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Celtic New Year |
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Celtic New Year Celebrations - Samhain or Happy Halloween!
People all round the world engage happily in celebrating Halloween also known as the Day of the Dead. But do you really know that it is actually celebrated as New Year by Celtic community residing in European countries? Celtic New Year is in fact referred to as Samhain and celebrated on the first day of November. Samhain in Celtic is used for November and describes a time period starting from dark winter i.e. An Geampradh till harvest time i.e. Am Foghar. The word Sama is derived from the Aryan God Of Dead and in Scottish language it also means summer's end. If go by the Celtic mythology, then Celtic New Year is a gap between time in which "our world" and the "otherworld" i.e. the dead collide with dead coming back to visit the places where they used to live. |
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Celtic New Year Traditions and Customs
People put out food and drinks for the dead outside their homes and leave their doors and windows open to welcome the spirits back in. However, to protect themselves against the demonic spirits everyone put jack O' lanterns and carved images of spirits guardians on turnips in front of their homes. Another known Celtic New Year Tradition is called Divination Of Events which fortune telling with the help of hazel nuts and wisdom symbolic items. Emhain Abhlach or The Paradise Of Apples involve the dead eating this divine fruit and becoming immortal forever.
Celtic New Year Celebrations
The New Year Celebrations kick starts with Celtic New Year's Eve also known as Oidhche Shamhma . Herein people indulge themselves in merry making activities, singing, dancing, dinners and drinks, bonfires etc. in earlier times, Celtic people used to bring along their harvest and slaughtered Cattle to the celebrations. October 31st is celebrated worldwide as the Halloween's day where children and youngsters dress up like dead and roam around the streets playing Trick Or Treat on people. 1st November is now celebrated as All Saints Day followed by All Souls' Day on November 2.
In Scottish (Gaelic ) language Samhain in means "End of Summer". Samhain starts with the beginning of long and dark winter (An Geamhradh) and ends with the Celtic harvest called "Am Foghar" . Some other terms are also engaged with the Irish New Year:
- The Third Harvest
- All Hollows Eve
- The Day of the Dead
- All saint day And the famous Halloween Day.
History of Celtic New Year
As per the Celtic mythology and Irish culture, Celtic New Year or Samhain was a gap in time. Which is divided into "Our World" (Earth) and "Otherworld" (Hell or Heaven) came together and thought that the sprits roams and dead could return back to warm themselves at his living places on Earth from the other's world.
Celtic New Year Rituals
The Celtic New Year have lot of an mythological rituals and feature of 'divination of events'. In this festival the Celtic people use hazel nuts as a symbols of wisdom for future prediction and fortune telling. Some other traditions associated with Samhain which referred to the Celtic Emhain Abhlach (Paradise of Apples) where the dead ate the scared fruit (apple) and became immortal. |
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