A memento of All Hallows Eve

Halloween

What is now Halloween has its origins in the Celtic Samhein (pronounced a few different ways, including “Sow-wen” “Sau-ihn”, and “Sow-unn”, but NOT “Sam-hane”).

Samhain was a pastoral/harvest festival celebrated across the Celtic world on the evening of October 31st and into November 1st with ceremonial fires and other rituals. An important—if not the most important—holiday on the Celtic calendar, Samhain marks the midway point between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, making it one of four Celtic cross-quarter days (the other three being Imbolc, Beltane, and Lughnasa). A Celtic new year festival, it was also “an intensely spiritual time for it was the period when the Otherworld became visible to mankind and when spiritual forces were let loose on the human world”.

“the veil that separated this world from the world of the Others (An Sidhe) grew thin.” This thinning of the membrane between worlds meant that ghosts and fairies and all manner of otherworldly creatures could cross over on Samhain and wreak havoc. Rituals included: leaving out food to appease the Others, wearing masks to frighten them away, or hanging skulls with candles in them from trees.

All Hallows Eve

In 835 A.D. the Catholic church set All Saints Day on November 1, the same day as Samhain. They replaced the havoc and mischief created by the evil dead on Samhain with a hopeful watching, waiting, and celebration of the holy dead, God’s saints.

All Saints Day is a Christian celebration. the day the church remembers all the women and men from St. Peter to St. Augustine to St. Thérèse, who have modeled holiness for us throughout the history of the church. All Saints’ Day is followed by All Souls’ Day on November 2, the day the church recognizes all the faithful departed—that is, every person who has ever lived and died in Christ, whether the church officially recognizes them as a saint or not.

The day before All Saints Day, is “All Hallows Eve”. Hallow meaning “Holy” (as in “Hallowed by thy Name” in the Lord’s Prayer – “Holy is your name”). All Hallows Eve is an evening vigil to watch and wait for these two holy days that honor the friends, family, and heroic saints who are now part of the “cloud of witnesses” spoken of in Hebrews 12:1, cheering us on from heaven as we run the race set before us. All Hallows’ Eve is similar to Christmas Eve in that we are eagerly and festively anticipating the holy day that follows.

Obverse

The obverse is very colourful, featuring ghosts, coloured lights and baloons, and a big pile of grinning jack-o-lanterns. What is a Jack-o-lantern?

In the early 1600’s, the legend of a shadowy figure began to arise around the fens or marshes of rural Ireland. Known as Stingy Jack (Jack the Smith, Drunk Jack, Flakey Jack, and other names sometimes used interchangeably).

The most popular version of the tale involves Jack tricking the Devil into changing his form, then trapping him. Eventually, time caught up with Jack and was sentenced to roam the Earth for all eternity with nothing but an ember given to him by the Devil to light his way.

There is also other folklore from this time surrounding what’s known as ignis fatuus, or false fire. False fire is an actual occurrence known as marsh gas. It occurs during the spontaneous ignition of methane created by decaying plant matter in marshes or swampy areas. These two legends began to intertwine—when many people in the moors of the British Isles saw the naturally occurring marsh gas, they attributed to Stingy Jack.

Many people in those areas also continued the Gaelic celebration of Samhain, with its rituals of going from house to house in search of food and drink (the origins of “Trick or Treating”). Many would carve turnips, potatoes or other root vegetables and add coals or candles to create makeshift lanterns to help guide those celebrating. Occasionally these would be carved with faces, a tradition that continues to this day in Britain and Ireland.

Immigrants to America found winter squash such as pumpkin much larger and easier to carve than their root vegetables. So, Jack-o-lanterns are a blend of Celtic, Irish and USA influence.

Reverse

As with some medallions, it is not obvious which side is the obverse and reverse. I used the same logic as on this Baptism Medallion to choose obverse. That is, the pumpkin on one side is larger than the witch on this side.

This side features a silhouette of a witch flying her broomstick against a full moon, and a pair of trees surrounding a large gate (perhaps to a cemetery?).

The Old Testament account in 1 Samuel 28 recounts how the Witch of Endor raised the spirit of the prophet Samuel. Written between 931 B.C. and 721 B.C., this is the earliest recorded reference to a witch.

Witch hysteria took hold from 1400 in Europe, and by 1660, up to 80,000 women had been executed either by burning at the stake or hanging. Single women, widows and other women on the margins of society were especially targeted. In the United States, a famously similar persecution took place in Salem Massachusetts. More than 200 people were accused of witchcraft with 20 executed between 1692 and 1693. It was only in 2022 that the last convicted “witch” of Salem was officially exonerated.

Why do witches ride brooms? The “common” answer is that the broom was a symbol of female domesticity, yet the broom was also phallic, so riding on one was a symbol of female sexuality, thus femininity and domesticity gone wild. Although the first known reference to witches flying on broomsticks was confessed by a suspected male witch, under torture in 1453.

There was also once a common pagan fertility ritual where poles, pitchforks, and brooms were piloted through the fields with people jumping as high as they could to entice the crops to grow to that height.

The second most iconic image of a witch is of old hags brewing up a witches brew, the “double, double toil and trouble” of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Around the same time as the first reports of witches flying broomsticks is the mention of “flying ointments.” Rather than being a potion you drink, Hallucinogenic plants were made into an ointment and smeared on the staff or broom. “Ridden” naked, it was absorbed into the skin.

Finally, back to the medallion. I picked several up cheaply as Halloween gifts for my children, something I’ve done the last couple of years as I’ve seen several different ones like these available cheaply. It turns out I’m not alone. While lollies are the more common treat for “trick or treat”, there are traditions of passing coins instead. Some people give pennies (1 cent coins in the United States) although from that thread, it seems the tradition is not popular with kids these days. UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, also run a “Trick or treat for UNICEF” fundraiser each Halloween in the USA, encouraging donations. Do you have a numismatic Halloween tradition? Let us know!