Nos Galan Gaeaf: The Welsh Halloween or Samhain

October is the month of falling leaves, beautiful nature and Halloween! In Wales, the 31^st October is also known as Nos Calan Gaeaf – the night before ‘the first of winter’ when it was commonly believed that supernatural influences were intensified and that the spiritual veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. Nos Calan Gaeaf was one of three Spirit Nights (Ysbrydnos) in the folklore calendar and many traditions grew up around the night

.Nos Galan Gaeaf is an equivalent to the pagan, Iron-age, Irish festival of Samhain. This is the most well-known Halloween tradition in Wales. Traditionally it is time to bring in the animals from their summer grazing and to stock up their winter feed supplies. A cull would be made and animals slaughtered, and the meat preserved to provide food for winter. As the animals died so the people could survive.

Samhain means “Summer’s end”, and is known by many different names: November Eve, All Hallows Eve, Hallowmas, Feast of Apples, Night of Spirits, Halloween and the Feast of the Dead. In the Gaelic languages of Ireland, Samhain is also known as “Oíche Shamhna”, in Scotland “Oidhche Shamhna” and in Wales “Nos Calan Gaeaf”. Depending on where you come from, Samhain also has many pronunciations, like in Ireland it is pronounced “sow-in”, in Scotland “sav-en” and in Wales “sow-een”.

The Welsh translation, interestingly, is ‘the first of winter’  Rooted in rural folklore and superstition, much of it died out with the onset of industrialization in the mid-18th century.

Pre-Christian folklore suggested that the first day of winter, when the dark half of the year began, was when the veil between our world and the ‘otherworld’ known as Annwn was at its thinnest. These beliefs eventually combined with Christian festivals and we have the emergence of Noson Galan Gaeafl a celebration that marked the end of harvest season and the start of winter that took place in Wales annually.

Nature makes the transition from productive Summer to fallow Winter; we enter the darkest period of the year with weakening sun light and short days as the Wheel of the Year turns towards the Winter Solstice; when the light returns to us once more.

It was also considered to be the Celtic New Year,a pivotal point when the powers of darkness and winter return to this world and an opportunity for the souls of the departed to return briefly, much like Mexico's Day of the Dead, for example. Symbolically a moment of mingling between the world of the living and that of the dead as the idea of death is in tune with the phase in which nature is extinguished, to rest during the winter.It is a time for honouring our ancestors, particularly those that have passed in the last year. 

The period was also thought to be favourable for divination and as is common in folklore on matters such as marriage, health, and death as people looked forward to the year ahead with optimism and trepidation. In a very strange challenge, it was believed that if you ran around the local church three times, and then peered through the keyhole at midnight, you would see the faces of those who would die over the next year.

When the Romans conquered the Celts in the 1st century ad, they added their own festivals of Feralia, commemorating the passing of the dead, and of Pomona, the goddess of the harvest

Traditionally here in Wales it would be a time to pay-off the seasonal workers on farms, and bid farewell to the departed, both living and dead. The night would be celebrated with a feast of stwmp naw rhyw, a mash of  different root vegetables, carrots,peas, parsnips, leeks with milk, butter, salt and pepper into which a wedding ring was hidden. Amorous young village folk were then encouraged to eat a bowlful each and the one to find the ring would be the first to get married.

Nos Galan Gaeaf was thought to be a very powerful night to use magic in order to predict who you'd end up with.

Young women would take a pip from an apple core and squeeze it between their thumb and forefinger. It would fly up in the air and after it landed the pointed end would face in the direction of their intended lover's house.

A person would also stick a number of pips to their forehead, giving each the name of a potential partner. The last pip to fall off would be the one bearing their future spouse's name.Apple peel thrown over someone's shoulder was also thought to morph into the silhouette of the person they would eventually marry.

This was also time for deciding which animals were fit enough to make it through the winter, and which were to be slaughtered or sent to market ahead of the colder months. This then gave rise to Hwch Ddu,Gwta which is one of Calan Gaeaf's darker rituals which.translates to 'tailless black sow' 

This is a fearsome omen or spirit that takes the form of a large black sow (boar. we're definitely talking boar) that roams around the land gathering up the souls of the dead and generally scaring the life out of unsuspecting welsh folk. 

On Noson Calan Gaeaf after the bonfires had died down everyone had to hightail it back home as fast as they could to avoid being caught by the Hwch. And just to make sure that the whole experience was super terrifying, remember those slaughtered animals I mentioned?  One of the slaughtered pigs from the festival would rise up, supposedly out of the flames of the fire, and chase away the children to their homes (albeit usually a man covered in a cloth or animal skin.) The ritual has its roots in beliefs bout the souls of the dead, people and animals  but it was probably just a fun and effective way of getting children to bed; and teaching them  about the dangers of straying from the group.She is remembered in this old Welsh nursery rhyme:

 

Hwch Ddu Gwta
Ar bob camfa
Yn nyddu a cardio
Bob Nos Glangaea
…
Adre, adre, am y cynta
Hwch Dddu Gwta gipio’r ola.
  
Black short-tailed sow
On every stile
Spinning and weaving
On Calan Gaeaf night
…
Get home quick, be the first
The Hwch Ddu Gwta gets the last.

 

People also set bonfires on hilltops to frighten away evil spirits and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises, such as dressing in animal skins, to avoid being recognised by the ghosts thought to be present. It was in these ways that beings such as witches, hobgoblins, fairies, and demons came to be associated with the day. Perhaps it's no coincidence that what we often consider to be a typical witches outfit is very similar to traditional Welsh dress. 

 

With the coming of Christianity, these traditions were converted to blend in more with the Christian calendar and Christian sensibilities. “In 601AD, Pope Gregory made an important directive. He announced that Christian missionaries were to take a new tack when attempting to convert pagans to the Christian religion. Christian missionaries he said, where possible, should incorporate the beliefs, festivals and sacred sites of pagan beliefs into the Christian religion. This directive meant that the important Celtic festival of Samhain had to be marked in a Christian manner.

In the year 609 AD, All Saints Day was officially designated a Church feast, which was celebrated in May and was later moved to November by Pope Gregory in 835 AD. The Christian Church may have intended that people would spend their time praying for the souls of the dead on an important holy day. However, the fact that this was a day off from work gave many people even more of an excuse to celebrate Halloween with more excitement and excess than ever.

In the eleventh century, a further festival was added to the church calendar; All Souls Day on 2 November. The three festivals of All-Hallows Eve, All Saints and All Souls were together known as Hallowmas.” 

Despite the Church’s success in establishing a Christian foundation for the autumn celebrations, many of the ancient customs and traditions associated with them were still practiced by the population. The carving of gourds and the wearing of costumes and masks to scare away malevolent spirits are typical of the superstitions carried over from these celebrations into the All Hallows Eve observance.

Other traditions particular to Calan Gaeaf, or Halloween, in Wales include :

1.Another more macabre ceremony was the Coelcerth, Every person at the festival would scratch their name onto a stone and throw it into a fire.The flames would burn fiercely, and often far into the night.  If any stone was missing when the fire went out, the person whose name it bore would supposedly die within the next year.

2. Single women would walk around the bounds of a church, chanting "here is the sheath where is the knife", to which they were said to hear the name of the person they were to marry.

3. "Y Ladi Wen','‘The White Lady’ is an apparition from Celtic mythology, dressed in all white. Some say she guards graveyards and crossroads from other darker spirits. Others say she has a more sinister purpose - luring unsuspecting travellers to their doom by asking for help or offering treasure. Other people claimed that she was headless, and would maraud around the countryside looking for victims with her partner in crime, the Hwch Ddu Gwta.

4. Some traditions rose naturally from their rural lifestyle, when villagers might gather for harvest. In some areas, corn husks would be fashioned into a horse shape, and the men would try to get this Harvest Mare into the houses. But they had to get it past the women, who would try to throw water on it to stop it from coming inside.

5. Touching ground ivy was thought to make you have nightmares about hags and witches.

6. In order to see into the future, boys would place leaves of ivy under their pillows and girls would grow a rose around a large hoop, which they would jump through three times before cutting the rose and placing it under their pillow.

7. In Pembrokeshire, if people looked into a mirror on Halloween, they would see witches and demons in their sleep.

8. The custom of “trick-or-treating” has its origins in a ritual wherein the elders of a village or town would go from house to house and receive offerings of food and gifts for the souls of dead friends and relatives that would be visiting that night. This practice evolved during the Middle Ages, when beggars would travel from village to village and beg for “soul cakes”. Villagers would offer prayers along with the cakes to those who had died in the past year for their transition to heaven. 

The name gwrachod means ‘witches’ or ‘hags’. Men would roam the villages dressed in rags and masks, or sometimes women's clothing, going from door to door for coppers, fruit and nuts. They would then drink in the local pubs. People believed dressing up like this would repel evil spirits, but it could also have been to scare people into giving them treats.

  

9.‘Twco Fale’ – Apple Bobbing was also popular. Girls would try to pull an apple out of a barrel of water using only their teeth. The first girl to pull an apple out would be the next to get married. 

 

10. One tradition that we definitely haven't given up on is the carving of a lantern. The face on the l

Lantern is supposed to act as a deterrent to spirits approaching the house. Some would even place the lanterns out along the road as a way to guide people.Except in Wales it wasn't a pumpkin, It was a turnip. 

Around the 18th century as Wales grew less and less rural the traditions of Nos Galan Gaeaf began to die away.Halloween also changed the festival a great deal,but  the themes and characteristics of Noson Galan Gaeaf still endure as we enter the dark half of the year.The date has remained the same, as has the emphasis on ghosts and ghouls, death and afterlife 

Despite the influence from across the Atlantic, the spirit of the spookiest night of the year has lingered throughout the ages. Nos Galan Gaeaf night is still not wholly forgotten and remains a night to think about strange spectres, headless wraiths, and foreboding tailless sows. On Nos Galan Gaeaf it is suggested that you avoid all places where spirits are likely to gather such as churchyards, graveyards, and crossroads.

Some of these ideas, stories and traditions are just myths and legends today but the nation of Wales has a long tradition of celebrations considered to be a forerunner to modern Halloween. Respecting, celebrating and fearing the dead, the summer, the winter, the future and animals were all part of different rituals associated with Calan Gaeaf and in many ways the turning of time from October to November today maintains those same feelings.

May you welcome the fading light as an invitation to slow your pace and rest. As we cross from the old year to the new, we can use this dark time of the year to sow new visions, ideas and directions A day to remember. those who have passed, those who are far in miles but close n heart, those who walk with us every day. A day to tell those we can that we care and hold those we cannot in love and light, trusting to their strength and ours..Whatever path you choose to follow, may you find hidden blessings within you. Keep safe. Nos Calan Gaeaf Hapus!

References 

Marie Trevelyan  Folklore and Folk Stories of Wales (1909)

T, Gwynn Jones Welsh Folklore and Folk Custom  (1909 )

Trefor M Owen Welsh Folklore and Custom (National Museum of Walesi, 1959)