Browse 68 quotes about Samhain.
“Yea, she hath passed hereby, and blessed the sheaves,
And the great garths, and stacks, and quiet farms,
And all the tawny, and the crimson leaves.
Yea, she hath passed with poppies in her arms,
Under the star of dusk, through stealing mist,
And blessed the earth, and gone, while no man wist.
With slow, reluctant feet, and weary eyes,
And eye-lids heavy with the coming sleep,
With small breasts lifted up in stress of sighs,
She passed, as shadows pass, among the sheep;
While the earth dreamed, and only I was ware
Of that faint fragrance blown from her soft hair.
The land lay steeped in peace of silent dreams;
There was no sound amid the sacred boughs.
Nor any mournful music in her streams:
Only I saw the shadow on her brows,
Only I knew her for the yearly slain,
And wept, and weep until she come again.”
“Pomona's Feast by Stewart Stafford
Home from aggressive begging on November Eve,
A horror movie that won't be finished in the background,
The pirate's booty or robber's swag is examined.
Face in the bag, a cornucopia of scents in the nostrils:
Oranges, nuts, burnt popcorn, chocolate,
Toffee apples, crisps, Liquorice Allsorts, and Rice Krispie cakes.
A smörgåsbord Pomona's feast begins,
As a maternal voice advises frugality,
To no avail.
Noses in the trough,
Nothing eaten bears any relation to the thing eaten before or after,
Aching gums, jaws, and bellies swiftly ensue.
To bed to sleep it off,
The next morning, it's déjà vu,
The maternal voice again advises eating breakfast first, to no avail.
© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”
“The Phantastic Phantasms by Stewart Stafford
Halloween Henry sitting on top of a pumpkin he made
Eyes are ablaze
Morbid Melissa breastfeeding strychnine to all of the babes
Her smile never fades
Don’t you see that darkness creeping?
It’s a nightmare without sleeping
Trick-or-Treat Trevor knocking on doors with no head to display
It’s his headless way
Emmet The Clownface
Haunting the grounds of an old children’s school
He’s nobody’s ghoul
On a carpet of Autumn leaves
They’re around every All Hallow’s Eve
Sam O’Terry counting the bones of his earthly remains
None of them lame
Simon-Whose-Head-Hurts taking his 920th overdose
Chemically verbose
They will always do their worst
On October the 31st
©Stewart Stafford, 2018. All rights reserved.”
“It was a fairy moon. Pearlescent, glowing, and hanging low in the sky---cit was the kind of moon that spelled mischief and delight. Dina stood at the edge of the north field, where the fire was already burning. It had all been arranged by Nour, a kind of witchy wedding gift. Dina inhaled the midnight air, sweet and smoky. Her mother was silhouetted by the fire, loosening her hair from the updo she'd styled it in for the evening. Dina would be like her mother tonight: untamable, wild.”
Source: Best Hex Ever
“It was a fairy moon. Pearlescent, glowing, and hanging low in the sky---it was the kind of moon that spelled mischief and delight. Dina stood at the edge of the north field, where the fire was already burning. It had all been arranged by Nour, a kind of witchy wedding gift. Dina inhaled the midnight air, sweet and smoky. Her mother was silhouetted by the fire, loosening her hair from the updo she'd styled it in for the evening. Dina would be like her mother tonight: untamable, wild.”
Source: Best Hex Ever
“Pagan paths, of which there are many, more often than not, are based upon an acknowledgement of a Divine presence within nature, as acknowledged by the pre-Christian peoples of these Islands and Northern Europe more than 1500 years ago.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Bad Halloween: A Crazies Night Chronicle by Stewart Stafford
I'm Rich—ambulance medic on Crazies Night,
Demented chariot driver in the mediverse,
Skeleton crew for swarms of ailing impostors,
Our dashboard crucifix, buffeting every curse.
Jittery, side-burned Jeff riding shotgun,
I tease his grumbling about missing fun:
"A toast with your Pumpkin Spice Latte!
Breakfast on me when our shift is done."
Behind us, a female living portrait groaned—
Drunk or high, headfirst, she kissed the road.
Mona Lisa frame unmounted for treatment,
delirious spoilers dropped for The Da Vinci Code!
Death's Reaper stood daring us in our path;
graveyard shift, centre line, gleaming scythe.
Brakes jammed, sirens blared, the prank waned—
This gothic vigilante traffic cop waved us by!
We dropped Patient Moaner at the hospital,
Jeff smoked, and I ate canteen Colcannon,
Our "bat signal" crackled, flashed in the cab:
"Cosplay brawl at the Hotel Shannon."
We drove off for more Boo-Boo Bus Bedlam
to hit our Gotham's streets and tend the injured.
Catherine wheel jack-o-lantern through windscreen;
The Pumpkin Bomber’s cackle went unheard.
Ears temporarily-deafened, thumbs up given;
Faces, hands, arms burned—scarred medics.
Flying glass cuts on our cheeks and necks:
Carers now mummified patients: sideline critics.
The first cracks of dawn chase shadows away;
A Grand Grimoire yielding to Grey's Anatomy,
Our carriage—the repair yard's hollow gourd,
All-Saints sunrise feast to shed All Hallows' agony.
On the Lord of Death's night, we didn't die:
Weary defiance met coffee and pumpkin pie.
© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
“The position of sun and moon on the Feast of Beltane" is one, with a list if two hundred paired figures laid out beneath. Similar tables existed for Hogmanay and Midsummer's Day, and Samhainn, the Feast of All Hallows. The ancient feasts of fire and sun, and Beltane's sun would rise tomorrow.”
Source: Dragonfly in Amber
“Samhain was considered to be a moment when the veil between this world and the otherworld was at its thinnest. Old gods had to be placated with gifts and sacrifice, and the trickery of fairies was an even greater risk than usual. This was a liminal moment in the calendar, a time between two worlds, between two phases of the year, when worshippers were about to cross a boundary but hadn’t yet done so. Samhain was a way of marking that ambiguous moment when you didn’t know who you were about to become, or what the future would hold. It was a celebration of limbo.”
Source: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
“Samhain is the threshold to the Season of Death.
The fertile fields of summer give way to the bare forests of autumn. As crops slowly die and winter takes over, the cycle of life is once again approaching
a renewal.”
“From moment one, you were the wildest thing I've ever seen. ll I do is imagine how you'd taste.”
Source: Ivory
“From moment one, you were the wildest thing I've ever seen. All I do is imagine how you'd taste.”
Source: Ivory
“Everyone looks for the first snowdrop as proof that our part of the earth is once more turning towards the sun, but folklore maintains that we should be wary of bringing them into the house before St Valentine’s Day, as any unmarried females could well remain spinsters!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“I should add, however, that, particularly on the occasion of Samhain, bonfires were lit with the express intention of scaring away the demonic forces of winter, and we know that, at Bealltainn in Scotland, offerings of baked custard were made within the last hundred and seventy years to the eponymous spirits of wild animals which were particularly prone to prey upon the flocks - the eagle, the crow, and the fox, among others. Indeed, at these seasons all supernatural beings were held in peculiar dread. It seems by no means improbable that these circumstances reveal conditions arising out of a later solar pagan worship in respect of which the cult of fairy was relatively greatly more ancient, and perhaps held to be somewhat inimical.”
Source: British Fairy Origins
“My body shook from pain, exhaustion, and the beginning of shock. I'd pay for all the powers I'd used, but the portal most of all. Good girls weren't supposed to open hell dimensions.”
Source: Temptress
“The festival of the summer solstice speaks of love and light, of freedom and generosity of spirit. It is a beautiful time of year where vibrant flowers whisper to us with scented breath, forests and woodlands hang heavy in the summer’s heat and our souls become enchanted with midsummer magic.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“We too can begin a new life, one that brings satisfaction and enrichment, whether this is by singing, dancing, running through the waves, walking barefoot on the grass or making love under the stars. Perhaps your dreams are greater than this, or perhaps more conservative, but whatever they are, Beltane is a wonderful time for expressing who you truly are.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The summer solstice is a time for strength and vitality for action and movement.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“There is a delightful story which tells of Eostre finding an injured bird on the ground and, in order to save its life, she transformed it into a hare. The transformation however was incomplete and, although the bird looked like a hare, it still retained the ability to lay eggs. Regardless of this slight mishap, the hare was so grateful for the goddess saving her life that on Eostre’s festival the hare would lay eggs, decorate them and leave them as a token of thanks. In Germany today, many young children still believe that their Easter eggs are laid and delivered by the Easter hare.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The festival of the spring equinox speaks of freshness and youth, of excitement and endless possibilities. Nature begins to quicken and early flowers open to the warmth of the strengthening sun, bringing the colours of lemon and yellow into our lives on the wings of a March wind.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The word ‘equinox’ simply means ‘of equal length’ and refers to the twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness at this point in the year. It was originally thought to stem from two Latin words aequus meaning equal and nox meaning night. The word ‘Vernal’, as this equinox is often called, is derived from the Latin word vernus meaning ‘of spring’.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Tea was the order of the day, neat for the hardened drinker or containing a tot of whiskey for those who liked it watered down! Throughout the afternoon, the wonderful aroma of rosemary wafted throughout the cottage and I later discovered that Mrs Darley sprinkled the dried herb on her grill pan and, with the grill on a low heat, it scented the whole cottage, bringing a feeling of warmth and security to us all.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“I nodded, appreciating the wisdom of her words.‘Yellow is the colour of early spring,’ she said, ‘just look at your garden!’ She gestured towards the borders, which were full of primulas, crocuses and daffodils. ‘The most cheerful of colours,’ she continued, ‘almost reflective in its nature and it is of course the colour of the mind.’
‘That’s why we surround ourselves with it!’ laughed Phyllis, ‘in the hope that its properties will rub off.’‘Nonsense dear,’ said Mrs Darley dismissively, ‘Yellow light simply encourages us to think more positively. It lifts our spirits and raises our self-esteem in time for summer.’I immediately made a mental note to surround myself with the colour of the season and, like Phyllis, hoped that some of its properties would rub off on me.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Legend has it that during the festival of Eostre, all fires had to be extinguished in the Goddess’ honour and could only be relit from a sacred flame in the centre of the village. The new fire was seen as a symbol of sacredness and purity, something which everyone wanted to bring into their homes at such a lovely time of year when everything was fresh and new.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Strange as it may seem, the association of eggs and bunnies at Easter time are actually connected and, to discover more, we must once again turn our attention to the Saxon fertility Goddess, Eostre.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Green Man has also become synonymous with Cernunnos, the Celtic horned God, often portrayed in Celtic art as part man, part stag, who roams the greenwood wild and free. He is a character of strength and power, but often sadly mistaken for the devil by the Christian fraternity due to his horned appearance.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The farm labourers employed to harvest the corn often displayed a real fear of cutting the last sheaf, due to the fact that they felt they were slaying the spirit of the corn.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“In truth, however, only four of the festivals celebrated by today’s followers of the seasonal wheel can definitely be attributed to the Irish and Scottish Celts, these being the quarter festivals of Imbolc, Lughnasadh, Beltane and Samhain, with the latter two being of the greatest importance.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“So now, as the Maiden form of the Goddess whispers to us of hope and new beginnings at the festival of Imbolc, it is on a cold February morning that you are invited to step onto the ‘Wheel of the Year.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Cleansing and clearing are two words which suit the essence of Imbolc, as this is February, the Roman month of purification. This can be a cleansing of the self, in undertaking a good ‘detox’, or a clearing and cleansing of the home, in keeping with the tradition of spring-cleaning.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Legend tells us that the High King of Tara, who ruled supreme over all the Kings of Ireland, looked out from his castle one day during the festival of Eostre and saw a fire blazing away on a far hillside. Furious with this obvious disregard for the law, for which the penalty was death, he sent out soldiers to arrest the guilty party. When the soldiers arrived at the hillside they found St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, piling wood onto his fire and immediately seized him. Standing before the King he was asked why he disobeyed the law, and he explained that his fire was a sign that Christ had risen from the dead and was the light of the world. The King so admired Patrick’s courage that he forgave him and became a convert to Christianity!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The festival of Lughnasadh speaks of fullness and bounty of richness and sacrifice. As cornfields ripple in the late summer breeze and whisper golden promises of the grain harvest to come, we know deep within our psyche that the darkness is but a heartbeat away.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“I have since learned that although the festival of Imbolc was far less romantic and far more practical to our Celtic ancestors than the initial image portrayed to me by Mrs Darley, it was no less magical, for it marked the beginning of the lambing season which to the Celts meant the difference between survival and extinction.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“It is easy to see how the myths and legends which built up around the Goddess Bride became entwined with Christian doctrine, and there is one source which tells of St Brigid’s ale harvest being so abundant that enough ale was made to serve seventeen churches!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Bronze and Iron Age peoples saw water as having supernatural powers whilst its dark mysterious depths were seen as the gateway to the underworld. People felt compelled to make offerings to the Deities, which they believed inhabited these magical places, as evidenced by many archaeological finds including jewellery, plaques, coins and both animal and human remains. No doubt these were the original ‘wishing wells’ that we throw our small change into today, in the hope that the spirit of the place will grant our heart’s desire!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Saturday morning brought an Imbolc gift of thick fog, as our select company of three set off onto the rain-sodden moor. ‘Here we are,’ said Mrs Darley, as the well appeared before us after a ten minute climb. She immediately began to unwrap a joint offering from Phyllis and herself of an ivy swag interwoven with white ribbons and laid it across the lintel of the well. I followed suit but with a far more modest bunch of pine branches and silver honesty.
‘Drinks, dear?’ Mrs Darley looked at Phyllis, who right on cue produced three paper cups from her bag and filled them with whiskey from a hip flask.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Horned humans are not unknown to medical science as there is a rare skin disease, which goes by the name of ‘Cornu Cutaneum’, a cutaneous growth, which resembles a horn and grows from the scalp.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The spring equinox celebration included a dawn trip to the nearby Rillaton Barrow, a Bronze Age burial mound high up on the Cheesewring Moor, with its entrance facing directly east.
‘A great archaeological find, dear,’ Mrs Darley informed me, rather breathlessly, as we climbed up to the entrance. ‘A skeleton, dagger and gold cup were all found here. However, the gold cup ended up in the royal bathroom for some considerable time until the death of George V and now stands in the British Museum, although you can see a copy of it in Truro if you wish. Come,’ she said, patting the top of the lintel, ‘we’ll sit here a while and wait for the sun.’
The sun duly arrived in all its spring glory over the eastern horizon, bringing a golden glow to the swathes of mist, which hung in the fields between Dartmoor and Bodmin.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“In Cornwall, the long poles which marked the boundaries of the tin mines were crowned with St John’s Wort to ensure protection for the mine and its workers.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“In times when the grain was harvested by hand, many traditions and superstitions grew up around this important event.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Old Cornwall Society decided during the 1920s to revive the custom of lighting fires along the Cornish peninsula, beginning in the east and moving westward as dusk approached. It is a custom which continues today and, when watched from a distance, still has the power to evoke in anyone who observes this ritual a deep connection with the earth and the ancestors.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Nothing is ever lost as time passes, it merely metamorphoses into something as wonderful or, in some cases, into something even better than before.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“We sang, we danced, we talked, we laughed, we ate, we drank, but most of all we shared our contributions and I learned, that Lughnasadh night, that true gifts come from the heart and not necessarily from the purse.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Mrs Darley, I noticed, always had her corn dolly amidst an arrangement of cornflowers and poppies (albeit they were artificial!). The corn, I was to later understand, represented the God, the red poppies his sacrificial blood and the blue cornflowers his death and this is something I still adhere to today.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Making corn dollies under the watchful eye of Mrs Darley was an absolute must for all of us living in the tiny Cornish hamlet on Bodmin Moor.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“I was born on the night of Samhain, when the barrier between the worlds is whisper-thin and when magic, old magic, sings its heady and sweet song to anyone who cares to hear it.”
Source: Once a Witch
“I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.”
Source: Spells: New and Selected Poems
“Autumn has arrived. I hear it in the whispering of leaves.”
“At Bealltainn, or May Day, every effort was made to scare away the fairies, who were particularly dreaded at this season. In the West Highlands charms were used to avert their influence. In the Isle of Man the gorse was set alight to keep them at a distance. In some parts of Ireland the house was sprinkled with holy water to ward off fairy influence. These are only a mere handful out of the large number of references available, but they seem to me to reveal an effort to avoid the attentions of discredited deities on occasions of festival once sacred to them. The gods duly return at the appointed season, but instead of being received with adoration, they are rebuffed by the descendants of their former worshippers, who have embraced a faith which regards them as demons.
In like manner the fairies in Ireland were chased away from the midsummer bonfires by casting fire at them. At the first approach of summer, the fairy folk of Scotland were wont to hold a "Rade," or ceremonial ride on horseback, when they were liable to tread down the growing grain.”
Source: British Fairy Origins
“Halloween is a celebration of the inversion of reality and a necessary Gothic hat-tip to the darker aspects of life, death and ourselves.”