History can help us make sense of traditions that have their roots in the past but have become something rather different over the ages. And this massive spider in a small front garden in Whitstable on the Kent coast got me thinking about why we associate spiders with Halloween. The name itself is a contraction of All-Hallows’ Eve, but its roots go back into prehistory.
In early communities 31 October was seen as the end of the summer harvest and the start of the dark days of winter. It was a time when the living were most susceptible to the dead, where the boundary between the two worlds might let some unquiet spirits through the cracks. The idea was picked up in the Celtic celebration of Samhain (‘sow-in’) when the souls of the dead might return to the living world. This was the heyday of the druids, who – after due ceremony – might be able to communicate with the lost souls and better predict the future.
The Romans, having largely eradicated the druids, combined Samhain with their own festival of Feralia celebrating the passing of the dead. And then the growing Christian church, typically adopting pagan customs as church-sponsored religious festivals, changed its day for celebration of all saints and martyrs to the start of November. This became known as All-Hallowmas from the Old English for All Saints’ Day and the night before as All-Hallows Eve, when people celebrated with bonfires and parades, dressing up as anything from angels to demons. Gradually out of this emerged the feared figure of the witch and the belief that witches could change into the form of a spider, giving them easy entry into peoples’ homes, and awarding arachnophobia a new spiritual element! This particular spider, with accompanying red eyes and dark web, was much admired on the night. The following day, however, it was dissected and conveyed to an ignominious afterlife in the local tip.
Will it be resurrected in new guise next year?