Samhain The night of 31 October—Halloween—is "Oíche Shamhna" (Irish), "Oidhche Shamhna" (Scottish Gaelic) and "Oie Houney" (Manx), meaning "Samhain night". The day of 1 November, or the whole festival, may be called "Lá Samhna" (Irish), "Là Samhna" (Scottish Gaelic) and "Laa Houney" (Manx), meaning "Samhain day". These names all come from the Old Irish "Samain" or "Samuin" , the name for the festival held on 1 November in medieval Ireland. This comes from Proto-Indo-European "*semo-" ("summer"). One suggestion is that the name means "summer's end", from "sam" ("summer") and "fuin" ("end"), but this may be a folk etymology. In 1907, Whitley
The Pagan Lord The Pagan Lord The Pagan Lord is the seventh historical novel in the Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, first published in 2013. The story is set in the early 10th century in Anglo-Saxon Mercia and Northumbria. Ten years of relative peace have passed since Alfred died. That is long enough for the Danes. Saxon warlord Uhtred of Bebbanburg tries again to gain his own inheritance and again fights for the kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, now with his grown son as part of his warrior band. The novel is written as a first person narrative told by Uhtred as a