Bonfire
A bonfire lit on Halloween night. Hallowe’en fires were recorded in the Scottish Highlands and in Wales, and 31 October is still a bonfire night in Ireland; in England the fires moved to 5 November.
Meaning
For many people in Ireland, Clodagh Doyle of the National Museum of Ireland writes, 31 October is the night for community bonfires, especially on city housing estates, lit “to celebrate community identity, offer protection and mark the move into the season of darkness.” In England, Regina Hansen of Boston University notes, the bonfires moved to 5 November, Guy Fawkes Day. In the Scottish Highlands each house had its Hallowe’en fire, called Samhnagan, and there was rivalry over who had the biggest (James Frazer).
Origin and history
The minister of Callander in Perthshire described the fires there, on All Saints’ Eve: the ashes were raked into a circle with a stone for every person; whoever’s stone was moved or damaged by morning was “fey”, and not expected to live twelve months. In North Wales, according to a manuscript of Pennant’s, each family lit a great fire called Coel Coeth, and anyone whose marked white stone was missing from the ashes next morning was expected to die within the year (Brand). In Buchan, in north-east Scotland, boys went round the houses begging peats with the words “Ge’s a peat t’ burn the witches” (Frazer).
In Wales, Sir John Rhys recorded, people waited until the last spark was out and then ran, shouting “The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!” Rhys and Frazer read the saying as a memory of a human sacrifice.
Were the Samhain fires ancient?
Frazer thought so. He counted Beltane (1 May) and Hallowe’en as the two great Celtic fire festivals and wrote that both “betray a remote and purely pagan origin.” Lisa Bitel, a historian of medieval Ireland, names Rhys and Frazer as the 19th-century folklorists who “created a through line from Samhain to Halloween”, and finds that the medieval tales describe bonfires at Beltaine, “but not Samhain”. Frazer also held that the Celts dated the beginning of the year from Hallowe’en; Stephen Winick of the Library of Congress calls Samhain as the Celtic new year a conjecture that “only arose in the late nineteenth century”. Bat Conservation International’s explanation of the Halloween Bat also rests on Samhain fires.
See also
Jack-o’-lantern, Bat, Jack-o’-lantern, Black cat, Witch’s hat and broom, Bat.
Sources
- Ghost turnips, the púca, fortune-telling and evil abductions (Clodagh Doyle, National Museum of Ireland), Clodagh Doyle, Keeper of the National Folklife Collection, National Museum of Ireland news (2023; list first published October 2020), National Museum of Ireland, 10. Bonfires
- The Golden Bough, abridged edition (James George Frazer, 1922), Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, abridged edition (New York: Macmillan, 1922), chapter LXIII, section 6, The Hallowe'en Fires, Internet Archive, chapter LXIII, section 6
- Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (John Brand, ed. Henry Ellis, 1853), John Brand, Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, arranged and revised by Sir Henry Ellis, vol. 1 (London: Bohn, 1853), Internet Archive (University of Toronto copy), Allhallow Even, pp. 389–390
- The ancient Irish get far too much credit for Halloween (Lisa Bitel, 2024), Lisa Bitel, Dean's Professor of Religion and Professor of History, University of Southern California; The Conversation, 29 October 2024, The Conversation, paragraphs on folklorists and bonfires
- Tricking and treating has a history (Regina Hansen, 2017), Regina Hansen, Boston University; The Conversation, 25 October 2017, The Conversation, paragraph on bonfires
- Welcome to Folklife Today, and…Happy Halloween! (Stephen Winick, 2013), Stephen Winick, Folklife Today blog, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, 30 October 2013, Library of Congress, post text
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Last reviewed September 30, 2026 by Rory Hansen. How we research