Halloween or Samhain in Scotland

It’s that time of year again, when many towns and villages, as well as shops and garden centres, turn to the spookier side of autumn as Halloween approaches. One of my favourite garden centres has the scariest ghoul I’ve seen. I’m sure a few children, and adults, will jump when it suddenly moves while emitting a horrible cackle.

As well as the long tradition of Halloween turnip lanterns, guising and dooking for apples in Scotland, the Celtic festival of Samhain is an even older celebration. With pagan roots, it is a time to welcome the darker time of year.

On the night when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest, some used to light fires on the hills allowing the dead to visit the living, or to ward off evil. It is also a time when faeries are said to open their boundaries between their world and the human one. Some places like Edinburgh still enjoy a Fire Festival extravaganza at Samhain.

If you enjoy fiction set around this time of year, my full-length contemporary novel, HIGHCRAG, is set on the east coast of Scotland and offers mystery and some spookiness in the lead-up to Samhain. It also mentions some of the history around the Scottish witch trials of the sixteenth century.

When Cate Stewart’s life falls apart, a job cataloguing the vast library at Highcrag on the Scottish east coast sounds perfect. Especially since she has a personal interest in the notorious Scottish witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

But the house has a dark past that seems to affect the present. And an owner, Lyall Kinnaird, who unexpectedly stirs Cate’s damaged heart.

As the Celtic festival of Samhain approaches, when the veil between the living and dead is thinnest, who can Cate trust?

The e-book is available at only 99p for one week 10-17^th October.

You can watch the little trailer here.

If you prefer historical fiction, the fourth novella in the Maryanne Mystery series, The Veil Between, is a Victorian mystery set at Halloween.

And if you would like to read my short story, Samhain, published on my blog last year, you can read it here.

Happy October!

Rosemary