Day 8: The Last Harvest: From Samhain to Halloween
(Day 7 in the Samhain Series)
Welcome back. The last of the harvest has been gathered. The veil continues to thin, and the nights grow long enough to cradle both the living and the dead.
For thousands of years, this season has marked the great turning — not an ending, but a beginning cloaked in shadow. Samhain, the Celtic New Year, is where the old year exhales and the new one draws its first breath.
From Sacred Fire to Holy Feast
Long before pumpkins and costumes, the people of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man gathered around the Samhain fires. They extinguished their hearth flames and rekindled them from the communal blaze, symbolizing renewal through unity. Offerings of food and ale were left at doorways for ancestors or wandering spirits — gestures of hospitality, not fear.
When Christianity reached the Celtic lands, the church did what it often did best — it layered new feasts atop old festivals. Samhain became All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day, and later All Souls’ Day.
Instead of spirits returning home, souls were said to move from purgatory to paradise. The living now prayed for the dead, rather than sharing a meal with them. Yet beneath the hymns and Latin prayers, the old customs lingered — fires still burned, people still dressed in disguise, and offerings were still shared.
As one old Irish proverb reminds us:
“The customs of the people are stronger than the laws of kings.”
From Souling to Trick-or-Treating: A Cycle Misunderstood
Growing up, my father always had an extreme distaste for trick-or-treating. He strongly felt that it was “freeloaders asking for handouts.” And honestly, he wasn’t entirely wrong about its origins — but I think he missed the heart of it.
For centuries, souling and later guising involved just that: the humble exchange of hospitality between neighbors. The poor, the children, and the travelers were given food, warmth, or coin in exchange for blessings, prayers, or a simple song. It wasn’t begging or “freeloading”; it was community. It was remembering that no one survives winter alone.
As the centuries turned and the old world met the new, those traditions followed immigrants to America. By the late 1800s, however, the festival’s warmth had begun to fray. The sense of sacred reciprocity that once defined Samhain’s offerings faded, replaced by a kind of youthful chaos.
This is a photograph by Dorothea Lange of a Halloween party at the Shafter Migrant Camp in California in November 1938
By the 1920s and ’30s, Halloween in the United States had taken on a far rougher edge. Across the country, newspapers told stories of overturned outhouses, broken windows, and even derailed streetcars on Halloween night. In cities already struggling through the Great Depression, it became a night of tension and rebellion.
In response, communities began organizing neighborhood parties and “safe trick-or-treating” as a way to redirect that wild energy — an attempt to bring Halloween back to its spirit of connection rather than destruction.
So, when my father grumbled about “people asking for handouts,” he was echoing a generation raised by those who remembered when Halloween felt unruly, even dangerous. But beneath all of that still beats the same old rhythm: the exchange, the offering, the reminder that we are bound to one another when the nights grow long.
And yet, even now, we see Halloween misunderstood again — demonized by some modern Christians as devil worship or dismissed as dark and dangerous. The irony, of course, is that Halloween’s deepest roots are not evil at all. They are earthly, seasonal, human. Samhain and its descendants were never about courting darkness for its own sake, but about acknowledging it — giving death and shadow their rightful place in the great turning so that life could be renewed.
Maybe the way forward isn’t to scorn what Halloween has become, but to reclaim it — to remember that trick-or-treating began as an act of reciprocity, not greed; that lighting the jack-o’-lantern was once a prayer of protection; that gathering in costume and laughter as the nights grow cold is, in its own way, still a form of connection and community, honoring the wheel’s turning.
Each generation reshapes the holiday to reflect its times. But beneath the costumes, candy, and parties, the bones of Samhain still remain — reminding us that no matter how modern the trappings, we are still people around a fire, sharing what we have to make it through the dark together.
Reflection & Ritual
Light a candle and say aloud:
“From shadow to spark, from end to beginning, may the fires of Samhain burn within me.”Share food or warmth with someone — a simple act of community that honors the spirit of souling.
Journal on these questions:
What parts of yourself are you ready to release to the dark?
How can you carry the lessons of Samhain into the months ahead?
What would it look like to honor death, change, and rest as sacred — not something to fear?
Samhain in the Modern World
Today, many of us are lighting those fires again — not just on hillsides, but in our homes, our gardens, and our hearts.
We build altars for remembering our ancestors. We brew teas and tinctures to soothe the spirit.
We step outside into the crisp air, breathe in the earthy smell of fallen leaves, and feel something ancient stirring — something that remembers.
Whether you call it Samhain, Halloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or simply the turning of the season, this night still belongs to the same truth: everything that dies becomes part of what will live again.
As modern witches, herbalists, and mystics, we are not reviving something dead — we are keeping the fire alive.
“Every flame is a memory. Every shadow is a doorway.”
And so, as this series draws near to its close, perhaps you’ll take a moment to sit in the glow of candlelight and whisper your thanks — to the ancestors, the harvest, and the mystery that binds us all.
Love and light to you, my friend.
Melody
Recommended Reading & Sources
Nicholas Rogers, Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night (Oxford University Press, 2002)
Lisa Morton, Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween (Reaktion Books, 2012)
Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History (Pelican Publishing, 1998)
The Book of Days (Robert Chambers, 1869) — historical accounts of souling traditions in the British Isles
Smithsonian Magazine: “When Halloween Was All Tricks and No Treats” (October 2015)
History.com: “How Trick-or-Treating Became a Halloween Tradition”
