The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year

CELTIC STUDIES / HOLIDAYS One of humanity's most enduring myths is that the dead, on certain nights of the year, can leave the Other World and move freely about the land of the living. Every year on October 31, when the children of the world parade through the streets dressed as monsters, skeletons, and witches, they reenact a sacred ceremony whose roots reach back to the dawn of time; and in the giving and receiving of sweets as gifts, we reestablish an ancient fraternal exchange between the visible world and the invisible world. Author Jean Markale meticulously examines the rituals and ceremonies of our ancestors' festivities on this holiday and shows how they still shape the customs of today's celebration. During the night of Samhain, the Celtic precursor to today's Halloween, the borders between life and death temporarily disappeared, and the wealth and wisdom of the sidh, or fairy folk, were available to any who were intrepid enough to dare enter their realm. Markale enriches our understanding of how the transition from the light half of the year to the dark centered on this festival during which everyday existence stopped and consciousness opened to a world impossible to experience at any other time. JEAN MARKALE--poet, philosopher, historian, and storyteller--has spent a lifetime researching pre-Christian and medieval culture and spirituality. He is the author of more than forty books, among which are The Druids, The Grail, The Great Goddess, The Celts, Merlin, Women of the Celts, Courtly Love, The Epics of Celtic Ireland, and King of the Celts. He is a specialist in Celtic studies at the Sorbonne and lives in the Brittany region of France.