I love Hallow'een, it's always been one of my favourite times in the year. This year as I prepare to celebrate it as my New Year, aswell as a really good time for getting sweeties and goodies from strangers, I started to wonder why this time is when the Pagans celebrate New Year.
So I thought I'd ask and see if anyone knew.

I know Samhain is a month in the celtic calendar...perhaps it's the first month of the celtic year?

Another hunch is that it's seen as the end of "life" season wise and the beginning of "death" so perhaps that's why it's the beginning of the year? It makes sense to me that in agricultural societies (where paganism began) would celebrate the end of the harvest season as the beginning of a new year.

I don't know for sure, those are just two of my theories.

Your theories are correct in many respects Byakko.

The Pagan New Year begins either at Samhain or at the Winter Solstice depending upon which tradition you follow.

There are those who believe that the old year ends at Samhain, but the new year does not begin until the Winter Solstice. The time between being a kind of rest period. However the 'rest period' made some people feel uncomfortable, time spent outside of the year does not suit everyone, and so in some traditions the end of one year and the beginning of the next were made to co-incide and were celebrated at Samhain.
For those who believe in the Samhain New Year (I include myself in this group), this time represents the great time of endings, as the wheel turns once more and the time of harvest marks the end of the growing season. Out of respect for these endings we honor the year past, and the bounties we enjoyed, and look ahead to the new year.
Because to us nothing ever really ends, an ending is really just considered as a new beginning. So for us Samhain is reguarded as the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.
At this time of endings and beginnings we also honour our dead, who we believe have experienced the ultimate ending and new beginning.

I never liked the waiting time in between Samhain and the Winter Solstice, it seemed like I could never settle to anything. I was often moody, restless, and I had to forget about doing any magic of any kind. There was no chance of that happening.
The more I thought about how uncomfortable I felt in the period between, the more it seemed to make sense to move the beginning of the New Year to co-incide more closely with the end of the old one.
So for all those who thought that it was a difficult thing to change I'm here to tell you, if it is the right thing for you, then it is really really easy to adapt. I am now a happy Samhain New Year celebrant, and all it took was a little change in my thought process and the knowledge that it would suit me better this way.

Oh dear I think I am greedy.

I use Samhain as the new year as in happy new year but the Winter solstice is the time of renewal and new growth for me. So Samhain is my new year but the Solstice is natures new year, this is a bit confusing now I think about it, but I say happy new year to everyone at Samhain and at the Solstice happy new year to everything
I think that makes sense.....well it does to me anyway

Zygo

I just had a thought that I will see if I can give some credence.
I know there have been fewer months in the past ...October meaning eight and December meaning ten so maybe it is something to do with that.
If I can find anything I'll post it up.

Zygo

http://www.indepthinfo.com/months/index.shtml there is a bit about it here.

I read the very interesting article you posted the link to, and found that although concise and accurate it was incomplete in some areas.
Like the fact that it mentioned that the years were firstly divided into time segements ruled by the moon. It says that the problem was that the lunar months were not a set, regular amount of days and did not divide evenly into a year.
That was not the problem.
For centuries man measured time, and many other things, by the cycles of the moon. Then came the time when people wanted to write it down and record it. Then they wanted everything to uniformly fit into how they wished to percieve time and it's passage across their lives. When man measured time by natures clock, everything was fine, but when man decided that natures clock was no longer accurate enough and tried to manipulate it to fit, they found that nature doesn't work that way. It doesn't bend to the whims of man.
That was the problem.
The fact that we now have one extra day every four years at-*test*-('")s to the fact that they have never yet found a way to force nature into doing what they wish.

I believe it is possible that the New Year would be celebrated in the 8th month, (or as you say October because it relates directly to the number 8), because 8 is the universal symbol of infinity, an eternity of possibilities, of new life and rebirth.

One more piece to try and fit into your puzzle Zygopterix.

Lastly I agree with your dividing of the year. New Year at Samhain for those things that are made by the hand of man yet honour the Mother, New Year at the Winter Solstice for everything created by Nature, and, I assume, New Year in January for the rest.
I believe that to be an excellent way of working things so that all three sets of equally important, (man to itself and nature to everything) things have the right greeting on the right day.