Title: Samhain. The Roots of Halloween
Author: Luke Eastwood
Reviewed: Mark Rosher 2021
The autumnal celebration of Halloween… how different it is for many pagans and Druids, who find the embrace of their ancestors, and the ending and beginning of cycles of life and death and even year at this time. Samhain and Halloween have become victims of capitalist profit and commerce just as much as has Christmas, and the roots of this special time have become softened under its plastic and playful glamour. But what is this time really all about, and where were they birthed? Luke Eastwood’s book tries to bring some of the original magic back to the season.
Eastwood is the founder of Irish Druid Network, an “island of Ireland” specific druid information site. His book is equally focused on the Irish lore, and this is interesting and informative for this Severn vale based Druid, where Wales and the Welsh Druidry holds primacy. But some will hold, as Eastwood evidences, that Ireland was the birthplace of the tradition of Samhain. A festival of the dead that spread out across the Celtic world and perhaps even beyond… for there is a primordial need to connect with the dead that springs up in every part of the world.
I have learned a new (to me) name, Tlachtga. It is the name of a place and a person, a druidess. Eastwood relates the mythology of this person and this place, which is in the east of Ireland. He begins with a clear and concise explanation of the cosmology of Ireland, how the festival of Samhain marked the entry into winter – with all the aspects of hardship, hunger and death that accompanied winter in ancient times. He offers what knowledge there is about Tlachtga and her father Mogh Ruith and draws on others’ writings and verse to outline her place in this story.
In the later chapters Eastwood takes Samhain and explores its venture into Halloween, showing how in the Irish Diaspora and the schism of the Protestant and Catholic churches there was a spreading of the traditional tale into the colonies of both powers, seeding festivals of the Day of the Dead and of Hallows Eve, which carried a melange of christian and pagan ideas around the world.He recounts the push back from the established churches, and how eventually room was made in their religions and in the end how these religions took the story to their hearts, adapting and making new stories.
Eastwood closes with how this most important time of year is celebrated now by the new Druids and neo-pagans. The bibliography at the end offers me a lot more reading into the Irish path of Druidry. Overall, this book of some 140 pages has caused me to look hard at my own presumptions. It’s offered me a different viewpoint and I will need to read the book again in full, and probably from time to time as a reference. It’s published by The History Press, just a up the road from me in Gloucestershire and costs around thirteen pounds (I was sent this review copy).