The Green Man is oldest, he saw the first rain drop fall and the first acorn of the old forest sprout. He walked the mountains when the world was free of care.

The Green Man sadly shakes his head as, from the eves of the ancient forest, he observes obese children in costumes seeking more obesity via sweets in a pathetic curruption of a ritual where priests used to seek sustenance in exchange for assisting the dead to the afterlife.

Samhain is the holiest day in the Celtic calendar and marks the end of the northern hemisphere summer. It is a day when the dead return to walk among us. The world of faerie intersects with the our world and we may encounter residents of this realm. Knights of this realm were at once both magnificent and terrible.

As the Romans overran the Celtic heartlands they recognised the significance of this day and embraced it. Samhain was replaced with the festival of Pomona. She was the goddess of the orchards and the harvest, and her feasts consisted of apples, nuts, grapes and other concord fruits. To the Romans, the apple was the symbol of love and fertility. One Samhain ritual introduced by the Romans was to take an apple before the Sabbat begins and cut it in half. Mentally fill it with all your illnesses and bad habits, then put the fruit together and bury it in the ground. As the apple rots so do your misgivings.

The Christians, in turn recognised and embraced this sacred day. who named it the day of all sanctities, or All Hallows in old English.

Samhain has sruvived the passing of the ages and cultures, changing its name but retaining its deep spiritual significance. Sadly it seems that it has been hijacked by popular culture and stripped it of its spirituality. Halloween is now a trivial and banal caricature of an ancient Celtic celebration whose orgins are lost in the depths of time.