Meanderings along Ancestral Polytheist Paths: "Àrc-Eòlas"

Showing posts with label "Àrc-Eòlas". Show all posts

28 October 2016

"Halloween in Irish Folklore" by Irish Archaeology

"Halloween in Irish Folklore", a blog, by Irish Archaeology, filled to the brim with excerpts, and well worth the reading:

"These folklore accounts detail some of superstitions and festivities which once surrounded Halloween in Ireland. They are based on information supplied by schoolchildren to the Irish Folklore Commission in the late 1930s."

Festival Calendar

Là Fhèill Brìghde ~ A time to celebrate the end of winter, welcome the beginnings of spring, and the start of new life (and love), usually by the cleaning and purifying the home, and the blessing of animals and children.

Bealltainn ~ The start of the season of fertility.

Summer Solstice ~ A personal celebration wherein I "sit out" all night in contemplation of my ancestors, and how they might have viewed this time of the year, as the days now become shorter, and the nights longer, but the weather warmer.

Lùnastal ~ A time to contemplate blood, family, and honour and the coming harvest.

Samhainn ~ The end of summer and the beginning of winter; a time to honour the ancestors, of the family, older clans, countrymen, and pagan forebears.

Winter Solstice ~ A personal celebration wherein I "sit out" all night to ponder how my ancestors might have endured, and considered during the longest night and shortest day of the year.