A Hag at Samhain

At Imbolc the goddess of regeneration was welcomed back into the world as a corn-baby, and by Maytide she had matured into a fertile corn-maiden. After her union with her shining Beltane lord she became the fruitful corn-mother and was honoured at the harvest feast of Lughnasadh.

However, the bountiful days of Summer are now over and the Spirit of the Corn has lost her youthful vitality, weakened by every swing of the scythe at the harvest. It is now the Celtic feast of Samhain, or Summer’s End, and she has grown old, withered, and barren.

Taking refuge in the last sheaf left standing, she is now known as the ‘Old Woman’ or ‘Hag’. At the height of her maternal fruitfulness she was known as Anne, after the Celtic Earth Mother Anu, but now that she has become infertile she has become Black Anne. In Leicestershire legend she is Black Annis, who is described as a blue-faced crone or witch with iron claws and a taste for human flesh, especially that of children. Black Anne can also be recognised in a Halloween witch, with her besom broomstick of dried twigs.

Her once virile masculine consort, welcomed with great rejoicing at Beltane, is now nowhere seen. Some say that he has withdrawn from the world to replenish the energy he sacrificed in the act of creation. Others say that he has been mortally wounded in a battle with his dark brother, and has sailed westward across the dark sea to follow the setting sun into the underworld. The conflict between these two primeval adversaries is repeated throughout English folklore: Arthur and Mordred, Gawain and the Green Knight, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and St George and the Black Prince of Paradise who, in traditional mumming plays, are in turn killed and revived.

Julius Caesar tells us that the Gaulish Celts believed themselves to be descended from Dis, the Roman god of the underworld. It is usually thought that he is referring to the horned Celtic god Cernunnos, who can also be recognised as Herne the Hunter, the spectral wild huntsman of Winter. With the Lord of Life absent from the land, the Lady of the Fertile Earth is taken by the Lord of Death, and the virile stags sound his clarion with their autumnal rut.

In common with other cultures that follow a lunar calendar, the Celts held that a new day began at sunset. They thus believed that darkness always preceded the return of light - this is why we continue to celebrate the eve of many festivals, such as All Hallows’ Eve, and why we still refer to two weeks as a fortnight, or ‘fourteen nights’. This implies that the Celts regarded Winter as the necessary precursor of the Summer to come, and that the feast of Samhain was celebrated as the start of the Celtic New Year.

This also implies that the Celts likewise regarded death as the precursor of life, and the Lord of Death was clearly stalking the land throughout the dark months of Winter. Most of the livestock would have been slaughtered, and hunting would be the only source of fresh meat in the months ahead. If the harvest had been poor, and the Winter proved harsh, the world of the living and the world of the dead might soon be separated by no more than a wafer.

However, it was also clear that every person alive owed their existence to ancestors long dead. The feast of Samhain was therefore a time to welcome the Lord of Death with a show of fearlessness and to venerate the ancestors now in his domain - for the survival of Winter might be dependent on the skills they had passed down.

This Celtic reverence for the ancestors can be seen in the Cult of the Severed Head. Sculptured representations and numerous stories indicate that the human head was regarded as an object of veneration. For example, in the Welsh story of Bran the Blessed the dying warrior king instructs his comrades to cut off his head and convey it to London. We are told that during the journey his comrades found the head no more disagreeable than when Bran had been alive. The Jack-o-lanterns now common at Hallowtide, whether made from over-sized American pumpkins or from native beets such as swedes and turnips, may similarly originate from this reverence for the skulls of the ancestors – the way forward through dark times illuminated by the wisdom of the past.

The potential harshness of Winter is probably also behind the modern custom of ‘Trick or Treat’. With the harvest completed many farm labourers would have found themselves out of work at this time of year, and if they had been unable to secure new employment at the Michaelmas Hiring Fairs they might now be facing a bleak Winter. One solution was to go from door to door, perhaps disguised in outlandish costumes and carrying turnip lanterns, to provide rustic entertainment in return for a little money or food. ‘Penny for the Guy’ may have begun as a similar tradition (or ‘begging’, as some might call it) - the original ‘guy’ possibly being an impoverished farm worker.

That Guy Fawkes Night falls at this time of year may not be mere coincidence. The November bonfires do not commemorate the execution of Fawkes, for he was put to death by being hanged, drawn, and quartered on January 31st. The Gunpowder Plot was a Catholic plan to assassinate the Protestant King and most of the aristocracy at the State Opening of Parliament on November 5th 1605. It is believed that the State Opening of Parliament took place in November, as it often still does although there is no fixed date, to enable the land-owners to attend to their harvest before returning to London. After the Gunpowder Plot failed November 5th was created as a day of thanksgiving by Act of Parliament, and this legitimised the celebratory bonfires that had long marked the feast of Samhain.

Although the Spirit of the Corn may now be old and barren, she has not entirely turned her back on the world. Some say that she has gone to the underworld to negotiate the release of her slain Beltane lord, so that he might return to her in the coming Maytide. Meanwhile, her deathless spirit is residing safe in a corn dolly made from the last sheaf of the harvest. Preserved in the homestead over Winter, she is destined to be reborn as a corn-baby at the next Imbolc, when she will once again be put to bed in the soil to begin her life cycle anew.

It therefore seems that the Celts regarded Samhain as not just the cusp between the living and the dead, but also between the living and the unborn, for both dwelt in the realm of the unseen. The darkness of Winter was the darkness of both the tomb and the womb. So, having separated the wheat from the chaff, Samhain is a time to take stock and to acknowledge the influence of the past on the present, and therefore on the unfolding of the future.

Text and Main Photograph  ©  Philip Tate 2008 

Kaz and Phil combine a reverence for primal archetypes, the turning Wheel of the Year, and Tibetan Buddhism to create psycho-spiritual events that resonate with 21st century living. These events have ranged from presentations of the Celtic agricultural feast days through to larger community-inclusive celebrations. Kaz and Phil also share a love of local history and folk music, and regularly perform at local folk venues.