halloween 2012 Wednesday 31 October
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while “some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)”.[1] The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly “summer’s end”.[1] A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced K?lan G?i av).