So why and I posting about Halloween?
Halloween and Samhain are usually celebrated on the same day, but is that truly right? Well no.
Halloween is a cross-quarter day
The 4 cross-quarter days
fall between equinoxes and solstices. Halloween is the spookiest one –
derived from a sacred festival of ancient Celts and Druids – coming as
days grow short and nights long in the Northern Hemisphere.
Halloween – short for All Hallows’ Eve – is an astronomical holiday. Sure, it’s the modern-day descendant from Samhain, a sacred festival of the ancient Celts and Druids in the British Isles. But it’s also a cross-quarter day,
which is probably why Samhain occurred when it did. Early people were
keen observers of the sky. A cross-quarter day is a day more or less
midway between an equinox (when the sun sets due west) and a solstice
(when the sun sets at its most northern or southern point on the
horizon). Halloween – October 31 – is approximately midway point
between the autumn equinox and winter solstice, for us in the Northern
Hemisphere.
In other words, in traditional astronomy,
there are eight major seasonal subdivisions of every year. They include
the March and September equinoxes, the June and December solstices, and
the intervening four cross-quarter days.
In modern times, the four cross-quarter
days are often called Groundhog Day (February 2), May Day (May 1),
Lammas (August 1) and Halloween (October 31).
For us in the Northern Hemisphere,
Halloween is the darkest of the cross-quarter days, coming at a time of
year when the days are growing shorter. Early people once said that the
spirits of the dead wander from sunset until midnight around this
cross-quarter day. After midnight – on November 1, which we now call All
Saints’ Day – the ghosts are said to go back to rest.
The October 31 date for Halloween has been
fixed by tradition. The true cross-quarter day falls on November 7,
representing a discrepancy of about a week. According to the ancient
Celts, a cross-quarter day marks the beginning – not the middle – of a
season.
The Pleiades connection. It’s thought that the early forbearer of Halloween – Samhain – happened on the night that the Pleiades star cluster culminated at midnight.
In other words, the Pleiades climbed to its
highest point in the sky at midnight on or near the same date as this
cross-quarter day. In our day, Halloween is fixed on October 31, though
the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster now occurs on November
21.
Presuming the supposed connection between
Samhain and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades, the two events
took place on or near the same date in the 11th century (1001-1100) and
12th century (1101-1200). This was several centuries before the
introduction of the Gregorian calendar.
At that time, when the Julian calendar was
in use, the cross-quarter day and the midnight culmination of the
Pleiades fell – amazingly enough – on or near October 31. But, then, the
Julian calendar was about one week out of step with the seasons. Had
the Gregorian calendar been in use back then, the date of the
cross-quarter day celebration would have been November 7.
But Halloween is now fixed on October 31.
Meanwhile, the true cross-quarter day now falls on or near November 7
and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster on or near November
21.
Bottom line: The present date for
Halloween – October 31 – marks the approximate midway point between the
autumn equinox and the winter solstice. Halloween is one of the year’s
four cross-quarter days.