From Irish Fairy Tales, James Stephens, 1920: 'It is to be known that on the night of the Feast of Samhain the doors separating this world and the next one are opened, & the inhabitants of either world can leave their respective spheres & appear in the world of the other beings'
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This is from his retelling of the Boyhood Deeds of Fionn, and the crucial part is that neither this passage nor the concept itself appear in the original from Acallam na Senórach (12th century).
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And this is the earliest example I can find of the lore concerning doors between worlds opening at Samhain & permitting free passage from both sides. So right now it's looking like James Stephens invented it.
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In 1920. The dates fit: if that was when the lore was invented, it would readily explain why it wasn't in Frazer's Golden Bough (1890) nor in Ruth Edna Kelley's The Book of Halloween (1919) where you would have every right to expect to find it.
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Please bear in mind that this is far from settled. At present it's just an exciting possibility. But I can't ignore how popular Irish Fairy Tales was, and the reach that it had and has. It's startling to see that piece of Samhain lore so boldly & clearly stated.
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What the original text of the Boyhood Deeds of Fionn (and this is an English translation of course) *does* state is this: 'the fairy-mounds of Ireland were always open about Samhain; for on Samhain nothing could ever be hidden in the fairy-mounds.'
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I draw your collective attention to the phrase 'nothing could ever be hidden'. So far as I can tell, the original concept (and bear in mind even this is 12th century, long after Christianisation) is not about freedom of transit between worlds, it's about *concealment*.
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Yeah, it’s a pretty common theme for the supernatural beings to live underground in the mounds, appearing only in special situations.
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