The Celts believed that the Lord of the Dead traveled the earth on Halloween?

Answer 1

The name Halloween refers to the evening of October 31-Hallow for holy, and een, just meaning EVE. We talk about HALLOWED ground or holy ground, the same word. But we sometimes think of this feast as Unholy and with good reason.

Answer 2

Not really

Halloween is the evening of 31 october, that means the following :

Imagine the yearly circle that is horizontally divided in two halfs:

one above: the LIGHT half, and one below : the DARK half

Now the evening of 31st of october lies exactly where the horizontal division line touches the RIGHT side of the yearly circle. So where actually the DARK half of the yearly circle begins.

Now the Celts saw an analogue with the day/night and the live/death circles in many ways, amongs others becaus those circles had light and dark halfs too.

So they could put one circle upon the other.

So to make it visual: these circles were cut horizontally in TWO halfs: ABOVE the light period ( summer, day, life) and BELOW the dark one ( winter, night, death) on any circle.

That gave yet another circle: the cosmos where they lived in: above air ( light), below earth ( dark) with the horizon that corresponded exactly with the horizontal division line the other circles had too.

So the evening of oct, 31 st lies on the point where " light" becomes "dark" in ALL of the circles.

That means : on the LIFE circle, it lies where LIFE becomes DEATH.

So on that point LIFE touches DEATH for a moment.

That's why Halloween is a holy evening: its the feast of the dead, as well as of death

The dead where awoken by that touch, so by that last engery of life

Some further info:

1. The Celts let these circles start with the dark half so with night, death, winter

So the sunset of 31 oct was actually already the beginning of 1st November day/night circle ( analogue with Jewish sjabbath : the Saturday that begins on Friday at sunset)

That means also as Halloween was the beginning of the dark half of the yearly circle, it was in fact the beginning of a new yearly circle istelf :

Halloween was indeed the ancient European NewYears'eve.

2. Death, dark etc is BELOW, so that's why we still bury corpses in the dark earth below.

3. The circles are in fact a bit more complicated then that:

Halloween was actually one of the FOUR moonfeasts that lasted 10 days.

A second moonfeast was on the opposit of Halloween: So while Halloween is on the END, this moonfeast lies on the BEGINNING of the light half of the circle:

That date is the 1st of may, the old European EASTERN, the feast dedicated to Ostera ( the goddess of fertillity). This second feats was called BELTAIN

As those moonfeats lied upon the important DIVISION line, the AX so to say, they where the most important and they stayed the longest in our tradition.

In Europe, the "planting of the May-tree" on old Beltain is still a habit on may 1st.

A third one was on TOP of the circle, so midsommer ( midday, midlife; the SOUTH as highest point of the sun) which is 1ts of august (LUGNASA)

The fourth moonfeast was on the LOWEST part of the circle, so midwinter( midnight,..): 1st of februari (IMBOLC)

As the FOUR moonfeasts lasted 10 days, the Celts connected the opposit periods of those 10 days ( begin to end) to symbolise it and so they came to the shape of a CROSS in a circle, which became a rune symbol for any of the circles: the famous Celtic cross.

The germanic GOTHS connected the beginning of a feast to the beginning of the opposite feast: Try it out : you'll get a GOTHIC CROSS.

On these crosses, the driving force of everything, the GOD was situated in the middle: this was taken over by Christianity : Jezus in the middle of a Celtic cross, while he more probably died on a martyr pole.

The GOTHIC cross is an attemt to visualise that power in a threedimensional way: on the ancient old "bas- reliefs" of a gothic cross you can see half a ball, suggesting a full threedimensional cosmic entity.

On top of it: the Celts put a "Saint Andrews-cross" (X-form) in the circle, that divided the circle finally exactly in to eight, the famous cosmic number, that together with the holy number three and the five of the pentagram made them calculate the golden ratio starting from the form of the circle.

The Celtic cosmic number eight was the ideal matrix for dualistic thinking that was derived of dualistic physics. It still is for dualistic physical phenomena like in information technology.

It is not a coincidence that the points where the Saint Andrews Cross touches the yearly circle, the yearly equinoxes and solstices lie:

The Celtic cross in the circle was indeed a mathematical abstraction made from analysis of the dualistic cosmic phenomena that they encountered.

Bert

( apologizes for my broken English)

Belgium

Answer 3

who was the lord of the dead