You don’t roast everything together for a roast dinner. Potatoes are much better roasted separately to the meat, for example. You’re thinking of a pot roast.

Thank you for the response, I appreciate it!

But we have been discussing how the Christian celebrations of halloween are a lot younger than Christianity itself, and we don’t really know how old Samhain is, right? We only have a record of it from the 9th century but that’s because we don’t have really have a written record of Gaelic Ireland before then.

What? No my comment is that halloween was based on a Roman celebration and Samhain. The Roman festival also incorporated pagan traditions like Samhain, but that’s not what I focussed on, I was talking about Halloween.

I’m not sure what 400 years you’re talking about. I think we might have crossed wires. I took your original post to mean that halloween was a Christian tradition and Christianity began 400 years before the first mention of Samhain, therefore how could it be based on Samhain. But now I think that’s not what you meant?

Yes, that was my thinking. But doesn’t that lend further credence to my post and contradict what you said earlier? Or have I completely lost the plot? I have been up since the early hours with a poorly 2 year old so maybe I’m just not making any sense!

Sorry, which festival are you talking about? Do you mean Samhain? Isn’t the reason we don’t have mention of it being celebrated earlier than the 9th century because we have very little written record of Gaelic traditions pre-9th century?

Additionally, I am no expert on early Christian traditions but was halloween part of early Christian traditions? Or did it come later?

Do you mean Lemuria? Because that was a festival in May. The Christians took elements from both Lemuria and Samhain to create halloween.