Hallowmas – מילון אנגלי-אנגלי
Hallowmas
n.
Christian religious holiday which is celebrated on November 1st in honor of all the saints (first celebrated in 835), All Saints' Day
All Saints' Day
Hallowmas
Noun
1. a Christian feast day honoring all the saints; first observed in 835
(synonym) All Saints' Day, Allhallows, November 1, Hallowmass
(hypernym) holy day of obligation
(part-holonym) November, Nov
Hallowmas
(n.)
The feast of All Saints, or Allhallows.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter.
About
All Saints' Day
All Saints' Day, All-Hallows, Hallowmas. A festival originally on the first of May, said to have been instituted for the martyrs in European countries about the 4th or 5th centuries. In the 7th century, Pope Boniface instituted it on May 13 to replace a pagan festival of the dead. In 834 the day was moved to November 1st by Gregory III and was then celebrated for all the saints. The Greek Church celebrates it on the first Sunday after Pentecost. Closely connected with the celebration was the keeping of the preceding evening, known as the vigil of Hallowmas or Halloween. This was especially kept in Scotland and in Brittany, France. In Scotland an important item was the lighting of a bonfire at each house. The Celts kept two festivals, one called Beltane (Bealtine or Beiltine) in which fires were lighted on the eve of May 1st, and the other called Samtheine on the eve of November 1st, in which people jumped over two fires placed very close together. "The Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore, when, while all the fires were extinguished on the 1st of November, their sacred and inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians" (SD 2:759). The Germanic nations had their Osterfeuer and Johannisfeuer.
