Samhain, Halloween, and the Coligny Calendar

The Celts started our Halloween celebrations. Their great holiday, Samhain (pronounced, I am told, "SO-wan") was on November 1 and marked the beginning of the new year. That's why the spirits were allowed to run wild the night before, October 31.

Or is this just myth?

Early Irish writings (which reflect much older oral traditions) tell us that Samhain was indeed important and magical. Ritual fires were lit, special emissaries sent to Tara, and hints of ritual sacrifices or intercourse are read into these old texts.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology, Samhain was "the most important of the four great calendar feasts of Celtic tradition." The others were Imbolc (February 1), Beltane (May 1), and Lugnasad (August 1).

In the 7th century, Pope Boniface IV declared November 1 to be All Saints Day. This cemented the evening before ("All Hallow's Eve" or Halloween) as the chaotic, chthonic celebration of the underworld, just before all those saints restored order.

The best evidence for Samhain's importance comes from a bronze tablet unearthed in a field in November,1897. The Coligny Calendar was found not in Ireland, but in France, near the village of Coligny, near Lyon. It was found in pieces--about 153 pieces, to be exact. Only about 45% of the calendar still exists, so there are big chunks missing.

The calendar looks like it was intended to cover five years, and it uses the moon as well as the sun, to count the days. Twelve months are named, each with a dark half and a light half. Each month was labeled either ANM or MAT . In other Celtic languages, words very similar to Mat mean good, and ANM could well stand for An Mat-not good. Other scholars translate these words as unlucky and lucky.

The Celts added an extra lunar cycle each two and a half years to coordinate with the solar year. Speculation is that the months began on the new moon, when the sky was dark. Or, hey, maybe the month began with the full moon. Who knows?

The calendar, and the year, begins with Samanios, which sounds a lot like Samhain, huh? It fits with what we know of the Celts: they divide time into light and dark periods, and the dark comes first. A day begins at sunset, for example (Caesar mentions this in his book about his Conquest of Gaul). So the year begins with the dark half: fall and winter.

A very intricate analysis of the calendar is here, and there are books written about it too.

The Celts did not use writing often, so we don't know much about their beliefs. When they did use letters, it was to label a monument or do some bookkeeping. They never used it to write down important truths. (This remained true until Ireland became Christianized. About a thousand years ago, the Irish started writing down everything.)

The few examples of Celtic writing use Greek or Roman letters, as the Coligny calendar does. The calendar uses Roman numerals and letters, but the words are in Gaulish--a language long lost. Only a few hundred words of it are known.

(to be clear: Gaul is the land that France, Belgium, and Switzerland occupy now. Celts refers to tribes that spoke Celtic languages and shared a lot of traditions, like art styles, and probably religious beliefs. Celts lived in Ireland, Britain, Gaul, Iberia, the Balkans, and other areas for centuries. In many of these places, they were conquered by the Romans 2,000 years ago.)

Gaul traded with Greece and Rome for centuries. By the year 50 BC, the Roman general Julius Caesar had conquered Gaul and claimed it for Rome. Later, the Emperor Augustus Caesar "Romanized" the Celtic tribes of Gaul.

How old is the Coligny Calendar?

Bronze plates can't be dated the way organic remains can. Scholars look at the style of the Roman letters and guess that it was inscribed in the first century, either BC or AD-depending on whose book you read.

Garrett S. Olmstead wrote about the Coligny Calendar recently, and you can still find his book online or in used bookstores.

On the web, there are some neo-druid, neo-pagan sites with lots of information (maybe good, maybe imaginative) about the Coligny Calendar--sites like Technovate and Crossroads.

At the other extreme is an article in an Archaeoastronomy blog, which doesn't even admit that the people of Ireland and Britain were Celtic!

For information about Celts and druids, you can't do better than books by Peter Berresford Ellis, Barry Cunliffe, and Simon James.