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How RAPIDLY old customs, old festivals, old superstitions are dying! Christmas plum pudding, Shrove Tuesday pancakes and Good Friday hot-cross buns are almost all that remain of the ancient festivals. Easter and Whitsuntide have degenerated into mere holidays, during which the town flows into the country and the country flows into the town, and such Observances as those of All-hallow Eve are almost forgotten. These were undoubtedly a survival of sun worship, since they celebrated the passing away of autumn and the coming in of winter; while in Christian times Halloween appears to have been a kind of ma-rdi gras to All Saints’ Day, which follows it.
It is to Irish and Scotch folklore that we must turn for the most quaint, curious and fantastic of the ancient observances of the last day of October. Witches, warlocks, and especially the fairies, were supposed to hold high revels on that night; the terrible Phooka was abroad: the Phooka was a large, dusky-looking creature that sometimes took the form of a horse or pony, sometimes that of a bull, and not infrequently of a huge bird like the roe, with fire gleaming from its eyes and nostrils. On Halloween it would lurk in lonesome places, creep noiselessly behind the belated and unwary traveler, and, thrusting its monstrous head between his legs, whisk him on to its back and whirl him up to the moon, or plunge with him to the bottom of a lake, or fly with him over the ocean, or up to the tops of mountains, or traverse the most remote realms of space between dark and dawn. On that night mortals were supposed to have power over the fairies, and if they took a handful of dust from beneath their feet and threw it at them the good folk would be compelled to give up any human being who might be held captive in elfland. It was a very significant custom among the Irish peasantry on Halloween to go about armed with sticks and clubs, collecting money, eggs, cheese, cakes, and other provisions, which they demanded in the name of St. Columbkiln, in whose honor verses were repeated.
Most of the Halloween Observances, however, were love spells. At night the boys and the colleens (colleen is an Irish girl) would go out into the garden blindfolded, and each would pull up a cabbage. The forms of the heads and stalks were supposed to denote the physical peculiarities of the future husband or wife, and if earth adhered to the roots it denoted that he or she would have a dower, while according as the taste of the roots was sweet or sour, so was the temper of the coming spouse. It was a great time for the eating of apples and nuts. The shells of the latter were burned and a divination was taken from the ashes. Another spell was to put nuts upon the bars of the grate, giving to each the name of a sweetheart. If a nut jumped or cracked that lover would prove unfaithful; if it began by blazing, he was a true love; and if two nuts, named after a girl and a boy, burned together it was a sure sign that they would be married. Lamb’s wool, made of bruised, roasted apples, mixed with ale or milk, was the prescribed beverage for the occasion. The word is a corruption of “la mas ubhal,” the day of the apple fruit, the ingathering of the apple harvest being celebrated on that day, and this drink was a kind of libation to the saint who watched over fruits and seeds.
In Wales bonfires were lit on the night of Allhallows; whites tones, upon each of which the name of some person was written, were thrown into them, and if any one of these was missing in the morning it was a sign of death; the people joined hands and danced around the fire, and, after jumping through it, ran away to avoid a demon that took the form of a black sow. Very curious was the Welsh custom according to which the youth of both sexes would go out seeking an even-leaved sprig of ash. The first who found it would call out “Cyniver,” and would be answered by the first of the opposite sex who succeeded in discovering another, which was a sign that those two would be mated.
Scotch folklore is peculiarly rich in Halloween superstitions. Burns has immortalized some of them in one of his most characteristic poems. The working of a favorite spell was for a lassie to steal out of the house unperceived, go to the barn, open both doors, and, if possible, unhang them, lest the apparition should close them and do her some injury; then, taking the instruments used in winnowing corn, go through the process of letting down the corn before the wind, repeating the movement three times; at the third an apparition, it was thought, would pass through the place, coming in at the wind door and going out at the opposite, and this figure would indicate not only the appearance but the occupation of her future husband. Or you were to go out to a rivulet where three lairds’ lands meet and dip your sleeve in the water, then return home, hang the wet garment before the fire and go to bed, and about midnight the wraith of your future husband or wife would appear and turn it to dry on the other side. Another spell ordered that a man should take three dishes, put clean water in one, foul in another, while the third he left empty. Then the person who wished to look into matrimonial futurity should be led up to them blindfolded; if he dipped his hand into the clear water his future wife would be a maid, if into the foul she would be a widow, and if into the empty dish there would be no marriage at all. A spell much practiced was to stand before a looking-glass, eat an apple from one hand and comb your hair with the other, and presently the face of your future help-mate would be seen peeping over your shoulder. But the most popular of all these spells, more especially in England, was to go out into the night and scatter a handful of hemp seed, harrowing it with whatever you could most conveniently draw after you, mutter~ ing the words, “Hemp seed, I sow thee; hemp seed, I mow thee; and he [or she] who is to be my true love come after and pou’ thee,” and thereupon the spirit thus exorcised would appear in the attitude of pulling hemp. It was customary in the Highlands to fasten a bunch of broom upon a pole, set it on fire after dusk, run through the village, followed by a crowd, fling it upon the ground, and then pile faggots upon it until a huge bonfire was kindled. Very ancient indeed must have been an observance that once obtained in the Isle of St. Lewis: this took the form of a sacrifice to the sea god Shony. On Halloween the inhabitants all trooped to the church of St. Mulvay, laden with provisions, and each brought a peck of malt, which was at once brewed into ale. Then at night one of the people, with a cup of this beverage in his hand, would wade into the sea and cry, “Shony, I give you this cup of ale, hoping you’ll give us plenty of sea-ware.” Thereupon the liquor would be cast into the sea. All would then return to the church, where a candle would be burning upon the altar. At a given signal this light would be extinguished, after which the crowd would stream out into the fields and dance and sing and drink until the following morning.
But these superstitions seem to have been little more than episodes in the general revel of drinking, fun and horseplay that marked the festival. It was a favorite game to float apples in a tub of water and set girls and boys to catch them with their mouths-—no very easy task and involving many a sousing. I have seen a picture of a man balancing himself upon a pole stretched across two tubs of water; at the end of the pole was a lighted candle, by which he was trying to light another at the risk of a ducking.
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