Samhain (pronounced SOW-in, sometimes SAH-win) is the ancient Celtic festival that marks the end of the harvest and the start of winter, held from the evening of October 31 into November 1. The Gaels believed this was the night when the boundary between our world and the Otherworld grew thin, letting spirits, fairies, and the souls of the dead slip through. If Halloween feels older and deeper than candy and plastic decorations, that is because it is. Halloween is Samhain, dressed up in two thousand years of new clothes.
Samhain was one of four great Gaelic seasonal festivals, alongside Imbolc in spring, Bealtaine in early summer, and Lughnasa at harvest. It falls roughly halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, which is why folklorists call it a "cross-quarter" festival. For the Celts this was the real turn of the year, the doorway into the dark half. Cattle were brought down from the summer pastures, the surplus was slaughtered for winter, and communities gathered around enormous hilltop bonfires whose flames were believed to carry protective and cleansing power.
How do you pronounce Samhain?
The most common pronunciation is SOW-in, rhyming with "cow-in," and that is the one you will hear most often in the United States. You may also see SAH-win, which is closer to some Irish dialects. What you should not do is say it the way it looks, "Sam-hain," because the "mh" in old Irish makes a soft "w" sound rather than an "m." The Irish name for Samhain night is Oíche Shamhna. So if you have been quietly worried you were saying it wrong, the short answer is: lead with SOW-in and you are in good company.
4Women's Alien Onesie is a modern monster for anyone who likes their disguise a little out of this world.
What does Samhain mean?
Samhain is usually translated from the Irish as "summer's end," which is a tidy fit for a festival that closes the bright half of the year. It is worth knowing that linguists do not all agree. Some trace the word instead to an older Celtic root meaning "assembly" or "gathering," which would make Samhain "the assembly of the living and the dead." Either way the meaning lands in the same place: this is the night the community comes together as one season dies and another is born. The word also survives as the modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic name for the month of November.
Frightfully fun
Kids' Pink Teddy Bear Onesie
Skip the scratchy costume and lean into Kids' Pink Teddy Bear Onesie for a frightfully comfy night.
This is the part Halloween forgot to tell you. On Samhain, with the veil at its thinnest, people believed that spirits and the aos sí (the fairy folk) walked among them, and not all of them were friendly. So the Celts disguised themselves. They dressed as animals, monsters, and spirits, wore masks, blackened or veiled their faces, and even turned their clothes inside out, all to blend in with the wandering dead or to hide from them. Impersonating a spirit was thought to protect you from it. This custom, called "guising" or "mumming," is the direct ancestor of the Halloween costume and of trick-or-treating, which began as masked visitors going house to house to honor the dead in exchange for food.
So the next time you pull on a costume on October 31, you are taking part in a ritual more than a thousand years old. That lineage is exactly why a good costume should feel a little magical and a lot of fun. If you want to honor the old guising tradition, our Halloween costume collection is full of monsters, devils, skeletons, and other spirits to disguise yourself as, for the whole family.
How Samhain became Halloween
When Christianity spread across the Celtic world, the church placed its own feasts of the dead right on top of the old calendar. In the 9th century November 1 became All Saints' Day, also called All Hallows' Day, with November 2 as All Souls' Day. The night before, October 31, became All Hallows' Eve, which softened over the centuries into the word Halloween. Most of the Halloween traditions Americans know were carried across the Atlantic by Irish and Scottish immigrants in the 1800s, who brought their guising, their games, and their carved lanterns with them. The original jack-o'-lanterns were not pumpkins at all but hollowed-out turnips lit with a glowing coal. Pumpkins were simply bigger, softer, and easier to find in America.
How to celebrate Samhain today
You do not need to be a witch or a pagan to mark Samhain, though many modern Wiccans and Neopagans treat it as the most important sabbat of the year. At its heart it is a night for remembering the dead and welcoming the dark season with warmth. A few gentle ways to observe it:
Set a place for your ancestors. Light a candle in a west-facing window to guide them home, or set an extra plate at dinner in their honor, a custom sometimes called a "dumb supper."
Play the old divination games. Apple bobbing comes straight from Samhain, as does tossing an apple peel over your shoulder to see the first letter of a future love's name.
Light a fire. A bonfire, a fire pit, or even a cluster of candles echoes the cleansing hilltop fires of the Celts.
Go guising. Put on a costume with the whole family and lean into the oldest Halloween tradition of all.
Whether you call it Samhain or Halloween, the spirit of the night is the same: gather close, honor those who came before, and have a little fun in the dark. Cozy up afterward in something soft from our onesie collection, because the dark half of the year is also the season for staying warm.
Samhain is pronounced SOW-in, not 'Sam-hain' - the Irish 'mh' makes a soft 'w' sound.
Halloween costumes trace back to Samhain 'guising', when Celts disguised themselves as spirits to hide from the dead.
The first jack-o'-lanterns were carved turnips, not pumpkins; pumpkins came later in America.
Samhain falls halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, making it a 'cross-quarter' festival.
The word Samhain is still the modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic name for the month of November.
Frequently asked questions about Samhain: The Celtic Origin of Halloween
Samhain is most commonly pronounced SOW-in, rhyming with cow-in. You may also hear SAH-win, which is closer to some Irish dialects. It is never said as it looks ('Sam-hain'), because the 'mh' makes a soft 'w' sound.
Halloween grew directly out of Samhain. The ancient Celtic festival on October 31 was layered over by the Christian feasts of All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day, and Irish and Scottish immigrants carried its customs to America, where they became modern Halloween.
The Celts believed that on Samhain the boundary between our world and the Otherworld grew thin, allowing spirits, fairies, and the souls of the dead to cross over. It was a night to honor ancestors, light protective bonfires, and welcome the dark half of the year.
On Samhain people disguised themselves as animals, monsters, and spirits, wearing masks and even turning their clothes inside out, to blend in with the wandering dead or hide from them. This custom, called guising, is the direct ancestor of the Halloween costume.
Samhain is celebrated from the evening of October 31 into November 1, falling roughly halfway between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It marks the end of the harvest and the start of winter in the Celtic calendar.
