ABSTRACT
Beings of the Otherworld.
Many of us have grown up with the excitement of Halloween on October 31, but most people are unaware of the origins of the spooky holiday. Halloween comes from the Celtic festival Samhain. This is an Irish and Scottish Gaelic festival that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the winter season. It also marks the new year. During this time, it is believed that the veil between the Otherworld and our world is thinner, allowing beings from both to pass through. This website will explore the festival of Samhain, the activities, traditions, and beliefs that come with it, and how it evolved into what we know as Halloween.
In the case of Samhain and Halloween, it is interesting to note how the traditions have evolved. Although there are those who celebrate the traditional Samhain, many, especially in the United States, celebrate a reinvented tradition: "The invention of tradition is selective... Traditions thought to be preserved are created out of the conceptual needs of the present Tradition is not handed down from the past, as a thing or collection of things; it is symbolically reinvented in an ongoing present" (Handler 1984).