Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [142]
By 43 CE, the majority of Celtic territory was under Roman control. During the next four centuries, two Roman festivals were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain. The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, and the tradition of “bobbing” for apples that is practiced nowadays on Halloween is just one more vestige of our pagan past.
Of course, then as now, some Christians took a dim view of all this pagan frivolity. By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. Presumably the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead—masking it (get it?) with a related, but Church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse, meaning all saints’ day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, came to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in 1000 CE, the church named November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated in a fashion similar to Samhain, with great bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations—the eve of All Saints’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day—were called Hallowmas. A similar convergence of native pagan beliefs and Catholicism around these dates took place during the Spanish conquest of Mexico and produces the “Hispanic Halloween,” Día de los Muertos (“the Day of the Dead”) (See chapter 9, What is the “Day of the Dead”?)
Another significant Celtic holiday was Beltane. Held on May 1 and heralding the arrival of summer and the planting season, Beltane was celebrated as a day of fiery purification when, the Celts believed, the fairies were especially active. In Roman Britain, Beltane was merged with a Roman festival called Floralia, which also honored the goddess of springtime, Flora. Eventually, the Celtic and Roman holidays were fused into May Day, a celebration that may date back to even older springtime festivals from ancient Egypt and India.
The modern image of May Day conjures up a merry vision of vernal innocence—children gaily dancing around a Maypole festooned with bright-colored ribbons and flowers. But originally, Beltane was a fertility festival, and the giant Maypole was an undisguised and unashamed phallic symbol. It was often the occasion for young men and women to turn their thoughts to more than just love. In a pre-Christian world, there were fewer moral constraints about sex, and lovers left the Beltane bonfires to wander off into the woods. Although the holiday was cleaned up into its G-rated version in Christian Europe, the May Day festival was not a tradition that appealed to America’s Puritan Fathers, who must have had long memories of its pagan past. That is why May Day never took hold in early America while it continued to be more widely celebrated in Europe.
MYTHIC VOICES
Llenllweag the Irishman seized Caledvwlch, swung it round in a circle and killed Diwrnach the Irishman and his entire retinue; the troops of Ireland came and fought, and when these troops were put to flight Arthur and his force boarded the ship in their presence, with the cauldron filled with the treasures of Ireland.
—“How Culhwch Won Olwen,” from the Mabinogion (translated by Jeffrey Gantz)
What is the Mabinogion?
Apart from these Irish myths and legends, the other significant body of Celtic literature was preserved in Wales, where the oldest myths were not written down for centuries. Again, it is probably a case of a Christian-era writer retelling these stories from his own point of view. Nonetheless, most of what is known of Welsh mythology is contained in a collection that is called The Four Branches of the Mabinogi, commonly known as the Mabinogion, compiled