Samhain became the traditions of Halloween.[2]
“Hallow” means “sacred.” For example, “hallowed ground” means a place that has been blessed and is appropriate for burial. The suffix “-een” is short for “evening,” the night before a holiday. Halloween, like our New Year’s Eve, is therefore the celebration before the actual holiday, in this case November 1, dubbed “All Saints Day” by the Catholic Church. Halloween is also known as “All Souls Day,” following the tradition that this is a time to celebrate the dead and commemorate them.
There are several misconceptions and outright lies that are spread by religious fundamentalists about Samhain every year, in an attempt to get Halloween banned. The first is that the holiday is of Druidic origin; the Druids were a priestly class of the Celts, but they were a very late manifestation of the Celtic religion. The Celts were practicing their religion for thousands of years before the priestly class of the Druids developed.
Another misconception is that the ancient Romans adopted Samhain and added their traditions to it; however, the traditions of Halloween, as we know them, have come down to us from Ireland. Ireland was never conquered by the Romans. Samhain was also celebrated by the Picts in Scotland, but the Picts were never conquered by the Romans, either. The only territory in the British Isles that the Romans successfully conquered was England.
Another error is that Samhain is pronounced Sam Hane and is the name of a Celtic god of the dead. The Celts had no god of the dead.[3] Samhain is also not pronounced that way, it is pronounced “Sow-ween,” due to the odd way Irish Gaelic ended up being spelled when written in English letters. There is a very minor character in Celtic