Celtic Institute of North America
Celtic 104a. The Celtic New Year
Dates: October 2007 (TBA)
Location: Berkeley Springs, West Virginia
Instructor: Dr. Kate Chadbourne
Course fee: $150 for the weekend
Download Printable Registration Form (PDF)
To the Celts, time was reckoned ó dhubh go dubh, “from dark to dark.” Their New Year fell not in January as ours does, but in November, which they imagined as the very darkest of all months. The beginning of November ushered in the dark half of the year which lasted until May - when summer began and carried them through the light months until the very end of October, the night familiar to us today as Halloween.
November Eve was a night unlike any other in the year, poised between seasons and between one year and the next. It was a night of contradictions, ambivalences, and surprises. For this one night, the impossible became possible, the dead returned, the supernatural roamed the roads, and ordinary people could spy into the future to catch a glimpse of what was in store. On the one hand there was fear and caution; on the other, revelry, masking, and trickery. People gathered in together, mindful of everything – and everyone – the door kept out. But they also knew that the strangeness loose in the world that night offered not only danger but power, and they prepared themselves to welcome and channel it in old customary ways and on their own terms.
Join us to explore and experience this most important of the Celtic festivals. The workshop aims to be both informative and experiential. For the first purpose, we’ll examine a range of sources that includes comments by the classical authors on the Celts, medieval literature, folk tales, proverbs, songs, first-hand testimonies, and ethnographies of the last 150 years that tell us how people have observed this holiday in fairly recent times.
For the second purpose, we’ll engage in a little edgy fun ourselves. We’ll test out some of the divinatory customs associated with the Celtic New Year, eat some of its customary food, and disguise ourselves as ghosts, fairies and outsiders of every kind for a traditional procession – the very kind that underlies our Halloween trick-or-treating! On Saturday night, we’ll stage our own November Eve céilí, complete with traditional games, food, music, and storytelling.
What to bring:
- A mask, if you have one. If not, no worries; materials will be available.
- A “party piece” for the céilí. Don’t let this terrify you, please! Your party piece can certainly be a song or tune, but it can also be a short poem you know by heart, your patented napkin-folding trick, your uncanny impression of Elvis, or anything else you trot out to amuse your friends. We’ve seen it all, and it’s all welcome.
- Shoes and clothing suitable for short periods spent outside (nothing strenuous, we promise!