[Verse 1]
The barley's cut, the apples down,
the fields lie bare and gold turns brown,
this is the hinge where autumn ends
and the farmers call their cattle home from the bens.
Samhain comes at harvest's final breath,
not a festival of dread, not a festival of death,
but a doorway marking summer's close,
when the Gaelic year leans toward its winter pose.
[Chorus]
Samhain, Samhain, on the thirty-first of fall,
the dark half rises, answering the call,
they say the veil grows gossamer and thin,
a liminal hour where the otherworld slips in,
liminal — meaning neither here nor there,
a threshold moment hanging in the air,
Samhain, Samhain, the hinge of the year,
when summer departs and the dark draws near.
[Verse 2]
Four seasons split by Gaelic reckoning,
Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh ringing,
but Samhain marks the turning of them all,
the quarter day that closes out the fall.
Ireland and Scotland kept the rite,
old texts half-legend, written long past the night,
scholars still argue how it looked and why,
but the shape of it lingers under this October sky.
[Verse 3]
Hilltop bonfires, built up bright,
flickered amber through the shortening light,
some stories say two fires stood side by side
and cattle walked the lane between, meant to be purified,
a custom guarding herd and home
through winter's hunger, or so the old tale's shown,
household flames were doused, then lit anew
from the sacred blaze, a spark passed through.
[Bridge]
Was it worship, was it farming lore,
a festival of fear, or something more?
Historians argue what Samhain really meant,
the bonfires' smoke is all the proof we're sent,
but the gloaming — that hush of dusk before the night —
still carries whispers of that ancient site,
where the ordinary hour turns strange and spare,
and the old year hands its torch into the air.
[Verse 4]
Centuries rolled and the old feast bent,
its shadow fell on how Halloween went,
the thin veil, the fires, the turning year
still echo in the costumes we now wear,
not sprung up whole from nothing new,
but grown from Samhain's smoky, ancient view,
a harvest's end became an autumn sign
that stretches forward through recorded time.
[Chorus]
Samhain, Samhain, on the thirty-first of fall,
the dark half rises, answering the call,
they say the veil grows gossamer and thin,
a liminal hour where the otherworld slips in,
liminal — a threshold, neither here nor there,
a hinge of worlds suspended in the air,
Samhain, Samhain, the hinge of the year,
when summer departs and the dark draws near.
[Outro]
So mind the gloaming, mind the bonfire's glow,
mind the old year bowing to the new year's flow,
Samhain, Samhain, where it all began,
a Gaelic ember passed from hand to hand.