Ruth Edna Kelly - Halloween

Halloween by Ruth Edna Kelly looks in detail at the connection between Church feasts and pagan traditions. Many of the Church's major holidays are rooted in ancient solar festivals, where Christianity poured new wine into old pagan wineskins.

The book traces how the pagan midwinter tradition of Yule-tide lives on, a celebration of the sun's turn northward. The old midsummer festival also survives, in Ireland and on the Continent as St John's Day.

At these festivals fires are lit and people dance around them from east to west, following the apparent path of the sun across the sky. This paperback, measuring 142 x 197 mm and weighing 300 g, was published by Hermit Kiadó in 2022.