Samhain

Before that, my mother would hand me a turnip and a kitchen knife and the lantern was the size of a fist, hollowed out by hand, and the smell of burnt root vegetable was Samhain. I dressed up as a ghost in a sheet. We were not making spooky cosplay. We were doing the festival the way my grandmother had done it and her grandmother before her, in a council house in Somerset, the year somewhere in the 1970s.

On the night of All Hallows' Eve the light fades and winter begins to whisper its icy embrace. The barrier breaks down. The veil is at its thinnest. They are here, those we have lost, those who have gone before. We honour them because their essence is still in us, still moving through us, the divine helpers and the guardians of the realm of spirit. This is not about summoning the dead to speak. It is about feeling the frequency of those who came before, when the veil is thin enough to feel it.

This page is what Samhain actually is. Stripped back from the costume aisle and given back to what the land was doing, and what the people on the land were doing about it.

What Samhain is

Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sah-win, not sam-hayn) is the Celtic festival of the dead. It falls on 31 October, marking the end of the harvest year and the beginning of the dark half. The Celtic year did not have four seasons. It had two. The bright half from Beltane to Samhain. The dark half from Samhain to Beltane. Samhain is the door between them.

It is the Celtic new year. The agricultural year ended here. The cattle were brought down from summer pastures. The harvest was in. What had to be slaughtered was slaughtered. The next part of the year was the cold half, the indoor half, the one you survived rather than worked through.

The boundary between this world and the otherworld was held to be at its thinnest at Samhain. Spirits walked. The dead drew close. Their essence moved nearer the surface at this turning, near enough to feel. Divination was done because the answers came easier. Hearth fires were extinguished and relit from a communal bonfire, signalling the start of the new year. Offerings of food were left out for the dead.

When the church arrived, the festival was renamed. All Saints' Day on the 1st of November. All Souls' Day on the 2nd. The night before became All Hallows' Eve and eventually Halloween. The festival was not destroyed. It was layered. Underneath the costumes and the trick-or-treating, Samhain is still there, doing what it always did.

The history, in plain English

Samhain is at least two thousand years old, possibly older. The earliest written references are in medieval Irish manuscripts, but the festival predates the writing. Archaeologists have found evidence of large autumn gatherings at sites like the Hill of Tara in Ireland going back to the Iron Age. The festival was already old when it was first written down.

It was one of the four great festivals of the Celtic year. Imbolc opened spring, Beltane opened summer, Lughnasadh marked the first harvest, Samhain closed the year. Samhain was the most important. It was the hinge.

The Romans documented it when they came to Britain. They folded their own festival of the dead, Feralia, in late October, into the same week. The festival did not die under occupation. It absorbed.

When Christianity arrived, the Catholic church did the same thing the Romans had done. Pope Boniface IV established All Saints' Day in the 7th century. It moved to the 1st of November in the 9th century, deliberately placed over Samhain. The old festival kept going underneath. Hearth fires were still relit. Offerings were still left out. The mumming traditions, the guising of children in costume going door to door, carried the festival through the Christian centuries without anyone calling it Samhain.

In Britain it bled into Bonfire Night. By the time the fires were lit on the 5th of November, Samhain had merged with Guy Fawkes and the two had become one long week of fire and remembrance. The English layered Protestant fireworks on top of a Celtic festival of the dead and barely noticed.

In the 20th century, the modern pagan revival named it again. Gerald Gardner's Wiccan tradition recovered the old word. The witches' new year was back in print.

What I do at Samhain

This is the part of the festival no other page can write the way I can.

I tune in to the readers and seers who came before. The women the church called witches. My grandmother's generation, who had the cards and the knowledge but kept it quiet because the village had opinions. My great-grandmother's generation, who would have called it something else but were doing the same work. The lineage of women who knew before there was a word for it. I do not speak to them and I do not claim they speak to me. I feel their frequency. Their essence is still in the work.

My mother was a Scorpio, the sign that sits right at this turning of the year. She would leave the passage door open on the night of the 31st so the ghosts of those gone by could walk through. I asked her once whether they could not simply pass through the walls. She told me that was disrespectful. They came in by the door, like anyone you were glad to see.

I do not do elaborate ritual at Samhain. I do not cast circles, call quarters, or work a coven. The work for me is quieter than that. I go still. I let the frequency of those who came before settle around me. I do a reading. I write down what comes.

The simplest practice, if this is new to you: light a candle on the evening of the 31st. Put a glass of water beside it. Speak the names of those you want to honour. Sit with their essence for as long as you sit. That is all. The festival does not need more than that to work.

If you want to go further, leave a small plate of food out overnight. Not a feast. A piece of bread, an apple, something seasonal. In the morning, take it outside for the birds and the wind. You have made the offering. The festival has been kept.

Death speaks

The card most people fear is the one that belongs to this night. Its sign is Scorpio, the sign of this turning, and the sign of my mother. Let it speak for itself.

"My card has had a bad rap. The fortune tellers painted a very dark picture of me. My sign is Scorpio. Magnetic, mysterious. Secrets will be revealed. Pluto pulls emotion up from the depths and lets you reinvent and release yourself, and emerge in a new dimension. Your authentic self is preparing to leave the cocoon. Spread your wings. The Sun will rise again. I am Death, and the Fool knows not of me. Your life is fear and dreams. Will you live this life, before I come looking for you?"

Death is not the end. Death is the crossing. It is the card of the harvest brought in, the bright half of the year laid down, the old self released so the next can begin. At Samhain it is not a warning. It is an invitation. You can read the full meaning of the Death card here.

Samhain in the tarot

Death is the festival's card, but Samhain energy runs through several others in the major arcana.

The Hanged Man (XII) is the pause before the descent. The world inverted, seen from a different angle, the willing surrender to not-knowing. Samhain is when you stop being busy with the harvest and let the dark half teach you something else.

The Moon (XVIII) is Samhain's psychological card. Intuition heightened, the unconscious closer to the surface, dreams strange and vivid, the imagination and the essence of what came before harder to tell apart.

The Tower (XVI) can appear at this turning. The sudden collapse of what cannot stand. The veil thins and what you have been pretending about gets harder to pretend.

For the minor arcana: the Three of Swords for the grief that surfaces, the Five of Cups for the regret, the Six of Cups for the visitation from childhood, the Eight of Cups for what you walk away from at this turning.

I do not draw all of these on the night. I let the cards come. Samhain reads differently from other nights because the questions you bring to it are different. You are not asking what will happen. You are asking what is ending, what is crossing, and what wants to be felt.

A Samhain tarot spread

This is the five-card spread I use for the night of the 31st. It honours the festival's real shape: the energy of the night, the past, what must be released, what you call in, and the protection you carry forward.

Card 1, The energy around you this Halloween. What is in the air around you on the night of the festival. The mood of your own thinning veil.

Card 2, Ghosts of your past. What from behind you is closest to the surface tonight. The frequency of what has been, rising as the veil thins.

Card 3, Behaviours you need to release. What you let cross over into the dark. The pattern, the habit, the version of yourself that has finished its season.

Card 4, A positive spirit to manifest your next steps. The energy you call in for the dark half of the year. What you choose to carry forward.

Card 5, A protection spell, and a message from beyond the veil. The card that guards you through winter, and the essence that comes through from those who went before.

Light the candle. Pour the water. Speak the names. Then shuffle and draw.

I also offer a free interactive version of this spread, drawn from many thousands of readings, using my own deck. You can try the free Halloween Tarot Reading here. If you would rather I read for you, you can book a Halloween Tarot Reading with me throughout October, tuned to the closing of the year and the questions this night raises.

Samhain 2026 dates

Most people use 31 October. The astronomical purists use 7 November. I use 31 October, because that is the date the land has been working to for two thousand years.

Samhain 2027 dates

Samhain in the Southern Hemisphere

If you are reading this from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or anywhere south of the equator, your Samhain is in late April or early May. The wheel turns with the seasons, not the calendar. The festival is the same. Only the date moves.

Around the wheel from Samhain

Samhain is the hinge of the wheel, the Celtic new year. To see how it fits with the other seven sabbats, return to The Wheel of the Year.

Frequently asked

I heard this whisper and I wondered,
I heard this laugh and then I knew.
The time is getting near my friends,
The time that I hold dear my friends,
The veil is getting thin my friends,
And strange things will pass through.

The festival is not what the costume aisle says it is. It is older than that, quieter than that, and more interesting than that. The veil thins because the year is turning. You light a candle because that is what your great-grandmother did. You go still and feel what came before, because that is what Samhain is for.

I will see you under the next moon. And before that, on the 31st.

Yours, Paul O'Mara