Samhain horror stories are common enough in our 1000 year old tradition of vernacular literature. But its interesting that the medieval scribes who were multi lingual drew on even older sources when they wanted to write horror.
Secular writers like Ovid, Virgil and ecclesiastical writers like Augustine of Hippo, Isidore of Seville, and Paulus Orosius were common influences that scribes used.
Samhain Horror: How Osiris got into Irish Mythology
Cath Findchorad is a good example of it happening. When Medb and Ailill call their druids together to ask how the battle will go they perform a public ritual and call on Roman and Egyptian gods:
“They offered sacrifices to Mars, to Osiris, to Jove and to Apollo.
These are the sacrifices they offered:
the flesh of dogs, pigs and cats.”
Out of the common influences above only Augustine specifically criticised classical paganism over the cult of Osiris so we can say it comes from him. In his book ‘the City of god’ he thought a priest named Chaeremon invoking Osiris in divination and threatening to scatter Osirus limbs if he didn’t help was horrifyingly blasphemous.
Samhain Horror: the implications for rituals in mythology
Since pagan rituals are an established horror trope in the medieval. In Irish paganism we don’t take them as guides for real rituals that actually happened.
For example, that offering of the flesh of dogs, pigs and cats is identical to the offering from the Imbas Forosnaí rituals described in a 10th century glossary, and similar to the Tarbh Féis ritual described in our most famous medieval horror story ‘the destruction of Da Derga’s hostel.
Bernhardt-House, P.A. (2007) ‘Interpretatio Hibernica’, Eolas: The Journal of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies, 2, pp. 45–61
Augustine, St. 1950.The City of God, Books I–VII. Trans. Gerald G. Walsh. The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, vol. 14. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press. pp. 138.
Cormac, King of Cashel. (1868). Sanas Cormaic: Cormac’s glossary (J. O’Donovan, Trans.; W. Stokes, Ed.). O. Glover. pp. 22, 94.
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