Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

A few weeks ago I talked about Hallowe’en in my piece for the Cavan Echo, called It will be all fright on the night (a marvellous headline for which credit must go to Maria McCourt). I discussed some of its pagan antecedents in an interview with Donagh McKeown on his programme All Points North on Northern Sound. I thought that this might be a good place to talk a little more about some of the aspects raised.

Hallowe’en gets its name from All Hallows Eve, or the eve of the Feast of All Saints, celebrated in the western church since the seventh century on Novemmber 1st. This feast, despite its Christian veneer, is the old pre-Christian feast of Samhain. This was already a major feast of the Celtic calendar at the dawn of the Christian era. In 1897 some bronze tablets were unearthed near the town of Coligny, in the departement of Ain in France. These were written in the Celtic Gaulish language and contained a detailed calendar of the Celtic Year, or more accurately, of a segment of five consecutive years. The cycle started with the month of Samonios, which was clearly the same as Samhain. This also pointed to Samhain being the beginning of the Celtic year, divided into two main halves: the first one of darkness giving way eventually to the half of the year suffused by light.

The prevalence of the feast of Samonios for religious ritual was noted by commentators like Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallica and also, a century later by Lucan in his Pharsalia. Julius Caesar noted practices in propitiation of a death god, an equivalent of the Roman Dis Pater. Classical commentators also noted the importance of the feast for human sacrifice. Two different deities were identified. Teutates. who preferred his victims to be drowned (sometimes in a big cauldron) ; and Taranis, whose preference was for flame-grilled offerings. Teutates may have been the same as the god known in Ireland as Tuathal Teachtmhar. Yet it is Taranis who is more relevant to practices in the Cavan area.  

The equivalent of Taranis amongst the Irish Celts has not been identified with certainty. I think that he may be the same as Crom Cruaich. Taranis is very close to taran, the Welsh word for thunder. As I told Donagh on the radio I remember an old woman from Drumlane telling me how she and her neighbours always prayer to St Mogue (founder of Drumlane and evangelist of Breifne) when they heard thunder. St Mogue was a saint who was known for taking on and defeating Crom Cruaich on his home ground and defeating and smashing his pantheon at Magh Slecht, not far from Ballymagovern Co. Cavan.

This site was known to attract a rather grisly set of pilgrims. Crom Cruaich expected, and no doubt got, the first born of both humans and herds. The area around Magh Slecht can best be described as a ritual landscape replete with standing stones such as that at Camagh. The Killycluggin Stone, now in Cavan’s County Museum, may have played some part in the rituals, while Kilnavart (Cill na bhFeart, the church of the graves) may mark the location of a cemetery of Crom Cruaich’s victims.

But Magh Sleach may not be the only site associated with sacrifices to Crom Cruaicfh / Taranis.  Archaeologists have long been puzzled by a strange phenomenon called vitrified forts. These consist of a stone revetement or outer wall,, which has been subjected to exceptionally high temperatures, maybe in excess of 1000 centigrade. So high is the heat that it causes the stones to partially melt and run into each other, giving the whole lot a glassy apperance. These are found in Brittany, England, Scotland (especially in Aberdeen) and in Ireland, though there are only half a dozen still recognisable, including one on Shantemon mountain outside Cavan.

They’ve puzzled archaeologists. The heating of the stones didn’t make them stronger, so what was going on? Excavations have been rare. They are something of the cinderella of the archaeological world, given a wide berth by most “respectacle” archaeologists and left to those in the profession who are academically on skid row, maybe due to a drink problem. Those that have been excavated have sometimes thrown up quantities of human body parts that have been immolated or burned, not cremated and deposited in a pot or urn, Could it be that they are the sites where victims were sacrificed to Crom Cruaich / Taranis?

The cult of Samhain / Samonios was very well established. It seemed totally resistent to the spread of Christianity. So the western church pursued a policy line which it had found to be the only effective way of dealing with recalcitrant pre-Christian practices: if you couldn’t beat them, co-opt them. So in the middle of the eighth century (some say a century earlier) Pope Gregory III moved the feast of All Saints, which had previously been celebrated on the first sunday after Pentecost, to the first of November where it still resides in the Roman calendar.

One other and probably unrelated parallel with Hallowe’en / Oiche Shamhna / Nos Galan Gaeaf is its almost identitcal position in the year to the Hindu and Sikh festival of Dipavali, the festival of light. A connection between the Celtic Samhain and the Indian Diwali may seem far-fetched but it is not entirely implausible. The ancestors of tye Celts and those who migrated into the Indian sub continanet from the third millenium BC lived quite near to each other. (I’m indebted to my friend Matt McCabe of Drumbo, Cavan for pointing out the proximity of the two festivals,)