The Wake

Hark! Hark to the wind! ‘Tis the night, they say,
When all souls come back from the far away-
The dead, forgotten this many a day!
Virna Sheard
“Hallowe’en,” 1913

Devils, demons, ghosts, the dead, the undead, and death: these are familiar characters on Halloween. Where did this fascination with death come from?

As a pagan, I’m faced with mistaken impressions about my beliefs every day, but never more than at Halloween. Militant Christians regularly hand out fliers on the corner. One, to my amusement and frustration, had well-known “Satanic” images: an inverted pentagram and a goat-human hybrid. “Satanic Origins of Halloween!” spanned the top. Rubbish. Halloween practices originate from druidic rites long before Christianity — and Satan — ever existed.

Christianity, and the power of the papacy, rose in the 12th century. Pagans worshipped alternate gods. After their holy sites were destroyed and gods pronounced false, Pagans went underground. However, semi-magical traditions remained in folk culture. The grand Seelie court shrank to naked little nymphs frolicking among the flowers. Benevolent house spirits became elves and kobolds, also small. As they posed no threat to Christian beliefs, they were mocked but tolerated.

The late Middle Ages were a time of ever-present death. When plague swept Europe, religion and art turned toward death and dying. A morbid artistic tradition of the danse macabre was born – death as a skeleton cavorted among the living.

Halloween was once All Hallows or All Souls Eve. It was believed that the dead could rise at this time and, unless you took precautions, they could take you with them. This may be an origin of costuming: disguising ones self as dead to escape their notice.

Pagans celebrate Halloween in an entirely different fashion from the commercialized tradition it has become. First, we call it Samhain (pronounced SOU-in) and it’s one of our most sacred holidays. It is our New Year and a celebration of the harvest. This is a time when the “veil,” the natural separation of living and dead, past and present, is thinnest. Divination is often practiced around Samhain, because time itself becomes fluid. Our ceremonies typically focus on stories of the underworld, honoring the dead and remembering the ancestors. Feasts and bonfires frequently follow; Pagans seem unable to celebrate anything without pyrotechnical assistance.

Pagans are striving to de-stigmatize death, to remove it from the realm of the horrible and reconnect it to the cycle of life. There’s nothing unnatural about death. It’s another milestone in our journey, though it can certainly be a sad event. Enjoy Halloween — dress up and eat too much candy, but recognize the part you are playing in a long tradition.

Brandy Snyder is president of the University Pagan Society and welcomes comments at www.tc.umn.edu/~pagan.