Samhain basically means "summers end" and many are important mythological events that occurred on that day. It was on a Samhain that the Nemedians captured the terrible Tower of Glass built by the evil Formorians; that the Tuatha De Danann later defeated the Formors once and for all; that Pwyll won his wife Rhiannon from Gwawl; and that many other events of a dramatic or prophetic nature in Celtic myth happened. Many of these events had to do with the temporary victory of the forces of darkness over those of light, signaling the beginning of the cold and dark half of the year.
Still it is traditionally considered "the Celtic
New Years Day." Most Witches consider this the Witches New Year,
it is the time of the Crone, of endings and beginnings, death and life.
We honor our Ancestors and in respect we create a feast offering and celebrate
their memory. The veils between the worlds are the thinnest and we
commune with our dead, the fairy folk, the deities of death and the hunt
and look into the mysteries through Divination and Scrying. Samhain
is considered the third and final Harvest, that of the Livestock.