# Halloween in the UK: Samhain Roots and Old Customs > Halloween grew from the Gaelic festival of Samhain and the Christian All Hallows' Eve, the night before All Saints' Day on 1 November. Many customs now… URL: https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/guides/samhain-and-halloween-uk-traditions Updated: 2026-10-30 Halloween grew from the Gaelic festival of Samhain and the Christian All Hallows' Eve, the night before All Saints' Day on 1 November. Many customs now thought of as American began in Scotland and Ireland: guising became trick-or-treating, turnip lanterns became pumpkins, and apple games began as harvest divination. Here is the story, with British customs to revive this year. ## Samhain and All Hallows In early Irish tradition, Samhain marked summer's end, when the otherworld was close. The Church came to keep All Saints' Day on 1 November from the 8th and 9th centuries, and the two festivals overlapped. ## Old British and Irish customs ### Guising A Scottish custom of dressing up and performing a song or poem in return for treats. ### Neep lanterns Turnips hollowed out and carved with faces, the original jack-o'-lanterns. ### Apple dooking and snap-apple Bobbing for apples or catching them on strings, sometimes used for love divination. ### Soul cakes In parts of England, 'soulers' sang for small cakes in memory of the dead. ### Punkie Night A late-October lantern custom at Hinton St George in Somerset. ### Nos Calan Gaeaf The Welsh 'first night of winter', a spirit night of bonfires and tales of the tailless black sow, Hwch Ddu Gwta. ## Ways to mark it at home Carve a turnip lantern, set a place for those you miss, bake soul cakes, tell local ghost stories or climb a hill at dusk. Pendle Hill is the traditional climb in Lancashire. ## Gothic touches Black and orange candles, a cauldron of apples, skull ornaments and dragon's blood incense set the scene. UK delivery is £3.95, free on orders over £40, and usually takes 2–5 working days. ## Regional customs In Scotland, children went guising in disguise; in Ireland, barmbrack bread was baked with a ring inside; in parts of England, Punkie Night lanterns were carried in Somerset in late October. ## Ways to mark it at home Light a candle for someone you miss, carve a turnip lantern, bake soul cakes and tell old ghost stories by candlelight. ## How Samhain became Halloween Samhain was the Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest and the start of winter, recorded in early Irish literature as a time when the boundary with the otherworld grew thin. In the 8th and 9th centuries the Church placed All Saints' Day on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November, and the evening before, All Hallows' Eve, became Halloween. Many customs we know today, such as disguises, lanterns and visiting door to door, grew from that mix of old and new belief. ## Old customs from around Britain and Ireland - Souling: in parts of England, poor people and children went from house to house singing for soul cakes, small spiced cakes, in return for prayers for the dead. - Guising: in Scotland, children dressed up and performed a song, poem or joke to earn a treat. It is the ancestor of trick-or-treating. - Turnip lanterns: carved turnips, swedes or mangel-wurzels with a candle inside, called 'tumshie' lanterns in Scotland. - Punkie Night: in Hinton St George, Somerset, children still parade with carved mangel-wurzel lanterns on the last Thursday of October. - Barmbrack: in Ireland, a fruit loaf baked with a ring inside; whoever finds the ring is said to marry within the year. - Nutcrack Night: in northern England, couples placed nuts by the fire; if they burned quietly the match was good, if they popped apart it was not. - Hop-tu-Naa: on the Isle of Man, 31 October is Hop-tu-Naa, with turnip lanterns and its own songs. ## Remembering the dead Samhain's oldest theme is remembrance. A simple way to honour it is to light a candle by a photograph, cook a family recipe, or visit a grave and tidy it. Some people set a place at the table for those who have died. Others write a letter to someone they have lost. None of this needs special tools; what matters is the time you give. ## Halloween safety If you are carving, let adults do the knife work and give children spoons to scoop. Use LED tea-lights inside lanterns that children carry. When trick-or-treating, stick to houses with a pumpkin or decoration outside, the modern sign that visitors are welcome, and go out with a grown-up. ## The sky at Samhain By the end of October the clocks have gone back and darkness falls before 5pm. The Orionid meteors are just past their peak, the Pleiades are rising in the east in the evening, and Orion climbs into view by late night. Clear Samhain nights are good for stargazing, so wrap up and step outside. ## Halloween around the UK today Derry in Northern Ireland hosts one of Europe's biggest Halloween festivals. Edinburgh's Samhuinn Fire Festival, run by the Beltane Fire Society, marks the turn of winter with drumming and fire. Across the country, local walks, ghost tours and lantern parades revive older customs alongside modern trick-or-treating. ## Foods of the season Soul cakes, barmbrack, colcannon (mashed potato with cabbage, sometimes with a ring hidden inside in Ireland), toffee apples and parkin, a ginger cake from northern England eaten around Bonfire Night, all belong to this time of year. ## Sunrise and sunset across the UK on 31 October 2026 Calculated with astronomy-engine for each city, in UK clock time. Day length grows the further north you go in summer and shrinks in winter. | City | Sunrise | Sunset | Daylight | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | London | 06:52 | 16:35 | 9h 43m | | Cardiff | 07:04 | 16:47 | 9h 43m | | Birmingham | 07:01 | 16:39 | 9h 38m | | Manchester | 07:05 | 16:38 | 9h 32m | | Belfast | 07:24 | 16:49 | 9h 26m | | Edinburgh | 07:17 | 16:34 | 9h 17m | | Inverness | 07:26 | 16:33 | 9h 7m | ## Halloween and Samhain pieces in stock Real pieces in stock today, with current prices. Each product page lists size, materials and what is included. - [The Spellbook Oracle Cards- Witchcraft Deck](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/the-spellbook-oracle-cards-witchcraft-deck918): £3.20. - [Pyramid Shape Display Incense - Set of 5 Ancient Witch Scents & Spells](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/pyramid-shape-display-incense-set-of-5-ancient-witch-scents-spells941): £20.00. - [Purple Foil Tarot Card Set - Witch Tarot - with booklet](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/purple-foil-tarot-card-set-witch-tarot-with-booklet946): £22.88. - [Cauldron Singing Bowl - Magic Mushroom - Yellow (15cm)](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/cauldron-singing-bowl-magic-mushroom-yellow-15cm958): £28.00. - [Tarot Reading Cloth - Ancient Witch](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/tarot-reading-cloth-ancient-witch965): £4.00. - [Cauldron Singing Bowl - Magic Mushroom - Blue (15cm)](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/cauldron-singing-bowl-magic-mushroom-blue-15cm980): £28.00. - [Amethyst Gem Bracelet Bath Bomb](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/amethyst-gem-bracelet-bath-bomb000): £7.96. - [Ancient Witch Spell Incense - Cleansing - Rock Crystal Pendulum](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/products/ancient-witch-spell-incense-cleansing-rock-crystal-pendulum024): £7.95. ## Words worth knowing - **All Hallows' Eve**: the evening before All Saints' Day, 1 November. - **Guising**: the Scottish custom of going door to door in disguise. - **Soul cake**: a small spiced cake given to 'soulers' in exchange for prayers. ## Questions **Is Halloween a pagan festival?** It blends the Gaelic Samhain with the Christian All Hallows' Eve. **What is guising?** The Scottish custom of dressing up and performing for treats. **Why were turnips used as lanterns?** They were the vegetable to hand in Scotland and Ireland, long before pumpkins. **When is Samhain compared with Halloween?** 31 October to 1 November. **What is the difference between Samhain and Halloween?** Samhain is the old Gaelic festival and a modern pagan sabbat; Halloween is the evening before All Saints' Day. Many customs belong to both. **Why do we carve lanterns at Halloween?** In Britain and Ireland people carved turnips and swedes into lanterns, said to light the way or scare off spirits. Pumpkins came from America later. **Is Bonfire Night related to Samhain?** Not directly. Bonfire Night (5 November) remembers the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, but autumn bonfires were lit long before, and the two seasons of fire now sit side by side. ## Related - [Samhain guide](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/guides/samhain-guide) - [Witchy gothic](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/collections/witchy-gothic) - [Candles](https://www.starseeduk.co.uk/collections/candles) --- Starseed UK describes spiritual uses as tradition and belief, never as health or medical claims. UK delivery £3.95, free over £40.