Fruits play a big role in Samhain symbolism. Apples, with their five-pointed star when cut crosswise, represent knowledge and ...

Women were often the keepers of the household hearth and were responsible for ensuring that the family participated in Samhain traditions, such as lighting bonfires, preparing feasts, and offering ...

Several end-of-year traditions including wassailing (carolling), mumming (folk plays), guising (trick-or-treating) and burning bonfires are also thought to have roots in Samhain. A 19th-Century ...

Most people are aware that Halloween's origins lie in the northern European Celtic and pagan festival of Samhain. Fewer people are aware of the unique and macabre Welsh traditions of our very own ...

Those traditions were later incorporated into Christianity ... Children would go door-to-door during Samhain, offering to pray for peoples’ dead relatives in exchange for food and money.