Posted Oct 30, 2003 by superfreak
I don't want to be rude about it, but there appears to be some bad math and probably also some not terribly good scholarship here. First, the statement that "October 31 is exactly between the Autumnal Equinox [September 20] and the Winter Solstice [December 21]" is just plain wrong--not good astrology and not even good math. Astrologically speaking, the midway point between these two dates falls when the sun is at 15 degrees of Scorpio (November 8 this year). Even if you just count the number of days and divide by two you get a date several days later than November 1. The assertion that Samhain falls on October 31 is doubly wrong. First, the date is November 1--the confusion arise because the Celtic day begins at sunset, so Samhain for the Celts would have ended on Nov 1 at sunset, and started at sunset the night before. But wait, that's October 31, right? Probably not. And that's the other source of confusion. The Gaeilge name for the month of "November" is "Samhain". And the festival of Samhain did, in fact, occur on the first day of the month of Samhain--that is, November 1--but it wasn't the same day as November 1 on our calendar. In fact it appears that the ancient Celts used a lunar calendar, with each month being reckoned from New Moon to New Moon. The month of November (Samhain) would have begun on a new moon, and the festival of Samhain would have fallen on that New Moon--*their* November 1, but it would very rarely have fallen on November 1 of the calendar we use today.
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