How Samhain shaped Halloween

 
Every culture going back to ancient times celebrates the change of Summer to Fall.  Halloween, a holiday we currently celebrate during the Fall equinox, has specific rituals with ancient roots that keep hold even to this day. While it is a holiday shaped by horror, it is all in good jest.  It is a holiday of candy, ghouls, horror, and great costumes.  How did this unique set of traditions take shape?  Where did the elements of Halloween come from?  

Samhain is a holiday celebrated by the Celtic Pagans going as far back as 5,000 years and possibly more. In fact, it is so old that it was celebrated before the Celts even migrated to Ireland.  Many Halloween rituals come from this three-day celebration.  Samhain, pronounced SOW-hen, marked the Celtic new year.  It was celebrated around the change of the season, not necessarily the same calendar date every year.  The celebration started based on the seasonal change, whenever it occurred.  During that sacred change of season, the veil would thin between this world and the Otherworld. In Celtic mythology, the Otherworld contained the spirits of the fae folk, mythological beings, and deities both good and bad.  The fae folk and those in the Otherworld could walk among the mortals, and if a person wasn't careful, they might find themselves in an unearthly place during those three days.  To protect themselves from dangerous fae, some carried talismans or wore certain things a fae would like in order to mask themselves as one of the fae folk or seem friendly to them. The celebration kicked off with bonfires and big feasts, as the coming cold winter promised only minimal food. While animal sacrifice was often thought to be performed by the Celts during this festival, in actuality, livestock was herded from the highlands to be slaughtered to store for the upcoming winter.  Often offerings to the gods or fae took the form of baked breads and other treats. The celebration was three days of our Halloween, Thanksgiving and New Years rolled into one.

Samhain has much lore associated with it through hundreds of years of celebration. One goddess, “The Morrigan,” is known as the goddess of Death, Fate and Victory in battles, and often was celebrated in this time.  The Morrigan is also known as the ‘phantom queen’ or the ‘queen of the fae folk.’  Sacrifices and offerings were dedicated to The Morrigan to ensure good will and safe fates for the New Year.

Many Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English cultures passed some of these rituals down.  Many were brought to the US during the great migration, and some were replaced with elements of our own culture.  Turnips shaped for the Wil’ O Whisps, a spirit in the bogs of the UK, eventually became a Jack O’ Lantern. Souvenirs and talismans worn during Samhain would become a costume. Costume lore changed to fit a more Christian image of evil spirits and ghosts, eventually even becoming characters based in fiction and then any costume of the imagination.  Candy being given freely is probably the most widespread culture during the harvest in many cultures.  Everyone having a feast and celebrating is a consistent element during the Fall equinox.  

One of the most striking things about this season is it is a celebration of fun and gathering.  No matter how terrifying and scary we find the elements of death and facing mortality, it is often a fun holiday of the celebration of the unknown, our dead loved ones, terror remedied by togetherness, and the surplus of food before the cold sets in.  Whether you celebrate Samhain, the Christian All-Saints day, The Mexican El Dia de los Muertos, the Japanese Higan, or The Moon Festival, coming together to celebrate the passage of time and the old ways is something we can all hope never goes out of style. We adapt new rituals to these holidays, but continue to keep the meanings of celebrating creativity, fun, and those who have passed through the veil of time.

Ryan Gosling: Indie Prince of Halloween

2023 brought the masses a Ryan Gosling renaissance.


“I’m just Ken,” he sings in the year’s smash hit film Barbie. “Anywhere else, I’d be a ten.” That song debuted at number 87 on the Billboard Hot 100.


Those familiar with his performance in the 2016 movie musical La La Land aren’t surprised the man can croon. He did do two seasons of singing and dancing on the Mickey Mouse Club as a kid. But for those who prefer something less mainstream -- and more eerie -- Ryan “Baby Goose” Gosling’s old discography contains a hidden, chilling gem.


Turns out, the Canadian actor is not only an indie darling and a blockbuster heartthrob, but also a gothic folk rock musician. Gosling is six feet tall, but makes music like he’s six feet under. His band, Dead Man’s Bones, consisted of him and a friend, Zach Shields (who you may know as the writer for Godzilla VS Kong), and together, they made the most Halloween-y music.


2009 brought the masses (or at least several YouTube & MySpace users) a debut self-titled album from Dead Man’s Bones. Their first music video came earlier, in December of 2008. User taylorblue on The Insider wrote about it then: “I really like this song, In the Room Where You Sleep, I can see me listening to it on my iPod. How amazing is Ryan anyways? What a great Boxing Day present.”


Dead Man’s Bones’ skeleton crew of Shields & Gosling first met in 2005. Our trusted correspondents at Wikipedia report the duo bonding over a mutual love of the Disney ride “Haunted Mansion” (many people seem to like it -- the ride got a 2023 movie adaptation too). The friends’ macabre fascinations were nothing new: Gosling’s family left his childhood home when they became convinced the house was haunted, and Shields had so intense a childhood obsession with ghosts that he was put into therapy. A love of all things creepy, dark, and melancholy thus permeates their songs.


Their sound is like your most pretentious millennial friend’s favorite indie band covering “Monster Mash.” Like Elvis joining a folk band and recording a Tim Burton soundtrack. Like something written for a children’s chorus to sing over a “monster-ghost-love-story” play. Well, the bit about the play is actually accurate. According to Anti Magazine, “This album was not supposed to be an album.” But costs for a stage show were “prohibitive,” and so we have this album.


The children’s chorus still plays a part. Started by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music has a children’s choir that adds a whimsical but creepy-in-the-way-only-kids-can-be layer to Gosling’s vocals on the album. According to Pitchfork, the children put in work: rehearsals every Sunday for months. Their wrap party included “a bouncy castle, a taco truck, and a pinata.”

Shields (Left); Gosling (Right); Silverlake Conservatory Children’s Choir (Middle)

The band’s production process paved the way for true artistry. They had a series of self-imposed rules to guarantee an authentic, raw, and charmingly imperfect sound: no more than three takes per song, and no click tracks (used to synchronize sound recordings). Shields and Gosling also played all instruments themselves. After the two cello players invited for the track “Buried in Water” showed up without knowing a lick of cello, Gosling taught himself to play it. He told Rolling Stone: “It wasn’t as hard as they were making it out to be!”

Dead Man’s Bones toured the country in Halloween season 2009. In every city, they performed with a local children’s choir. The concerts were well-received; in a review from the Eagle Rock Center of the Arts 2010 performance, Angel Baker writes: “Pompadours and pin up girls, secretary sweaters and more flannel than a Walmart in Wyoming, Eagle Rock was alight with vaudeville aficionados on their tip-toes to experience the resurrection of the variety hour.”

The band’s song “In the Room Where You Sleep” was featured on the soundtrack for horror film The Conjuring, and “Lose Your Soul” was in the closing credits of a French film, Age of Panic. Their influence extends to other musicians too; the Polish extreme metal band Behemoth was inspired by Dead Man’s Bones to also use a kids’ choir on their album I Loved You at Your Darkest.

But unlike “I’m Just Ken” off the Barbie soundtrack, nothing Dead Man’s Bones created ever charted. Ryan Gosling starred in ever-bigger flicks, and Zach Shields gained more and more work as a producer and writer, and it seems that Dead Man’s Bones fell to the wayside. According to Dazed, “their Twitter account – inactive since 2012 – still links to their Myspace page.”

Nonetheless, the band continues to cultivate a cult following, and finds new listeners to this day who delight in its weird, folksy, lonesome tunes and waltzes, punctuated by handclaps and kids’ exuberant yawping. I myself first heard of them because of an Eagle Eye Book Shop customer!

So this Halloween season, do yourself a favor, and check out this fun little album.

And if you need yet more reasons to love Ryan Gosling, click the link to check out this book, available on our website: 100 Reasons To Love Ryan Gosling