--- title: What Is Samhain? Origin of Halloween Rooted in Pagan Holiday description: Few probably associate the lighthearted traditions of Halloween with their origins in Samhain, an ancient Celtic pagan festival. canonical: https://time.com/5434659/halloween-pagan-origins-in-samhain/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-30T14:30:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:04:29.297Z article:section: History og:title: How Halloween Traditions Are Rooted in the Ancient Pagan Festival of Samhain og:description: Here's what you need to know og:url: https://time.com/5434659/halloween-pagan-origins-in-samhain/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab2840ae0d4079e0/69893d788fd2eee8b335cf75/halloween-origins-celtic-pagan-festival-samhain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: The Festival Of Samhain Is Celebrated In Glastonbury og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Halloween Traditions Are Rooted in the Ancient Pagan Festival of Samhain twitter:description: Here's what you need to know twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltab2840ae0d4079e0/69893d788fd2eee8b335cf75/halloween-origins-celtic-pagan-festival-samhain.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Is Samhain? What to Know About the Ancient Pagan Festival That Came Before Halloween > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=947c2599-d04f-4025-907f-cc236037c284&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=947c2599-d04f-4025-907f-cc236037c284&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: See the Creepy Traditions That Created Halloween [Watch (HLS stream): See the Creepy Traditions That Created Halloween](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/cag1kbVq.m3u8) (1:37)  _Published 2014-10-27. See the Creepy Traditions That Created Halloween_  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 30, 2018 2:30 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 30, 2018 2:30 PM UTC Dressing up in costumes and [trick-or-treating](http://time.com/4991828/halloween-trick-or-treating-history/) are popular Halloween activities, but few probably associate these lighthearted fall traditions with their origins in Samhain, a three-day ancient Celtic pagan festival. For the Celts, who [lived during the Iron Age](https://www.jstor.org/stable/25549797?seq=1#page%5Fscan%5Ftab%5Fcontents) in what is now Ireland, Scotland, the U.K. and other parts of Northern Europe, Samhain ([meaning literally, in modern Irish, “summer’s end”](https://www.etymonline.com/word/samhain)) marked the end of summer and kicked off the Celtic new year. Ushering in a new year signaled a time of both death and rebirth, something that was doubly symbolic because it coincided with the end of a bountiful harvest season and the beginning of a cold and dark winter season that would present plenty of challenges. According to historian Nicholas Rogers, author of [_Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night_](https://books.google.com/books/about/Halloween.html?id=Noou1gjBAkEC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp%5Fread%5Fbutton#v=onepage&q&f=false), Samhain was a “time of stock-taking and perhaps sacrifice” — including probably animal sacrifice — during which “pastoral communities \[prepared\] to survive the winter.” Rogers also notes that little is firmly known about the particulars of the holiday, since the limited sources available are either folkloric literature like the Celtic sagas and Roman authors who would have likely “trashed” the traditions of a culture with which they were often [in conflict](http://www.historynet.com/empire-vs-tribe-the-roman-empire-and-the-celts.htm). To understand what we do know about Samhain, it’s important to recognize how the structure of the year’s calendar affected the Celts’ religious practices. According to [_The Guardian_](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/29/paganism-part-3-wheel-year-dates), much of modern pagan practice is based on the wheel of the year, a major determining factor in Celtic worship. The Celtic year was divided into two halves — light and dark, which were delineated by two of their four annual fire festivals. In between, rituals or ceremonies were celebrated marking solstices (when night is either the shortest or longest) or equinoxes (when day and night are equal). Samhain, the fire festival that marked the beginning of the dark half of the year, is situated between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. [_Encyclopedia Britannica_](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Samhain) notes that, during this festival, the world of the gods “was believed to be made visible to humankind,” leading to supernatural tricks and trouble; ghosts of the dead and spirits from the Otherworld were also thought to return to the earth during Samhain. To appease deities during this time, sacrifices (generally of crops and animals) were burned in bonfires as a protective measure from from evil otherworldly beings and offerings were left out for other visiting mischievous spirits. Tricks and pranks were often played, but blamed on fairies and spirits during the three-day period when the line between the two worlds blurred. The spiritual undertones of the Samhain festival also lent themselves to looking to the future, an activity quite apropos to the start of the Celtic new year; [_History.com_](https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/samhain) notes that Druids, or Celtic priests, thought that “the presence of otherworldly spirits made it easier…to make predictions about the future.” At the bonfires of the festival, fortune-telling was done alongside sacrifices, and many participants also donned costumes, often masquerading as animals or beasts, in hopes of fooling spirits who might want to harm them. The practices of this fire festival evolved over time — most notably with the spread of Christianity and the Catholic church, by [43 A.D., following Rome conquering most of the Celtic lands](https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween). In Jack Santino’s [_Halloween in America: Contemporary Customs and Performances_](https://www.jstor.org/stable/1499461?mag=from-samhain-to-halloween&seq=5#metadata%5Finfo%5Ftab%5Fcontents)_,_ he explains how, during this time, many of Celtic traditions were reframed with a Christian narrative in an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the pagan practices while spreading the new religion. That reframing created many of the Halloween traditions that people still participate in today. It was May 13 in the year 609 that Pope Boniface IV declared a celebration called All Saints’ Day, also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas in Middle English; the day before it was thus known as All-hallows’ Eve, as [_History.com_](https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween) explains. The festival was a day to honor Christian martyrs and saints. Later, in the mid-eighth century, Pope Gregory III strategically moved the celebration to November 1, coinciding with the time Samhain would have typically been held. The homage paid to martyrs and saints who passed closely paralleled the appeasement of ghosts of the dead during Samhain. The church’s capitalization on Samhain traditions didn’t end there, however; participants in the new version of the holiday celebrated in much the same manner as their Celtic forebears had — with bonfires and costumes that reflected the spiritual and otherworldly. The offerings of food and goods to protect themselves from spirits and ancestral ghosts became offerings of food and drink to the poor, displays of generosity and goodwill. And the tricks and pranks attributed to otherworldly and evil spirits manifested themselves in the spirit of the saints. Eventually, All-hallows’ Eve evolved into Halloween, becoming more popular in secular culture than All Saints’ Day. The pagan-turned-Christian practices of dressing up in costume, playing pranks and handing out offerings have evolved into popular traditions even for those who may not believe in otherworldly spirits or saints. However, whether Halloween celebrants know it or not, they’re following the legacy of the ancient Celts who, with the festival of Samhain, celebrated the inevitability of death and rebirth. ## Transcript All Hallow's Eve, the holy evening. All Saint's Eve. No matter what you call it, one thing is certain. The true origin of Halloween is still shrouded in mystery. But here's what we do know. Halloween is linked to an [ MUSIC ] old Celtic festival called [ UNKNOWN ]. [ MUSIC ] It marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of Winter, the darker half of the year. [ MUSIC ] That's when the souls of the dead were set to come back to life to wreak havoc on crops, unless of course they were appeased through offerings and rituals. During the festival people dressed in costume to imitate the dead spirit. And went door to door reciting verses in exchange for food offerings. When Christian Missionaries came to change Keltic religious practices in the 13th century AD, those rituals evolved. [ INAUDIBLE ] became a day to pray for the death. So spirits stuck in purgatory could find their way into heaven. People went door to door singing. Offering Bible verses and collecting what's called soul cakes. People still donned costumes but this time it was to disguise them from dead spirits searching for vengeance against their human enemies. For further protection observers filled hollowed out turnips with candles to ward off evil spirits. But once the holiday reached North America, turnips were traded for pumpkins, which were easier to carve and native to the continent. Historians have suggested this is the origin for modern- day Halloween and trick- or- treating. [ MUSIC ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5434659/halloween-pagan-origins-in-samhain/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5434659/halloween-pagan-origins-in-samhain/"},"headline":"What Is Samhain? 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