The turning of the wheel of the year is something which is always with us. At the summer solstice, I stood watching the sunset at the Browland Standing Stones in Garmouth, one of the villages on the Spey Estuary. The standing stones make a four-poster circle which is an unusual stone circle configuration for the [...]
Imbolc is a festival which pre-dates the arrival of Christianity in Scotland. The Coming of Christianity In the dawning of time, when Christian missionaries first arrived on Scotland’s shores, they faced a colossal challenge. They were dealing with a strange mix of peoples: the Dal Riadic people of the West, the indigenous Britons of Strathclyde [...]
The origins of Halloween date back to an ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in) which celebrated the harvest and the arrival of the Cailleach. For the Celts who lived some 2,000 years ago, November 1st was their New Year. It was a time when the early farmers met together, bonfires were lit and [...]
In the Beginning… Halloween began as a Celtic harvest festival. The early Celts marked the end of summer with a festival they called Samhain (pronounced sow-in). As part of these celebrations they built fires and burnt animals as sacrifices. Samhain means "summer's end" in Gaelic, according to the Indo-European Etymological Dictionaries. However, because ancient records [...]