A Witches Bible - Janet Farrar, Stewar Farrar 1981

Samhain, 31st October
The Sabbats
The Sabbats and Rites for Birth, Marriage and Death

The eve of 1st November, when the Celtic Winter begins, is the dark counterpart of May Eve which greets the Summer. More than that, 1st November for the Celts was the beginning of the year itself, and the feast of Samhain was their New Year’s Eve, the mysterious moment which belonged to neither past nor present, to neither this world nor the Other. Samhain (pronounced ’sow-in’, the ’ow’ rhyming with ’cow’) is Irish Gaelic for the month of November; Samhuin (pronounced ’sav-en’, with the ’n’ like the ’ni’ in ’onion’) is Scottish Gaelic for All Hallows, 1st November.

For the old pastoralists, whose herd-raising was backed by only primitive agriculture or none at all, keeping whole herds fed through the winter was simply not possible, so the minimum breeding-stock was kept alive, and the rest were slaughtered and salted — the only way, then, of preserving meat (hence, no doubt, the traditional use in magical ritual of salt as a ’disinfectant’ against psychic or spiritual evil). Samhain was the time when this killing and preserving was done; and it is not hard to imagine what a nervously critical occasion it was. Had the right — or enough — breeding-stock been selected? Would the coming winter be long and hard? And if so, would the breeding-stock survive it, or the stored meat feed the tribe through it?

Crops, too, had all to be gathered in by 31st October, and anything still unharvested was abandoned — because of the Pooka (Púca), a nocturnal, shape-changing hobgoblin who delighted in tormenting humans, was believed to spend Samhain night destroying or contaminating whatever remained unreaped. The Pooka’s favourite disguise seems to have been the shape of an ugly black horse.

Thus to economic uncertainty was added a sense of psychic eeriness, for at the turn of the year — the old dying, the new still unborn — the Veil was very thin. The doors of the sidh-mounds were open, and on this night neither human nor fairy needed any magical password to come and go. On this night, too, the spirits of dead friends sought the warmth of the Samhain fire and communion with their living kin. This was Féile na Marbh (pronounced ’fayluh nuh morv’), the Feast of the Dead, and also Féile Moingfhinne (pronounced ’fayluh mong-innuh’), the Feast of the White-Haired One, the Snow Goddess. It was “a partial return to primordial chaos … the dissolution of established order as a prelude to its recreation in a new period of time”, as Proinsias mac Cana says in Celtic Mythology.

So Samhain was on the one hand a time of propitiation, divination and communion with the dead, and on the other, an uninhibited feast of eating, drinking and the defiant affirmation of life and fertility in the very face of the closing dark.

Propitiation, in the old days when survival was felt to depend on it, was a grim and serious affair. There can be little doubt that at one time it involved human sacrifice — of criminals saved up for the purpose or, at the other end of the scale, of an ageing king; little doubt, either, that these ritual deaths were by fire, for in Celtic (and, come to that, Norse) mythology many kings and heroes die at Samhain, often in a burning house, trapped by the wiles of supernatural women. Drowning may follow the burning, as with the sixth-century Kings of Tara, Muirchertach mac Erca and Diarmait mac Cerbaill.¹

Later, of course, the propitiatory sacrifice became symbolic, and English children still unwittingly enact this symbolism on Guy Fawkes’ Night, which has taken over from the Samhain bonfire. It is interesting that, as the failed assassinator of a king, the burned Guy is in a sense the king’s substitute.

Echoes of the Samhain royal sacrifice may also have lingered in that of animal substitutes. Our village Garda (policeman), Tom Chambers, a knowledgeable student of County Mayo history and folklore, tells us that within living memory cockerels’ blood was sprinkled at the corners of houses, inside and out, on Martinmas Eve as a protective spell. Now Martinmas is 11th November — which is 1st November according to the old Julian calendar, a displacement which often points to the survival of a particularly unofficial custom (see Footnote 2, Chapter 7). So this may well have been originally a Samhain practice.

The ending of the custom of actual royal sacrifice is perhaps commemorated in the legend of the destruction of Aillien mac Midgna, of the Finnachad sidhe, who is said to have burned royal Tara every Samhain until Fionn mac Cumhal finally slew him. (Fionn mac Cumhal is a Robin Hood-type hero, whose legends are remembered all over Ireland. The mountains above our village of Ballycroy are called the Nephin Beg range, which Tom Chambers renders from the Old Irish as ’the little resting-place of Finn’.)

Ireland’s bonfire-and-firework night is still Hallowe’en, and some of the unconscious survivals are remarkable. When we lived at Ferns in County Wexford, many of the children who ambushed us at Hallowe’en hoping for apples, nuts or “money for the King, money for the Queen” included one who was masked as ’the Man in Black’. He would challenge us with “I am the Man in Black — do you know me?” — to which we had to reply “I know who you are, but you are the Man in Black.” We wonder if he realized that one of the significantly recurrent pieces of evidence in the witchcraft trials of the persecution period is that ’the Man in Black’ was the coven’s High Priest, whose anonymity must be stubbornly protected.

In Scotland and Wales, individual family Samhain fires used to be lit; they were called Samhnagan in Scotland and Coel Coeth in Wales and were built for days ahead on the highest ground near to the house. This was still a thriving custom in some districts almost within living memory, though by then it had become (like England’s bonfire night) mostly a children’s celebration. The habit of Hallowe’en fires survived in the Isle of Man, too.

Frazer, in The Golden Bough, describes several of these Scottish, Welsh and Manx survivals, and it is very interesting that, both in these and in the corresponding Bealtaine fire customs which he records, there are many traces of the choosing of a sacrificial victim by lot — sometimes through distributing pieces of a newly baked cake. In Wales, once the last spark of the Hallowe’en fire was extinguished, everyone would “suddenly take to their heels, shouting at the top of their voices ’The cropped black sow seize the hindmost!’“ (Frazer might have added that in Welsh mythology the sow represents the Goddess Cerridwen in her dark aspect.) All these victim-choosing rituals long ago mellowed into a mere romp, but Frazer had no doubt of their original grim purpose. What was once a deadly serious ritual at the great tribal fire had become a party game at the family ones.

Talking of which, at Callander (familiar to British television-viewers of a few years ago as the ’Tannochbrae’ of Dr Finlay’s Casebook) a slightly different method prevailed at the Hallowe’en bonfire. “When the fire had died down,” Frazer says, “the ashes were carefully collected in the form of a circle, and a stone was put in, near the circumference, for every person of the several families interested in the bonfire. Next morning, if any of these stones was found to be displaced or injured, the people made sure that the person represented by it was fey, or devoted, and that he could not live twelve months from that day.” Was this a midway stage between the ancient sacrificial-victim rite and today’s Hallowe’en party custom of cheerful divination from the way in which fire-roasted nuts jump?

The divination aspect of Samhain is understandable for two reasons. First, the psychic climate of the season favoured it; and second, anxiety about the coming winter demanded it. Originally the Druids were “surfeited with fresh blood and meat until they became entranced and prophesied”, reading the omens for the tribe for the coming year (Cottie Burland, The Magical Arts); but in folklore survival the divination became more personal. In particular, young women sought to identify the husband-to-be, by the way roasting nuts jumped (see above) or by conjuring up his image in a mirror. In County Donegal, a girl would wash her nightdress three times in running water and hang it in front of the kitchen fire to dry at midnight on Samhain Eve, leaving the door open; her future husband would be drawn to enter and turn it over. An alternative formula said that the washing water should be brought “from a well which brides and burials pass over”. Another widespread method was for a girl to lay her table with a tempting meal, to which the ’fetch’ of her future husband would come and, having eaten, be bound to her. (The ’fetch’ is of course the projected astral body — implying that at Samhain not only was the veil between matter and spirit very thin but also the astral was less firmly bound to the physical.)

Hallowe’en nuts and apples still have their divinatory aspect in popular tradition; but like the nut-gathering of Bealtaine, their original meaning was a fertility one, for Samhain, too, was a time of deliberate (and tribally purposeful) sexual freedom. This fertility-ritual aspect is, as one might expect, reflected in the legends of gods and heroes. The god Angus mac Óg, and the hero Cu Chulainn, both had Samhain affairs with women who could shape-change into birds; and at Samhain the Dagda (the ’Good God’) mated with the Morrigan (the dark aspect of the Goddess) as she bestrode the River Unius, and also with Boann, goddess of the River Boyne.

Samhain, like the other pagan festivals, was so deeply rooted in popular tradition that Christianity had to try to take it over. The aspect of communion with the dead, and with other spirits, was Christianized as All Hallows, moved from its original date of 13th May to 1st November, and extended to the whole Church by Pope Gregory IV in 834. But its pagan overtones remained uncomfortably alive, and in England the Reformation abolished All Hallows. It was not formally restored by the Church of England until 1928, “on the assumption that the old pagan associations of Hallowe’en were at last really dead and forgotten; a supposition that was certainly premature” (Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft).

As for the feast itself — in the banquet sense, the original food was of course a proportion of the newly slaughtered cattle, roasted in the purifying Samhain fire, and doubtless having the nature of ritually offered ’first fruits’; the fact that the priesthood had first call on it for divinatory purposes, and that what they did not use provided a feast for the tribe, points to this.

In later centuries, ritual food known as ’sowens’ was consumed. Robert Burns refers to it in his poem Hallowe’en:

“Till butter’d sowens, wi’ fragrant lunt,

Set a’ their gabs a-steerin’ …”

— and in his own notes to the poem, says “Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the Hallowe’en Supper.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines Sowens as ’an article of diet formerly in common use in Scotland (and in some parts of Ireland), consisting of farinaceous matter extracted from the bran or husks of oats by steeping in water, allowed to ferment slightly and prepared by boiling”, and says that it probably derives from sugh or subh, ’sap’. Maybe — but it is interesting that ’sowen’ is nearly enough the pronunciation of ’Samhain’.

In Ireland, ’barm brack’, a dark brown loaf or cake made with dried fruit, is as much a feature of Hallowe’en as Christmas pudding is of Christmas and retains the seasonal divinatory function by incorporating tokens which the lucky or unlucky eater finds in his slice. The wrapper of a commercial barm brack in front of us at the moment bears a witch-and-broomstick design and the information: “Contains — ring, marriage in twelve months; pea, poverty; bean, wealth; stick, will beat life partner; rag, old maid or bachelor.” The shops are full of them from mid-October. For home-made barm brack, the essential item is the ring. The cake has to be cut and buttered by a married person, out of sight of those who will be eating it.

For any dead friends whose spirits might be visiting, Irish families used to leave some tobacco and a dish of porridge — and some empty chairs — by the fire.

Paul Huson, in his interesting but magically amoral book Mastering Witchcraft, says: “The Dumb Supper may be performed in honour of the beloved dead, and wine and bread be ceremonially offered to them, the latter in the shape of a cake made in nine segments similar to the square of Earth.” He probably means the Square of Saturn, which has nine segments like a noughts-and-crosses game (and which Huson himself gives of his book.) There are magic squares also for Jupiter (sixteen segments), Mars (twenty-five), Sun (thirty-six), Venus (forty-nine), Mercury (sixty-four) and Moon (eighty-one), but none for Earth. In any case, Saturn would be more seasonally appropriate; he has strong links with both the Holly King and the Lord of Misrule — in fact the three overlap and merge a good deal.

One thing Samhain has always been, and still is: a lusty and wholehearted feast, a Mischief Night, the start of the reign of that same Lord of Misrule, which traditionally lasts from now till Candlemas — yet with serious undertones. It is not that we surrender to disorder but, as Winter begins, we look ’primordial chaos’ in the face so that we may discern in it the seeds of a new order. By challenging it, and even laughing with it, we proclaim our faith that the Goddess and the God cannot, by their very nature, allow it to sweep us away.

How, then, to celebrate Samhain as twentieth-century witches?

One immediate suggestion which has become our habit, and which others may find helpful, is to have two celebrations — one the Samhain ritual for the coven itself, and the other the Hallowe’en party for coven, children and friends. Children expect some fun out of Hallowe’en, and so (we have discovered) do friends and neighbours expect something of witches at Hallowe’en. So hold a party and give it to them — pumpkins, masks, fancy-dress, leg-pulls, music, forfeits, local traditions — the lot. And hold your coven Samhain ritual on a separate night.

A general point arises here: how important is it to hold Sabbats on the exact traditional nights? We would say it is preferable, but not vital. The fact must be faced that for Esbats and Sabbats alike, many covens have to meet on particular nights — usually at weekends — for reasons of jobs, travel, baby-minding and so on. Even the Charge admits this by saying “better it be when the moon is full” — not “it must be”. And as for Sabbats, most witches feel none the worse for holding them on (say) the nearest Saturday to the true date.

In Quest magazine of March 1978, ’Diana Demdike’ makes a good point on the subject of celebrating festivals before or after the true date. “It is always better to be late rather than early,” she says, “for know it or not, you are working with the powers of magical earth tides, and these begin at the actual solar point in time, so to work before then means you are meeting in the lowest ebb of the previous tide, not very helpful.”

At Samhain, to be practical, there is an additional consideration: in many places (including America, Ireland and parts of Britain) privacy on 31st October cannot be guaranteed. To have your serious Samhain ritual disturbed by children demanding “trick or treat”, or “money for the King, money for the Queen”, or by neighbours waving lighted pumpkins in your front garden and rightly expecting to be invited in for a drink, is clearly not a good idea. So “better it be” perhaps to displace your Samhain Sabbat by a night or two, and to face Hallowe’en Night itself with the appropriate nuts, apples, small change and bottles ready to hand — or, even better, throw a party. It is not the business of witches to do anything which might seem to discourage, or even to exclude themselves from, such traditional celebrations.

In fact, local tradition should always be respected — all the more so if it is a genuinely living one. That is why, out here in County Mayo, we light our Midsummer bonfire on St John’s Eve, 23rd June, when many others dot the landscape far and wide like orange stars in the dusk; we light our Lughnasadh bonfire on Domhnach Chrom Dubh, the last Sunday in July, which is still named after one of the old Gods, and to which the many Lughnasadh festival customs that survive in the West of Ireland are attached; and make our Samhain party an outdoor one, weather permitting, for Hallowe’en is family bonfire night throughout Ireland.

But to return to the Samhain ritual itself, which is our concern here. Which of the ancient elements should be included?

Propitiation — no. Propitiation reduces the Gods to a human level of pettiness, in which they have to be bribed and jollied out of their capricious moods of spitefulness and bad temper. It belongs to a very primitive stage of the Old Religion, and survived, we feel, more ’by popular demand’ than by priestly wisdom. Modern witches do not fear the Gods, the expressions of cosmic power and rhythm; they respect and worship them and work to understand and to put themselves in tune with them. And in rejecting propitiation as a superstition, once understandable but now outgrown, they are not betraying the old wisdom, they are fulfilling it; many of the old priests and priestesses (who had a deeper understanding than some of their more simple followers) would doubtless have smiled approvingly. (Though, in fairness to those ’simple followers’, we should add that many rites which to the modern student look like propitiation were in fact nothing of the kind but were sympathetic magic; see The Golden Bough)

But the communion with the loved dead, the divination, the feasting, the humour, the affirmation of life — most certainly yes. These are all in accord with the Samhain point in the year’s natural, human and psychic rhythms.

On the question of communion with the dead, it should always be remembered that they are invited, not summoned. Withdrawal and rest between incarnations is a stage-by-stage process; how long each stage lasts, and what necessary experiences (voluntary or involuntary) are gone through at each stage, is a very individual story, the whole of which can never be known by even the most intimate of the individual’s still-incarnated friends. So to force communication with him or her may well be fruitless, or even harmful; and this we feel is the mistake many Spiritualists make, however sincere and genuinely gifted some of their mediums are. So, as Raymond Buckland puts it (The Tree, The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft): “Witches do not ’call Back’ the dead. They do not hold séances — such belongs to Spiritualism. They do, however, believe that, if the dead themselves wish it, they will return at the Sabbat to share in the love and celebration of the occasion.”

Any invitation to dead friends, at Samhain or any other time, should be made with this attitude in mind.

As Stewart pointed out in What Witches Do: “Of all the eight festivals, this is the one where the Book of Shadows insists most emphatically on the Great Rite. If it is not possible at the time, the Book says the High Priest and High Priestess should celebrate it themselves as soon as convenient, ’in token, or if possible in reality’. The point presumably is that since the Hallowe’en ritual is intimately concerned with death and the dead, it should conclude with a solemn and intense reaffirmation of life.”

In the present book, we have assumed that the Great Rite is always possible at the Sabbats, at least in its symbolic form. But we feel that the Book of Shadows’ insistence on its particular significance at Samhain is valid, and probably a genuine Craft tradition. So we sought, in our ritual, for a way of giving it that special emphasis — hence the device of the circling coven, which for us achieves the desired effect.

If the ’actual’ Great Rite is used, of course, the coven are out of the room, and any means of emphasis must be left to the High Priestess and High Priest enacting it. But the emphasis can still be, so to speak, transmitted to the coven on their return; hence the device of the High Priestess and High Priest blessing the wine and cakes immediately after the return, and the High Priest administering them personally to each woman, and the High Priestess to each man, instead of the usual circulation. We suggest that this personal administering should be carried out also if the Great Rite is symbolic.

The Preparation

The cauldron is placed in the centre of the Circle, with glowing charcoal in a tin lid or other container inside it, and incense to hand. (The usual incense-burner on, or by, the altar can be used at the appropriate moment, but a separate one is better.)

For the High Priestess, make a simple white tabard of chiffon or net (terylene net as sold for curtains will do, though chiffon is prettier). The pattern is easy — two squares or rectangles stitched together along the top and sides, but leaving neck- and arm-slits at the centre of the top, and the tops of the sides. A further refinement can be a third square or rectangle of the same size, with its top edge stitched to the top edge of the other two along the shoulders and the back of the neck-slit; this can hang behind like a cape, or be thrown up and forward over the head and face as a veil. (See diagram and also Plates 7, 11, 16 and 17.)

(Incidentally, we have made a selection of these chiffon tabards, with cape/veils and appropriate braid along the seams and hems, in various colours for various ritual purposes. They can be worn either over robes or over the skyclad body, are cheap and simple to make and are strikingly effective.)

For the Lord of Misrule, make a wand of office, as simple or elaborate as you like. Most elaborate is the traditional court-jester’s stick topped by a doll’s head and decorated with little bells. Simplest is a plain stick with a rubber balloon (or more traditionally, an inflated pig’s bladder) tied to one end. It is laid ready beside the altar.

Circle, altar and cauldron are decorated with seasonal foliage and fruit — among which apples, and if possible nuts on the twig, should feature prominently.

All Sabbats are feasts, but Samhain of course especially so. Food and drink should be ready for the end of the ritual. Nuts should be included, even if you can get only shelled ones at the shop or packets of peanuts from the pub. The tradition of roasting them to read the future from the way they jump (a form of divination best approached in a light-hearted spirit!) is practicable only if you have an open fire in the room.

Personal footnote: we have a tabby cat called Suzie who (alone of our many cats) is our self-appointed familiar. She is very psychic and insists on being present at all rituals; the moment we cast a Circle she bangs on the door to be let in. She behaves very well but has not learned to accept that the feast comes after the ritual. So we have to hide the food in a sideboard till the right moment. If you are in the same position, be warned!

The Ritual

The High Priestess wears her white tabard for the opening ritual, with the veil thrown back, if she has one.

After the Witches’ Rune, the High Priest and High Priestess take up their athames. He stands with his back to the altar, she facing him across the cauldron. They then simultaneously draw the Invoking Pentagram of Earth in the air with their athames, towards each other, after which they lay down their athames — he on the altar, she by the cauldron.

The High Priestess scatters incense on the charcoal in the cauldron. When she is satisfied that it is burning, she stands — still facing the High Priest across the cauldron. She summons a male witch to bring one of the altar candles and hold it beside her (so that she can still read her words when, later, she draws her veil over her face). She declaims:²

“Dread Lord of Shadows, God of Life, and the Giver of Life —

Yet is the knowledge of thee, the knowledge of Death.

Open wide, I pray thee, the Gates through which all must pass.

Let our dear ones who have gone before

Return this night to make merry with us.

And when our time comes, as it must,

O thou the Comforter, the Consoler, the Giver of Peace and Rest,

We will enter thy realms gladly and unafraid;

For we know that when rested and refreshed among our dear ones

We will be reborn again by thy grace, and the grace of the Great Mother.

Let it be in the same place and the same time as our beloved ones,

And may we meet, and know, and remember,

And love them again.

Descend, we pray thee, in thy servant and priest.”

The High Priestess then walks deosil round the cauldron and gives the High Priest the Fivefold Kiss.

She returns to her place, facing the High Priest across the cauldron, and if her tabard has a veil, she now draws it forward over her face. She then calls on each woman witch in turn, by name, to come forward and also give the High Priest the Fivefold Kiss.

When they have all done so, the High Priestess directs the coven to stand around the edge of the Circle, man and woman alternately, with the Maiden next to the West candle. As soon as they are all in place, the High Priestess says:

“Behold, the West is Amenti, the Land of the Dead, to which many of our loved ones have gone for rest and renewal. On this night, we hold communion with them; and as our Maiden stands in welcome by the Western gate, I call upon all of you, my brothers and sisters of the Craft, to hold the image of these loved ones in your hearts and minds, that our welcome may reach out to them.

“There is mystery within mystery; for the resting-place between life and life is also Caer Arianrhod, the Castle of the Silver Wheel, at the hub of the turning stars beyond the North Wind. Here reigns Arianrhod, the White Lady, whose name means Silver Wheel. To this, in spirit, we call our loved ones. And let the Maiden lead them, moving widdershins to the centre. For the spiral path inwards to Caer Arianrhod leads to night, and rest, and is against the way of the Sun.”

The Maiden walks, slowly and with dignity, in a widdershins (anti-clockwise) direction around the Circle, spiralling slowly inwards, taking three or four circuits to reach the centre. During this, the coven maintain absolute silence and concentrate on welcoming their dead friends.

When the Maiden reaches the centre, she faces the High Priestess across the cauldron and halts. The High Priestess holds out her right hand at shoulder level, over the centre of the cauldron, with the palm open and facing to the left. The Maiden places her own right palm flat against that of the High Priestess. The High Priestess says:

“Those you bring with you are truly welcome to our Festival. May they remain with us in peace. And you, O Maiden, return by the spiral path to stand with our brothers and sisters; but deosil — for the way of rebirth, outwards from Caer Arianrhod, is the way of the Sun.”

Maiden and High Priestess break their hand-contact, and the Maiden walks slowly and with dignity in a deosil (clockwise) spiral back to her place by the West candle.

The High Priestess waits until the Maiden is in place, and then says:

“Let all approach the walls of the Castle.”

The High Priest and the coven move inwards, and everybody (including the High Priestess and the Maiden) sits in a close ring around the cauldron. The High Priestess renews the incense.

Now is the time for communion with dead friends — and for this no set ritual can be laid down, because all covens differ in their approach. Some prefer to sit quietly round the cauldron, gazing into the incense-smoke, talking of what they see and feel. Others prefer to pass round a scrying-mirror or a crystal ball. Other covens may have a talented medium and may use her or him as a channel. Whatever the method, the High Priestess directs it.

When she feels that this part of the Sabbat has fulfilled its purpose, the High Priestess unveils her face and orders the cauldron to be carried and placed beside the East candle, the quarter of rebirth. (It should be put beside the candle, not in front of it, to leave room for what follows.)

The High Priest now takes over the explanation. He tells the coven, informally but seriously, that, since Samhain is a festival of the dead, it must include a strong reaffirmation of life — both on behalf of the coven itself and on behalf of the dead friends who are moving towards reincarnation. He and the High Priestess will now, therefore, enact the Great Rite, as is the custom at every Sabbat; but since this is a special occasion, there will be slight differences to emphasize it. He explains these differences, according to the form the Great Rite is going to take.

If the Great Rite is symbolic, the chalice and athame will be placed on the floor, not carried; and the Maiden and the rest of the coven will walk slowly deosil round the perimeter of the Circle during the whole of the Rite. When it is finished, High Priest and High Priestess will first give each other the wine in the usual way; but the High Priest will then personally give the wine to each woman, after which the High Priestess will personally give it to each man. They will then consecrate the cakes and give them out personally in the same way. The purpose of this (the High Priest explains) is to pass on the life-power raised by the Great Rite directly to each member of the coven.

If the Great Rite is ’actual’, once the Maiden and coven have returned to the room, High Priest and High Priestess will consecrate the wine and cakes and administer them personally in the same manner.

Explanations over, the Great Rite is enacted.

Afterwards, and before the feast, only one thing remains to be done. The High Priestess fetches the Lord of Misrule’s wand of office and presents it to a chosen man witch (preferably one with a sense of humour). She tells him that he is now the Lord of Misrule and for the rest of the Sabbat is privileged to disrupt the proceedings as he sees fit and to ’take the mickey’ out of everyone, including herself and the High Priest.

The rest of the programme is given over to the feasting and the games. And if you, like us, are in the habit of putting out a little offering of food and drink afterwards for the sidhe or their local equivalent — on this night of all nights, make sure it is particularly tasty and generous!