About 50 people, including pagans dressed in black and the simply curious, gathered in a circle to welcome autumn and prepare for Halloween and winter, during a pagan ritual at Firemen’s Park in Niagara Falls.

The Saturday ritual was the featured event at the Niagara Pagan Celebration , held at the park each spring and fall.

James Carter, a Wiccan priest from Hamilton and his partner Nicole Cornish, conducted the ritual, which Carter noted was an early celebration of Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”).

“Samhain is a sabbath, a solar holiday that we observe on Oct. 31 (Halloween),” Carter said. “It is kind of like a festival of the dead where we honour our ancestors that have gone before; people that you were actually related to or if you have friends or other important

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