Halloween is a cross-quarter day
Halloween is short for All Hallows’ Eve. And, although many don’t realize it, it’s an astronomical holiday. Sure, it’s the modern-day descendant of Samhain, a sacred festival of the ancient Celts and Druids in the British Isles. But it’s also a cross-quarter day and a testament to our ancestors’ deep understanding of the sky.
The cross-quarter days fall more or less midway between the equinoxes (when the sun sets due west) and solstices (when the sun sets at its most northern or southern point on the horizon). Halloween – October 31 – is approximately midway between our autumn (September) equinox and winter (December) solstice.
In other words, in traditional astronomy, there are eight major seasonal subdivisions of every year. They include the March and September equinoxes, the June and December solstices, and the intervening four cross-quarter days.
In modern times, the four cross-quarter days are often called Groundhog Day (February 2), May Day (May 1), Lammas (August 1) and – the most sinister cross-quarter day because it comes at a dark time of year – Halloween (October 31).
It falls at a dark time of year
For us in the Northern Hemisphere, Halloween is the darkest of the cross-quarter days, coming at a time of year when the days are growing shorter. Early people once said that the spirits of the dead wander from sunset until midnight around this cross-quarter day. After midnight – on November 1, now called All Saints’ Day – the ghosts supposedly go back to rest.
The October 31 date for Halloween is fixed by tradition. The true cross-quarter day falls on November 7, representing a discrepancy of about a week. According to the ancient Celts, a cross-quarter day marks the beginning – not the middle – of a season.
The Pleiades connection
Some believe that the early forebear of Halloween – Samhain – happened on the night that the Pleiades star cluster culminated at midnight.
In other words, the Pleiades climbed to its highest point in the sky at midnight on or near the same date as this cross-quarter day. In our day, the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster now occurs on November 21, but Halloween is fixed on October 31.
Presuming the supposed connection between Samhain and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades, the two events took place on or near the same date in the 11th century (1001-1100) and 12th century (1101-1200). This was several centuries before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar.
At that time, when the Julian calendar was in use, the cross-quarter day and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades fell – amazingly enough – on or near October 31. But, then, the Julian calendar was about one week out of step with the seasons. Had the Gregorian calendar been in use back then, the date of the cross-quarter day celebration would have been November 7.
Calendar converter via Fourmilab
But Halloween falls on October 31 now. Meanwhile, the true cross-quarter day now happens on or near November 7 and the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster on or near November 21.
Bottom line: October 31, the present date for Halloween, marks the approximate midway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. So Halloween is an astronomy holiday, and one of the year’s four cross-quarter days.
Read about another cross-quarter day, Groundhog Day
May Day is a cross-quarter day
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The post Halloween is a cross-quarter day first appeared on EarthSky.
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