Samhain marks one of the two great doorways of the Celtic year, for the Celts divided the year into two seasons: the light and the dark, at Beltane on May 1st and Samhain on November 1st. Some believe that Samhain was the more important festival, marking the beginning of a whole new cycle, just as the Celtic day began at night. For it was understood that in dark silence comes whisperings of new beginnings, the stirring of the seed below the ground. Whereas Beltane welcomes in the summer with joyous celebrations at dawn, the most magically potent time of this festival is November Eve, the night of October 31st, known today, of course, as Halloween.
Samhain ushers in the dark half of the year. October 31st precedes Day of the Dead / All Soul’s Day, which takes place November 1-2, honoring those who have crossed over. This year, in the USA, November 1st also coincides with the return to standard time from daylight savings. Clearly, the dark side — what remains hidden from view — is calling.
This is an excellent time to explore what is ending, or “dying”, within our own beings. What do you need to release in order to move forward in your life? Now, when the veils between worlds are thin, is a ripe moment to embrace transformation.
In early Ireland, people gathered at the ritual centers of the tribes, for Samhain was the principal calendar feast of the year. The greatest assembly was the ‘Feast of Tara,’ focusing on the royal seat of the High King as the heart of the sacred land, the point of conception for the new year. In every household throughout the country, hearth-fires were extinguished. All waited for the Druids to light the new fire of the year — not at Tara, but at Tlachtga, a hill twelve miles to the north-west. It marked the burial-place of Tlachtga, daughter of the great druid, Mogh Ruith, who may once have been a goddess in her own right in a former age.
Tags: Celtic Festivals, Samhain
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Played by Mark Harmer on Celtic harp.
He says:
Turlough O’Carolan was an Irish harpist who lived in the mid-1600s and wrote pieces for the people he met and stayed with – playing music in exchange for hospitality. Tradition has it that the harp was played last thing at night, before people went to bed.
The building I’m playing it in was a bakery built around 1790, serving the local houses. The bread oven is in the stone wall behind me, and the building has a new floor and triple-glazing on the windows. It’s a great mixture of old and new and a great place to play this music.
Appropriately, I recorded this piece very late one night, and just went with the first take so the playing has the odd rough bits. I like to think that’s authentic – apparently Carolan never played the same way twice. Bet he never had as much trouble as I did finding DivX codecs, either!
Only the melodies survive, so I’ve done this arrangement myself and I’m playing it here on a Pilgrim gut-strung harp. The arrangement and video is my copyright. You are welcome to learn and play the arrangement if you like it – but please credit me if you play it in public.
Turlough O’Carolan [Toirdhealbhach O'Cearbhallain] (1670 – March 25, 1738) was a blind, itinerant Irish harper and composer whose great fame is due to his gifts for composition and verse. He is considered by many to be Ireland’s national composer and the last of the Irish bards. However, harpers in the old Irish tradition were still living as late as 1792, as one, Dennis Hempson, showed up at the Belfast Harp Festival, and O’Carolan’s own compositions already showed influence from the style of continental classical music.
O’Carolan was born near Nobber, County Meath, and moved with his family to Ballyfarnan, County Roscommon, at the age of fourteen, where his father took a job with the MacDermot Roe family. Mrs. MacDermot gave him an education, and he showed talent in poetry. Blinded by smallpox at eighteen, O’Carolan was taught the harp for three years. Then, being given a horse and a guide, he set out to travel Ireland and compose songs for patrons. For almost fifty years, O’Carolan journeyed from one end of the country to the other, composing and performing his tunes.
O’Carolan is buried in the village of Keadue, County Roscommon, where the annual O’Carolan Harp Festival and Summer School commemorates his life and work.
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From the original Riverdance show, 1995, this clip features, for the first time, Michael playing the flute. The tunes include a verse of ‘The Coolin’, which he would develop into FOF’s ‘Whispering Wind’ a few years later. Bodhran player, Tommy Hayes.
This was not included in the VHS version that was sold in the US.
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Michael Flatley
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Daire Nolan and Gillian Norris.
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