Category Archives: Mythology

Samhain

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The Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The doorways between the living and the dead were thought to open on the Celtic feast of Samhain.

The Jewish Cemetery in Prague. The doorways between the living and the dead were thought to open on the Celtic feast of Samhain.

“Winter is coming!” Samhain, the Celtic festival more commonly known as “Hallowe’en,” was considered the first day of winter in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Marking the day halfway between the autumnal equinox and the Winter Solstice, Samhain marked the beginning of the sun’s descent into darkness and the world’s embrace by the growing cold. Both these trends would be reversed at the Winter Solstice, marking the “midpoint” of the Winter season.

Like Beltane, on April 30-May 1, Samhain was seen as a time when the ‘door’ to the Otherworld opened enough for the souls of the dead, and other beings such as fairies, to come into our world. The souls of the dead were said to revisit their homes on Samhain. Lewis Spence described it as a “feast of the dead” and “festival of the fairies”. However, harmful spirits and fairies were also thought to be active at Samhain. People took steps to allay or ward-off these harmful spirits/fairies, which is thought to have influenced today’s Halloween customs. The practice of lighting bonfires during Hallowmas may have been a Christianized one, as the Celts lit bonfires during Samhain as well.

I am currently working on a novel set in Ireland, Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, that picks up on loose ends from Part 2 of the Come Hell or High Water trilogy. Earth to Earth involves the Celtic goddesses of battle and death, mortals from this world abducted to the Otherworld, and the Celtic holidays of Samhain and Imbolc or Ostara.

9 Real People Who May Have Inspired Fairy Tales

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This cartoon comes from Sandman, #50 (Ramadan).

This cartoon comes from Sandman, #50 (Ramadan).

Who doesn’t love fairy tales? We all have our childhood favorites — mine were Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel. Oh, and Snow White! I would collect images (picture books, View Master slides — remember them?? — the Disney movies) of the characters, especially the witches in each of those tales. The saga of Baba Yaga stories were also great sources of witch-lore as well. But what if you could meet the real Hansel and Gretel? Or Rapunzel? Or the real Sleeping Beauty? Did you ever imagine there was an historical kernel underneath the stories that enchanted and bewitched us as children? Fairy tales are often the sanitized or watered-down version of ancient mythology but they are just as often the slightly embroidered accounts of real events.

Lauren Davis has a great post about real people or incidents that may have given birth to commonly told favorite fairy tales. Read her blog here. The Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Fantasy is also a great source of information like this.

The Mabinogion

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"The Island of the Mighty" is the first volume in Evangeline Walter's 4-book series retelling the Welsh stories found in the Mabinogion.

“The Island of the Mighty” is the first volume in Evangeline Walter’s 4-book series retelling the Welsh stories found in the Mabinogion.

There have been many translations and retellings of the Welsh mythology known as the “Mabinogion.” Evangeline Walter has done the best job of retelling the stories for a modern adult reader. Lloyd Alexander brought several characters from the Mabinogion to life in his Prydain Chronicles for younger readers. Disney took two of Alexander’s books to use as the basis of their animated film, “The Black Cauldron.”

Apart from the difficulty in pronouncing the Welsh names (just remember the double LLs are pronounced like “chl”, an Eastern European rolling hocking sound in the back of your throat followed by the “L” sound and that double DDs are “th”), the stories in the Mabinogion are some of the most wonderful and fantastic in world folklore. But again, there is a lot of code: what does it mean to “hold the feet” of Math? Are his “feet” a euphemism for his sexual organs like in the Old Testament? And the sudden birth accounts that imply sex must have happened previously but is never directly referred to.

If you are looking for autumnal reading, I highly recommend the Mabinogion in one of its many forms!

Hear the BBC report about the Mabinogion here.