As autumn deepens and the air chills earlier, we find ourselves drawn to remembrance. Halloween draws near, but behind the costumes, pumpkins and spooks lies a far more ancient narrative, one that connects directly to how we honour the dead. In this post, we trace the lineage from the Celtic festival of Samhain to modern funeral customs, exploring the ways old rituals still resonate today.

The Festival of Samhain: Threshold Between Worlds

Long before Halloween entered our calendar, the Celts celebrated Samhain (often pronounced “SAH-win”) as one of their greatest festivals. It marked the end of the harvest season and the onset of the darker half of the year, a time when nature itself seems to withdraw, and life becomes quiet. 

Crucially, the Celts believed that at Samhain, the barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead grew thin. Spirits could cross that boundary more easily; ancestors might return, and unseen forces roam more freely. 

This liminality, being “between states”, carries profound meaning for us today. Funerals, memorials, grave visitation rituals: these too occupy a space between presence and absence, memory and letting go.

Rituals of Fire, Offerings, and Masks

In ancient Samhain, communities would gather and light bonfires on hilltops. These fires served multiple purposes: to protect, to purify, to symbolically push back the darkness. Houses would extinguish their domestic fires and then relight from the communal flame, a gesture of unity and renewal. 

Food offerings were also made, for both the living and the dead. In some regions, families left out portions of their harvest or extra food for wandering spirits, inviting ancestors to share in the feast.

Then there were masks, disguises or guising (going from house to house in costume), partly to confuse or appease spirits who might be roaming. Over time, many of these practices evolved or blended into later Halloween customs. 

These rituals around fire, offering, masking, they were not mere superstition, they reflected a worldview in which the living and the dead were entangled, and in which communities had to actively acknowledge, propitiate, and engage with the world of spirits.

Christianisation and the Making of “All Hallow(s)-tide”

As Christianity spread across the British Isles, the Church did not simply erase pagan practice, in many cases, it absorbed and reinterpreted them. By the 8th century, the Church designated 1st November as All Saints’ Day, and the eve before came to be called All Hallows’ Eve, what we now call Halloween. 

The Christian calendar added All Souls’ Day (2nd November) as a day to remember all faithful departed, creating a three-day period (All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints, All Souls) devoted to remembrance of the dead. 

Rather than erasing Samhain, the Church reframed its meaning: what once was a pagan moment of communion with ancestors became a Christian season of remembering saints, martyrs, and all the departed. Yet the echoes of the old rites remain, in grave decoration, in candle vigils, in visiting the cemetery, in acts of memorial.

Echoes in Modern Funeral Practice

When we look at funerals, memorial services and cemetery customs today, we can trace threads back to these very ancient practices:

• Light and candles. The use of candles in funerals and vigils carries echoes of the bonfires of Samhain. Light as a symbol of hope, of guiding spirits, or of memory, it’s a universal metaphor, but one with deep roots.

• Offerings and memorial tokens. Flowers, wreaths, mementoes, food at graveside, these gestures mirror the ancient practice of leaving offerings.

• Visiting and communing. The practice of visiting graves, speaking to the departed, telling stories, this is not a modern invention but a continuation of the human impulse to maintain contact across the boundary.

• Ritual transitions. Funerals are liminal: a rite of passage. The deceased passes from the world of the living into the realm of memory. In the same way, Samhain was a threshold between summer and winter, between life and death.

• Communal support. In ancient times, the community gathered for Samhain, it was not a solitary act but collective. Funerals too are social rituals, helping people share grief, witness, hold space together.

When we frame modern funeral practice within this long ancestral continuum, we see that many of our customs are not simply inherited habits, they are echoes of a deep human need to recognise mortality, to remember, and to ritualise transition.

A Thought for the Season

As October fades into November, people might find themselves drawn into reflection. Halloween need not be mere costume and spectacle; it can be a portal, a reminder of the delicate balance between life and loss.

You might consider:

• Lighting a candle for a departed loved one on All Hallows’ Eve.

• Visiting a cemetery or memorial quietly as the darkness deepens.

• Sharing stories of ancestors (even small ones) in a seasonal gathering.

• Using the language of thresholds (“endings and beginnings”) in funeral reflections, readings, or ceremonies.

In acknowledging how ancient traditions inform what we do today, we deepen our capacity to hold memory with reverence and to grieve with recognition of a wider human story.