea comes mainly from Rhys and Frazer (late 19th century) |
| "Celtic New Year" | Samhain began the Celtic year | Not stated in early sources; Hutton finds the evidence thin |
| Ghosts and spirits abroad | Samhain's thin veil | Supported in part: Irish sagas set Otherworld encounters at Samhain; All Souls added the Christian dead |
| Costumes | Disguising oneself from spirits at Samhain | Guising is documented in Scotland and Ireland, mostly in the last few centuries; the spirit-disguise motive is a modern explanation |
| Jack-o'-lanterns | Ancient Celtic lanterns | Turnip lanterns in Ireland and Scotland (recorded in the 19th century); pumpkins in North America |
| Trick-or-treating | Samhain offerings | Descends from souling and guising; the phrase appears in North America in the 20th century |
| Apple games | The Roman fruit goddess Pomona | No surviving Roman calendar gives Pomona a festival on this date; apple and nut divination is well recorded in Scottish and Irish folk custom |
| "Samhain, lord of the dead" | A Celtic god named Samhain | No such god appears in early sources; Samhain is the name of the festival |
In the sources
- Early Irish literature (surviving in medieval manuscripts): Tochmarc Emire, Echtra Nerai, Serglige Con Culainn and the Fenian stories of Aillén at Tara. Medieval Christian texts, not pagan scripture.
- The Coligny calendar — a Gaulish bronze calendar from the 2nd century AD with the month SAMON-.
- Church history — the Pantheon dedication (609/610), the Frankish decree of 835 and Odilo of Cluny's All Souls.
- Folklore and poetry — Robert Burns's "Halloween" (1785) and 19th-century records of Irish and Scottish customs.
- Scholarship — John Rhys and James Frazer (the "Celtic New Year" theory); Ronald Hutton's The Stations of the Sun (the critique). These are modern interpretations, not ancient sources.
Contradictions to know: Frazer held that the Church chose 1 November because of Samhain; Hutton argues the date spread from the English and German churches. Scholars also disagree about whether the Coligny calendar's SAMON- month fell at the start of winter.
In popular culture
- Horror films. The Halloween franchise's third film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), builds its plot around Samhain. Like most horror, it treats the "Celtic festival of the dead" as fact — the Frazer version, not the saga version.
- Modern Samhain. Many modern pagans celebrate Samhain on 31 October as a festival honoring the dead — a living modern tradition that draws on the 19th-century theories rather than an unbroken ancient one.
Frequently asked questions
Is Halloween originally a Celtic holiday?
Partly. It falls on the eve of the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but its name and much of its character come from the Christian feasts of All Saints and All Souls, and most of its customs are early modern or modern.
What was Samhain?
Samhain was the Gaelic festival on 1 November that marked the start of winter. Medieval Irish sagas describe it as a time of royal assemblies and of encounters with Otherworld beings.
Was Samhain the Celtic New Year?
There is no firm evidence for it. The idea was popularized in the late 19th century by John Rhys and James Frazer, and the historian Ronald Hutton argues the evidence is thin.
Why is Halloween on 31 October?
It is the eve of All Saints' Day on 1 November. The name comes from All Hallows' Even, contracted in Scots to Hallowe'en.
Where does the jack-o'-lantern come from?
From Irish and Scottish Halloween lanterns made of hollowed turnips, linked to the folktale of Stingy Jack. Emigrants to North America used pumpkins instead.
Is trick-or-treating ancient?
No. It grew out of souling and guising in Britain and Ireland, and the phrase trick or treat first appears in North America in the early 20th century.
Keep exploring
Halloween's real monsters are older than the holiday. Meet them in Mythological Monsters: 15 Creatures for Halloween, read about the Greek goddess of crossroads and night in Hecate in Greek Mythology, or compare Iceland's winter terror in Gryla, the Christmas ogress. For ancient ideas of what happens after death, see the Egyptian weighing of the heart and Persephone, queen of the underworld. Then test yourself with the Greek mythology quiz.